The Pleating of Linguistic Stylistic Functions:
A Way of Creating Cultural Identity
Asistent universitar doctorand Daniela ŞORCARU
Universitatea « Dunărea de Jos » Galaţi
Linguistic stylistics is a very complex domain and a very fertile ground for investigation.
There is an intricate web of linguistic stylistic functions in any (literary) text, that pleat so as to
create the individuality of the discourse itself, and the impact of the text on the reader. Such
linguistic devices may also serve the purpose of creating the cultural identity of characters, which
itself displays a high degree of intricacy. This proves to be obvious in William Faulkner’s The
Sound and the Fury, as the four characters that act as narrators define their cultural identity and
the full measure of their personality by the very pleating of linguistic stylistic functions.
Although the concepts of style and stylistics may never be clearly defined, their importance
at the level of the literary text must be taken into consideration. Due to its highly interdisciplinary
nature, linguistic stylistics displays multiple levels of analysis related to various language-study
domains.
Considering the stream-of-consciousness authors, we may discover that speech and thought
presentation plays an important role in the process of linguistically individualizing the cultural
identity of characters. This should be considered against the more complex background of the
interrelations established among analyses at all levels of language, i.e. lexical classes, morphology,
syntax, semantics, discourse analysis, phonetics and phonology, text rhetoric, etc.
Furthermore, such an approach should also envisage the multi-layered perspectives on style,
which may be regarded as choice, as closely related to personality, as deviation or violation of the
norm, as bearing the imprint of the writer and at the same time creating the imprint of the
character(s), etc.
Tackling, therefore, the issue of speech and thought presentation, we may notice that, within
the ‘realm’ of the written literary text, stylistic study may focus on the direct and indirect speech
dichotomy as alternative linguistic devices by means of which the author may construct character
and situation description.
Character speech, may that be (apparently) direct or clearly rendered indirectly by the
writer, should therefore be considered as a level of stylistic analysis in terms of being an expressive
tool of conveying and presenting thought.
As alternative ways of speech presentation, the distinction between direct and indirect
speech is of interest to stylistics if we regard them as stylistic variants of the message that is
encoded.
Indirect rendering of information will always alter, or even change, the original content so as
to suit the intentions and the interests of the intermediary party in communication; all the more so,
as the communication between writer and reader is definitely not a direct one, and the literary text
functions as the intermediary required.
Direct speech will, however, always have a greater impact on the reader and will provide
him / her with enhanced security that the original information is preserved, whereas indirect speech
may even cause confusion at the level of the text. Nevertheless, the author does not have to
restrict to these two modes of presenting speech alone; choice may be operated among other ways
of conveying speech, the most important being free direct speech, free indirect speech, and the
narrative report of speech acts.
Both free direct speech (FDS) and free indirect speech (FIS) may be regarded as deliberate
exceptions to the rule of traditional direct and indirect speech, and these exceptions are clearly
stylistically charged.
Therefore, one of the most obvious stylistic effects that are achieved is that the reader
plunges into a state of confusion as far as meaning recovery is concerned, as there is no clear
indication any longer as to where speech is separated according to different characters speaking or
rendering speech. Such a level of analysis is graphologically marked by the absence of the elements
that would have clarified the situation: with FDS, there are no inverted comas to render somebody
else’s speech, whereas with FIS, there is no reporting verb and no clear linkage; such subordination
relationships are indirect themselves in that they are embedded in the semantic structure of the text.
All these aspects actually account for the extensive use of both linguistic devices in streamof-conscious texts, as they indeed seem to match the flow of human thought that knows no
constraints or norms (from which it usually deviates).
Last but not least, the narrative report of speech acts (NRSA) may constitute the linguistic
tool that, by displaying the highest degree of indirectness, may be used to encode the message even
further.
The reader thus faces a minimum amount of information, the scarcity of which usually
hinders him / her in retrieving the meaning of the author’s message; some parts of the message are
often lost if the reader is not ready to investigate the text attentively or if he / she is denied access to
the original content completely.
Consequently, the NRSA discloses a certain attitude of the writer and a stylistic effect meant
to take the reader in: the author may be seen as getting less and less involved in assuming and
guaranteeing the truth-value of speech, until (with some writers) the reader has the impression that
the characters have taken over the fictional world and that their speech is independent of any
authorial constraints.
The presentation of thought successfully parallels the presentation of speech in that we may
as well distinguish several devices with a view to achieving thought presentation in a written
literary text.
We thus tackle the issues of direct thought (DT), indirect thought (IT), free direct thought
(FDT), free indirect thought (FIT), and the narrative report of thought acts (NRTA); they all display
corresponding differences as norms versus exceptions to the rule.
There is, however, a difference regarding the norm that is established and that becomes the
rule; if with speech, direct speech (DS) has been agreed upon as the norm, with thought, the rule
appears to be indirect thought (IT).
This standpoint is not entirely accepted in the international linguistic and literary
community, as most twentieth century writers claim that, with thought presentation in fiction, free
indirect thought (FIT) should be regarded as the norm, as it better suits thought rendering at the
level of the text and as it is more observant of reality.
Thus, speech and thought presentation provide the writer with an infinity of possibilities of
molding language into absolutely any form required by the nature of the message being transmitted
to the reader. At the same time, as linguistic devices meant to achieve specific stylistic effects, they
may be considered as a very fertile ground of investigation.
All these considered, the stream-of-consciousness discourse may be considered as one of the
richest in terms of undergoing linguistic stylistic analysis. Moreover, William Faulkner seems to
have taken the linguistic technique of the stream-of-consciousness trend to its climax. Hence, in one
of his most famous novels, The Sound and the Fury, he creates the cultural identity of the four
characters that serve as narrators by skillfully manipulating the linguistic devices at his disposal.
We may actually talk about an almost absence of the plot of the novel, conveying the
tribulations of the last generation of the Compson family over more than a two-decade period. On
the contrary, the characters are strongly, dramatically individualized, mainly the four children, i.e.
Quentin, Candace (Caddy), Benjamin (Benjy), Jason IV, and Dilsey, the Afro-American servant,
their cultural identity being clearly shaped.
Representing the first character-narrator of the novel, Benjy may be regarded as tragically
enacting Quentin’s yearn for a state of innocence undisturbed by the complexities of life; he seems
to benefit from a childlike existence, avoiding the grasp of time and adult sexuality. Furthermore, in
his idiocy and sterility, he may also be a symbol of the final decay of the Compson dynasty. All
these are made obvious to the reader at a linguistic level:
Text 1. The fire came behind me and I went to the fire and sat on the floor, holding the slipper. The
fire went higher. It went onto the cushion in Mother’s chair.
“Hush up.” Luster said. “Cant you never get done for a while. Here I done built you a fire,
and you wont even look at it.”
Your name is Benjy, caddy said. Do you hear. Benjy. Benjy.
Dont tell him that, Mother said. Bring him here.
Caddy lifted me under the arms.
Get up, Mau – I mean Benjy, she said.
Dont try to carry him, Mother said. Cant you lead him over here. Is that too much for you to
think of.
I can carry him, Caddy said. “Let me carry him up, Dilsey.” (p. 61)
If we were to tackle the issue of the lexical categories involved in the complex network of
the text, we may discover the important role of the vocabulary in conveying the stylistic
idiosyncrasies of the writer.
Thus, Benjy’s psychological condition is the reason why the author adopted a peculiar mind
style: the character’s vocabulary is simple, informal, and mainly descriptive, because Benjy’s mind
is focused on the concrete, although his descriptions frequently raise problems in with respect to the
reader’s possibility of realizing the vent described.
Moreover, the lexis is permeated with extensive and almost exclusive use of denotation,
whereas the few connotative instances belong to the discourse of other characters; indeed, Benjy’s
reduced intellect cannot grasp the complexity involved at the level of the connotations of words.
The predominance of perceptions over mental processes is obvious at all levels; most nouns
are concrete, the adjectives most frequently display the feature [+DESCRIPTIVE], the verbs are
mostly dynamic, as Benjy perceives actions rather than assessing events.
Taking the analysis further, at the level of sentence type and complexity, we may notice that
Benjy’s discourse is mostly made up of simple sentences, usually declarative ones, with very few
disruptions of compound sentences, whereas the scarce instances of complex sentences are again
attributed to other characters in the novel.
Hence, because of the mental illness affecting him, Benjy is linguistically portrayed by
means of simple syntax consisting in short sentences, in a high ratio of independent clauses, and in
clear intrusions of a more complex narrative, already mentioned, often on the part of a different
character.
Mention must also be made here of the blending of tenses within verb phrases, revealing the
author’s use of the stream of consciousness technique, namely of the free indirect style. In Benjy’s
retarded mind, past and present blend, to the extent to which punctuation itself is affected.
Furthermore, regarding graphological schemes at the level of the text, we may notice several
types of such violations of the canon. On the one hand, we must observe the different fonts
employed in rendering the character’s recollections of the events, i.e. the alternative use of normal
and italic writing, the latter corresponding to much more chaotic and disruptive experience and flow
of thoughts. On the other hand, punctuation is actually ignored, and there are no clear borders
among words being uttered by Benjy and those used by the character in order to describe things.
An even more disturbing deviation from the norm is to be seen in the incorrect spelling of
certain words, verb forms in particular, which may shock the reader but which are of significant
stylistic value, as they individualize the character’s in point of his education, cultural background,
social and / or psychological status.
Therefore, there is clear exploitation of deviations from the linguistic code that is clearer at a
graphic level, considering the frequency of incorrect spellings of words. This is enhanced by the
lack of cohesion and coherence of the text. At the level of anaphoric and cataphoric cohesive ties,
reference is rarely established in a manner that may be obvious to the reader. The stylistic effect of
such technique is that of creating a situation of utter confusion for the reader who may find it very
difficult to decode the message.
Second in the line of characters acting as narrators, Quentin, who may also be regarded as
Stephen Daedalus’s double, feels both alienated from, and dramatically attached to his homeland.
He manifests interest in the meaning of time and history, and he is haunted by the guilt of having
committed imaginary incest with his sister; he eventually commits suicide, unable to defeat time
and overcome nature embodied in Caddy. In his refusal of life and motion, Quentin reflects the
attitudes of Southern aristocracy after military defeat in the Civil War. His cultural identity is
perfectly rendered at the level of the text by means of the linguistic stylistic devices at the author’s
disposal:
Text 2. “You live a long way, dont you. You’re mighty smart to go this far to town by yourself.”
It’s like dancing sitting down did you ever dance sitting down? We could hear the rain, a rat in the
crib, the empty barn vacant with horses. How do you hold to dance do you hold like this
Oh
I used to hold like this you thought I wasn’t strong enough didn’t you
Oh Oh Oh Oh
I hold to use like this I mean did you hear what I said I said
oh oh oh oh
The road went on, still and empty, the sun slanting more and more. Her stiff little pigtails
were bound at the tips with bits of crimson cloth. A corner of the wrapping flapped a little as she
walked, the nose of the loaf naked. I stopped. (p. 135)
When contrasted against Benjy’s discourse, Quentin’s section is built on more complex
vocabulary, most of which being rather formal. If we were to take into account the character’s
intricate mind processes, we may notice that his vocabulary corresponds to his inner turmoil by
being mostly evaluative rather than descriptive. Furthermore, the writer resorts to emotive
associations of words that trigger various, and apparently unrelated, strings of thoughts. Thus, the
use connotation is favoured to that of the denotatative meaning of words.
In this respect, Quentin’s vocabulary may actually be compared with and contrasted to
Benjy’s in terms of, on the one hand, the concrete dimension that they share, and, on the other, the
difference in perceptions and the presence of the abstract with Quentin.
Thus, although their discourses have the concrete reference in common, dissimilarities
register at two different levels. On the one hand, the concrete is the core, the vein that barely holds
Benjy’s discourse together, whereas, with Quentin, it marks the reference to his sister as opposed to
the abstract world of his own ideas. On the other hand, Quentin’s concrete perceptions are more
evaluative than descriptive, and they seem to be constantly related to his abstract inner universe,
hence conveying Quentin’s superior intellect. On the contrary, Benjy’s perceptions are purely
descriptive, also significant of the character’s poor mental condition.
A similar dichotomy holds valid at the level of nouns, considering the fact that concrete
nouns may be accounted for by the reference to the concrete dimension of existence, as opposed to
his world of thoughts and constant analysis of everything, expressed by means of abstract nouns.
The adjectives, therefore, actually display average frequency, most of them sharing the
feature [+EVALUATIVE] and referring to psychological attributes rather than physical ones. They
thus correspond to the complex mental processes of the character.
Following the same ‘pattern’, the verbs in Quentin’s discourse are most frequently stative,
referring to the mere existence of things, emotions, and perceptions. Indeed, the few instances of
dynamic verbs seem to occur only to offer concrete support to the rich, and most often chaotic,
psychological insights that permeate the character’s discourse.
The problem is further enhanced at the level of meaning recovery, as his lacking the
capability of placing events in their real, concrete space and time is stylistically rendered by the
extreme scarcity of adverbs.
Nonetheless, this is not the only linguistic device that Faulkner employs so as to achieve this
complex stylistic effect. The same result is obtained due to departures and violations of the norm,
namely by means of interpolated structures, usually sentences, such as those that occur in casual
speech, disrupting the barely logical narrative.
The paradox lies in the very fact that the character’s vocabulary remains formal and mainly
abstract, as the previous text displayed, but the stylistic impact resides in the dissolution of rules and
the dislocation of everything that might have been logical to the reader. Thus, we cannot speak of
clear division of sentences or even of phrases; yet, we also cannot ignore the graphic hold that such
excerpts should have on the reader.
The impact on the reader is further enhanced by the use of italics with the interpolated
structure, which may also be considered to be a graphological deviation stylistically meant to
highlight both the structure itself and Quentin’s troubled flow of thoughts.
Hence, cohesion and coherence are severely hindered by disruptions at most levels of
analysis and the reader face a difficult task in trying to decode the complexity of the message being
conveyed by the author.
The paradox lies in the very fact that the character’s vocabulary remains formal and mainly
abstract, as the previous text displayed, but the stylistic impact resides in the dissolution of rules and
the dislocation of everything that might have been logical to the reader. Thus, we cannot speak of
clear division of sentences or even of phrases; yet, we also cannot ignore the graphic hold that such
excerpts should have on the reader.
In his turn, Jason, who is the third character-narrator in the novel, is a very good example of
a live character, shown in action, thinking, feeling and suffering. Indeed, he assumes all the bad
traits of the Snopeses, but he has humour and a great capacity for self-pity. He comes across as the
author of the most cohesive and coherent type of discourse among the character-narrators but there
are significant exceptions to this rule that actually support the unity of the novel as a whole. Jason’s
cultural identity is also very well rendered linguistically:
Text 3. […] and she says You have no respect for your Father’s memory and I says I dont know
why not it sure is preserved well enough to last only if I’m crazy too God knows what I’ll do about
it just to look at water makes me sick and I’d just as soon swallow gasoline as a glass of whiskey
and Lorraine telling them he may not drink but if you dont believe he’s a man I can tell you how to
find out she says If I catch you fooling with any of these whores you know what I’ll do she says I’ll
whip her grabbing at her I’ll whip her as long as I can find she says and I says if I dont drink that’s
my business but have you ever found me I says I’ll buy you enough beer to take a bath in if you
want it because I’ve got every respect for a good honest whore because with Mother’s health and
the position I try to uphold to have her with no more respect for what I try to do for her than to
make her name and my name and my Mother’s name a byword in the town. (p. 233)
With Jason, the vocabulary shifts towards a different direction. The reader is now
confronted with complex, informal English, and there can even be intrusions of the colloquial.
Moreover, the character’s discourse is highly idiomatic, relying heavily on the informal register.
We are lured into believing that Jason is presented a live character, probably the most so in
the entire novel, and this is accounted for at the level of nouns, almost all of which concrete, having
a clear referent in the immediate reality that he perceives.
Unlike Benjy’s or Quentin’s, Jason’s discourse better corresponds to the norm, without
completely observing it. The verbs that the writer resorts to in order to render the character’s speech
fall into various classes, their diversity being a stylistic use of language meant to confer the text the
authenticity of normal human thought and speech.
With regard to sentence types and complexity, we may notice that this perspective also
contributes to creating the impression of normal human thought and speech, as most of the
sentences are complex (either declarative or interrogative).
This is further emphasized by the length of the sentences, by the equilibrium in the ratio of
dependent to independent clauses, and by the fact that sentence complexity does not vary strikingly
from one sentence to another.
Moreover, as if trying to create some kind of balance when compared to the other sections
of the novel, Jason’s discourse most often obeys the norm regarding verb phrases, including the
sequence of tenses rules. This constitutes a stylistic manipulation of the linguistic norm itself in
order to accentuate the very deviations and violations of the linguistic code to be found especially in
the previous two sections of the novel.
Nevertheless, there is such violation of the accepted norm in the text, namely the
graphological disruption that is made obvious in the incorrect spelling of certain words.
Cohesion and coherence, which may be regarded as contributing to the aesthetic dimension
of the text, also rely on mixed structures that usually include binary structures, even at a deep level
within the complex sentence.
All these considered, we may look upon Jason’s discourse as being the more coherent
section of the novel, bearing in mind that disruptions and departures from the accepted linguistic
code are still present at the level of the text.
The fourth and last character-narrator in the novel, Dilsey may be looked upon as being a
very authentic character as well. Her minute portrait is at the same time physical, graphical and
verbal, in order to render the full dimension of her nature and cultural imprint. She acts both as an
individual voice and as the tragic chorus of the novel, due to her overwhelming tragic awareness.
She epitomizes the simple verities of human life, courage, generosity, gentleness, honesty, but
unlike Caddy, who is destroyed, Dilsey endures the hardships of life. Her section in the novel
hovers around the tremendous opposition between authorial intrusions and dialectal English (the
character’s speech proper), but the full dimension of her cultural identity is linguistically achieved:
Text 4. “You knows de way now?” she said. “Up de street, round de square, to de graveyard, den
straight back home.”
“Yessum,” Luster said. “Hum up, Queenie.”
“You gwine be careful, now?”
“Yessum.” Dilsey released the bridle.
“Hum up, Queenie,” Luster said.
“Here,” Dilsey said. “You han me dat whup.”
“Aw, mammy,” Luster said.
“Give hit here,” Dilsey said, approaching the wheel. Luster gave it to her reluctantly.
“I wont never git Queenie started now.”
“Never you mind about dat,” Dilsey said. “Queenie know mo bout whar she gwine dan you
does. All you got to do es set dar en hold dem reins. You knows de way, now?” (p. 318)
[…] For an instant Ben sat in an utter hiatus. Then he bellowed. Bellow on bellow, his voice
mounted, with scarce interval for breath. There was more than astonishment in it, it was horror;
shock; agony eyeless, tongueless; just sound, and Luster’s eyes backrolling for a white instant.
“Gret God,” he said. “Hush! Hush! Gret God!” He whirled again and struck Queenie with the
switch. It broke and he cast it away and with Ben’s voice mounting toward its unbelievable
crescendo Luster caught up the end of the reins and leaned forward as Jason came jumping across
the square and onto the step. (p. 320)
By being a very authentic character herself, Dilsey gives the novel its more omniscient
section, as her discourse displays permanent authorial intrusions whose style varies strikingly,
especially from the point of view of register.
Thus, the character’s speech employs a very peculiar type of vocabulary that trespasses the
boundaries of the colloquial into a variety of English proper, i.e. what has lately been called ‘Black
English’. Such highly informal lexis performs a clear stylistic function, that of conveying the social
‘colour’ of Faulkner’s universe, thus endowing the text with a high degree of authenticity,
Furthermore, the dialectal invades the phonological level as well, and we may notice an
altering of certain phonemes into dialectal ones.
The reader consequently faces a ‘dialectal’ encoding of the message and may need several
rereadings of certain sentences so as to clearly understand what words are actually being used.
At the opposite end, the authorial intrusions are marked by use of formal vocabulary,
without any deviations from the canon, and they stand out in the text, their stylistic function being
that of emphasizing the Afro-Americans’ peculiar speech.
The Afro-American variety of English actually gains much more authenticity by the use of
graphological violations of the linguistic code, to be seen in the incorrect spelling of a large number
of words in the character’s speech.
Hence, taking into consideration the fact that the register antithesis verifies at the level of all
lexical categories, the stylistic effect of rendering the local ‘colour’ of the country from a sociopsychological point of view is very much enhanced and constantly brought before the reader.
Moreover, the ratio of dependent to independent clauses also varies dramatically from one
register to another, being balanced within the formal component of the text, whereas the colloquial
counterpart displays clear predominance of independent clauses, as the latter type of discourse
simplifies subordination relationships by turning them into coordination ones at the level of
independent sentences.
We may therefore consider Dilsey’s discourse proper as a clear case of exploitation of
deviations from the linguistic code. The message thus becomes so encoded sometimes that the
reader takes longer in decoding it, the confusion residing at the level of spelling and in the constant
alternation formal-colloquial and dialectal.
At the opposite end, an excerpt representing authorial intrusion exclusively may be regarded
as having been used in order to stress the social colour of the Afro-Americans’ speech.
From this perspective, this ‘narratological communication’ may actually be looked upon as
unfolding on two constantly overlapping layers. On the one hand, there is register or dialectal
communication among the characters of the novel; on the other hand, there is permanent
communication between author and reader, the latter being challenged to decode more or less
encrypted messages.
Therefore, William Faulkner’s style may indeed be considered to be obscure, and may even
seem disagreeable at times to the untrained reader or to the one who does not wish to take the
decoding of the message to the end of the ‘road’ that the author suggests. Consequently, his novels
do not enjoy extensive readership.
The microcosm of the writer’s own creation has at its core the concept of dissolution of
traditional values, which is also present at a linguistic level where the authority of the norm, of the
canon is denied.
As a consequence, we may be entitled to talk about a new type of prose with Faulkner, a
prose that stimulates the imagination of the reader and invites him / her to take part in the literary
game to the extent of the reader’s own choice. However, by projecting events and emotions through
the consciousness of different characters, who act either as narrators or as focalizers, the task of the
reader is all the more difficult to carry out.
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