STYLISTICS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
OVERVIEW
PAUL M. MUNSAYAC
‘STYLE’ is a term used to refer to
the personal use an individual
makes in speech or writing of the
language available to him.
(Hartmann and Stork ,1972).
In other words it refers the choices a
speaker or writer makes from
among the phonological
grammatical and lexical resources of
his language (Beogrande and Dressler,1981:16)
The study of style is called
STYLISTICS. Traditionally, it was
carried out to investigate
variations in usage among literary
and other texts, or more generally
any systematic variation, in either
speech or writing which relates to
the type of discourse or its context.
(Matthews ,2007 :385).
DISCOURSE , according to Crystal
(2003:141),is “a continuous
stretch of language larger than
the sentence.” Leech et.al.(1982:133)
refer to discourse as chunks of
language in actual use. Discourse
may be spoken or written literary or
non-literary.
EXAMPLE:
an interview, a novel, a speech by a
politician, a lecture to students
or any other series of speech
events in which successive
sentences or utterances hang
together(Matthews,2007:107)
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (DA) is the
study which aims at discovering
linguistic regularities in discourses
using grammatical , phonological
and semantic criteria. To put it in
another way, DA deals with the
various devices used by the speakers
and writers when they put sentences
together to form a coherent and
cohesive whole (Aitchison,1999:97)
Discourse Analysis and Stylistics
are broad-based disciplines
which deal with the functional
aspects of language. Both aim to
show why and how the text means
what it means (linguistically). While
D.A. analyzes what is communicated
in Discourse, Stylistics analyzes how
it is communicated.
In Stylistics we are more
concerned with showing the
uniqueness of the text we are
analyzing. On the other hand in
discourse analysis we are
concerned with showing how a text
analyzed is not unique .
The two disciplines often interact
with each other. Thus DiscourseStylistics is concerned with the
analysis of communication to
reveal its function, using various
tools of interpretation including
textual peculiarities. Such analysis
enables us to appreciate style.
Basically, it is concerned with the
identification, description and
explanation of stylistic features
in a given text or discourse
situation(Opara ,2005).
NATURE OF STYLISTICS
 It focuses on the language use in a particular text,
literary or non- literary texts. Stylistics looks at style in
such dimension as style as choice,
style as the man, style as deviation,
style as conformity, style as period or
time, and style as situation for us to
attain better understanding of the
text by studying those forms of
language that has been used in a text.
NATURE OF STYLISTICS
 Stylistics deals with the relationship between the
language of literature and the meaning of literature.
Style and theme are connected in literature. Stylistic
analysis focuses on the thematic
aspects of literature by analyzing its
language. Stylistics is objective in
the analysis of literature as it
studies the literary text from the
linguistic point of view.
GOALS OF STYLISTICS
The goals of stylistics are: To establish discourse
peculiarities, to induce appreciation of discourses, to as
certain linguistic habits, to make critical judgements.
According to Crystal and Davy, the aim
of stylistics is to analyze language habits
with the main purpose of identifying,
from the general mass of linguistic
features common to English as used on
every conceivable occasion,
GOALS OF STYLISTICS
those features which are restricted to certain kinds of
social context; to explain, where possible, why such
features have been used, as opposed to other
alternatives; and to classify
these features into categories
based upon a view of their function
in the social context.
DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION
Difference between literary and figurative meaning
 In grammar, a word’s DENOTATION
is whatever the word directly
refers to, roughly equivalent to its
lexical definition.
 A word’s CONNOTATION refers to
any subtle nuances that might
or might not be intended by
its use.
 In grammar, a word’s DENOTATION
is whatever the word directly
refers to, roughly equivalent to its
lexical definition.
 A word’s CONNOTATION refers to
any subtle nuances that might
or might not be intended by
its use.
Separating grammatical denotation from connotation
is important because while one might assume that a
word’s denotation is fully intended, whether a word’s
connotations are intended is much more difficult to
determine. Connotations are often emotional in
nature, and thus if they are intended,
it may be for the purpose of swaying
a person’s emotional reactions
rather than the logical evaluation
of an argument.
Read the following article excerpts, and understand the
usage of the word, “juvenile”.
Article One: Monitoring Juveniles She decided to identify
every juvenile under 18 who lived in Brownsville public
housing and had been arrested for robbery, anywhere in the
city. The result was a list of 106 teenagers linked to 132
robbery arrests in 2006. Only 24 percent of the robberies
occurred on housing property — a distinction that was
important to Chief Jaffe, because stopping these teenagers in
Brownsville would have a beneficial impact throughout New
York City.
Read the following article excerpts, and understand the
usage of the word, “juvenile”.
Article Two: The Boy With a Thorn in His Joints A month after
our first appointment, we went to see Philip Kahn, a pediatric
rheumatologist at NYU Langone Medical Center, who gave
Shepherd a diagnosis of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (J.I.A.), an
autoimmune disease that causes painful swelling in the
joints. J.I.A. can lead to stunted growth, disability and, rarely,
blindness.
Read the following article excerpts, and understand the
usage of the word, “juvenile”.
Article Three: When will GOP stop acting juvenile and
govern? This is no way for a 2-year-old to act, much less
the self-proclaimed "world's greatest deliberative body."
And speaking of juvenile behavior, I would be remiss not
to mention how Rep. Darrell Issa of California and his GOP
colleagues in the House are embarrassing themselves by
straining to turn Obama administration missteps into
Watergate-style scandals.
1.How is the word “juvenile” used differently in
these articles?
2.What feeling do you get of the “juvenile” people?
Does this change your attitude(s)?
“The Eagle”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Close to the sun in lonely
lands, Ringed with the azure
world, he stands. The wrinkled
sea beneath him crawls; He
watches from his mountain
walls, And like a thunderbolt
he falls.
The bolded words
are up for
interpretation. Look
up their meanings
and write down
their denotation
using a dictionary.
Try to guess their
connotations since
these are more of a
feeling.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot
And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that
slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window
panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face
to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder
and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That
lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time
for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a
hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and
tea.
After reading the above excerpt by T.S. Eliot, find the verbs that have
double meanings. Then, interpret why the poet used these verbs. The
first verb has been bolded for you.
*Hint: Yellow smoke does not usually “slide” along a street. What
emotion do you get from reading this? This is connotation in practice.