Stylistics Stylistics.

Presentation on theme: "Stylistics Stylistics."— Presentation transcript:

1 Stylistics Stylistics

2 What is Stylistics? Stylistics is the study of varieties of language whose properties position that language in context, and tries to establish principles capable of accounting for the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language. Stylistics

3 Terms to remember. Varieties refer to situational distinctive use of language. (e.g. advertising, politics, religion) Register refers to properties within a language variety associated with that language in a given situation. It is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose. Style concerns the characteristics of choices in a given text. It results from a tendency of a speaker or writer to consistently choose certain structures over others available in that language. Deviance is the idea that style is constituted by departures from linguistic norms. Stylistics

4 Phonology is the study of sound systems.
Syntax is the study of phrase and sentence structure. Semantics is the study of meaning. Morphology is the study of word formation. Pragmatics is the study of language use. Literary Stylistics deals with the complex and ‘valued’ language within literature. The scope is sometimes narrowed to concentrate on the more striking features of literary language, for instance, its ‘deviant’ and abnormal features, rather than the broader structures that are found in whole texts or discourses. Stylistics

5 the form and meaning of words and phrases lexical categorization
Lexicon is the knowledge that a native speaker has about a language. This includes information about: the form and meaning of words and phrases lexical categorization the appropriate usage of words and phrases relationships between words and phrases, and Categories of words and phrases. Stylistics

6 Classification of Words
Localism refers to a word used and understood in particular region or section. Examples: Rustler – cattle thief Doggie/doggy – motherless calf Flat – apartment Colloquialism is a conversational word or phrase permissible and often indispensable to an easy informal style of speaking and writing. It is not substandard or illiterate. Wise, agree, and help, prone e.g., erudite – wise; concur – agree; esoteric – secret; friend – chum. Stylistics

7 Word contraction – I’m, won’t, we’re, haven’t, don’t, doesn’t.
Slang is a label for highly colloquial words. It is defined as a language comprising recently coined and frequently short-lived terms which are unacceptable in formal English usage and are often fanciful, bizarre, odd or exhibiting fancy humor. Examples: Hass – house Doug – dog Heppy – happy Bum – vagabond Tummy – stomach Wee-wee – urinate Broke – without money Classy – fine, excellent Stylistics

8 Abstract words Concrete words General Specific Formal
e.g., erudite – wise; concur – agree; esoteric – secret; friend – chum. Synonymous words Homonymous Omnibus Stylistics

9 Jargon or technical e.g., Engineering (slide rule, plate, T-square), Accounting (ledger, debit, credit) Archaic words e.g, thou-you Obsolete words e.g., hererafter Hackneyed or trite e.g., round of applause Antonyms Stylistics

10 Interaction with text and further integration of details into a whole.
Cohesion Interaction with text and further integration of details into a whole. Refers to local connections. Viewed as a set of lexical ties that can only create a local coherence. In poetry, repeated refrains, regular stanzas, rhymes, alliteration, meter and similar devices are discussed. Stylistics

11 Two main categories: Reiteration and Collocation
Reiteration is the lexical items refer back to another term to which they are related through a common referent. (e.g., repetition, synonymy, superordinate, general word) Examples: Close family friends attended Kay’s birthday party. Everyone enjoyed the gathering. The boy climbed the fence. The youth is a gang member. Stylistics

12 Opposition or contrast (e.g., influence/counterinfluence)
Collocation is achieved through the close co-occurrence of relatively low frequency words that appear in similar contexts. A type of cohesion in which one lexical element is related to a previous one through frequent co-occurrences in similar contexts by: Association with a particular topic (e.g., Marx, class conflict, social change) Opposition or contrast (e.g., influence/counterinfluence) Membership in ordered set (e.g., June/July) Membership in unordered set (e.g., blue/yellow) Stylistics

13 Lexical Ties/Cohesion
Example: Exam nerves are very common and could often make a child fail their exam even though they may be very intelligent. The examiners do not seem to realize how much do just to answer a few questions. Lexical Ties/Cohesion The repeated use of the terms developed from “mechanics” emphasizes the clear coincidence between theme and focus; that is between the image the author is trying to convey to the reader (Gulliver’s being carried by Liliput) and the means used to achieved it (i.e., through the repletion of lexical ties). People (mathematicians, mechanics, emperor) People (carpenters, engineers, workmen) Mechanics (machines, engines, engine, it, vehicle) Emperor (prince, he, emperor) Stylistics

14 Sample text (Cohesion) The year’s at the spring;
And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hillside’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in his heaven; All’s right with the world! Stylistics

15 Each pair of four lines involves an adjective.
Each line is a single clause consisting of noun +’s + X and X consists of a prepositional phrase everywhere except in lines 4 and 8 where the pattern is varied. Each pair of four lines involves an adjective. In the first four lines, we find a series of time nouns in order of increasing specificity: year, spring, day, morn, morning, and seven, joined by the preposition at. Stylistics

16 This extremely tight patterning involves loosened and played upon in the second four where lark and snail are linked both by semantic likeness (two animals) and contrast (higher versus lower animals). With on the wing and on the thorn, lexical and syntactic likeness interplay with semantic difference (on has the same form but different meaning in each case) In line seven God is forcibly incorporated into the pattern and thus unexpectedly placed on the same level of existence as lark and snail, while the change of prepositions from on to in keeps parallelism from being complete. Stylistics