Lecture 1. The subject of Stylistics and its Objectives

Лекция 1. Предмет, цели и задачи лингвостилистики английского языка

Stylistics is a branch of linguistics investigating the principles and the effect of choice and use of lexical, grammatical, phonetic and generally linguistic means to convey thoughts and emotions in different conditions of communication.

To understand the subject of stylistics better one should realize that language as means of communication is used in a different way in various situations. A description of one and the same fact of the reality may take different forms depending on

1) whether the communication process takes place in an official or informal atmosphere

2) whether interlocutors belong to the same or different social group and the nature of their relationships

3) how a speaker evaluates the situation and what his emotional attitude is to the subject of conversation.

All these factors are elective that is they are not supposed to be evident in the act of communication simultaneously. Besides that these data are not named directly in the text but are conveyed in it in different indirect ways. Stylistics aims at revealing these data.

There may be two types of information in speech.

1. information not connected with an act of communication, but constituting the subject matter of the message. This information is conveyed by denotative meaning of words

2. additional information connected with conditions and participants of the communication act. This information is conveyed by connotative meanings of the word or connotation which is formed from emotional, expressive, evaluating and functional-stylistic components.

The word ‘girl’ Girl: maiden, lass, lassie, chick, baby, young lady. Girl –is stylistically neutral, it dominates these synonym series but it has not got any fixed usual connotations, it can replace all other connotative meanings. Is archaic or elevated word, lass is colloquial or vernacular, having a tender emotional flavour. Connotations maybe of two types : usual and occasional: in certain instances the word maiden may be ironic.

Boy Boy – fellow, lad (может быть о взрослом мужчине) , chap; guy (Br. пугало) (Amer) bloke – разг. презрит (тип)

The indicated difference between two types of information can be explained drawing on the language functions. The first type of information is connected with intellectual-communicative function. Additional information is connected with

1 emotive function that is the expression of feelings by the speaker

2 voluntary function (pragmatic) that is will or desire and inducement of speaker to action

3 appelative function that is inducement of listener to receiving a message

4 contact establishing function when the objective is not to convey a message but manifestation of politeness to another person (formulas of politeness)

5 aesthetic function that is evoking aesthetic feelings (exerting influence)

The objective of the stylistic analysis is consideration of interaction of subject-logical contents of the report with the information of the second type when the language is used in other functions stated above.

A writer or a poet does not reveal the sense of his work openly. He is sort of coding his work intuitively choosing the necessary words, images, morphological forms, syntactic constructions, rhymes, etc. Studying connotative meanings and their role in the realization of various language functions we can penetrate into the essence of a work of literature and understand a poet’s outlook and his mood. In other words, a thoughtful reader is in a way involved in decoding of the works of literature.The term stylistics of decoding implying the stylistics of readers’ perception is very widespread in stylistics theory. The language of a literary work is actually a very complex system of codes which we are going to study and learn to reveal.

Stylistics, sometimes called l i n g и o-s t у l i s t i с s, is a branch of general linguistics. It has now been more or less definitely outlined. It aims mainly at two interdependent tasks: a) the investigation of the inventory of special language media which by their ontological features secure the desirable effect of the utterance and b) certain types of texts (discourse) which due to the choice and arrangement of language means are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication. The two objectives of stylistics are clearly discernible as two separate fields of investigation. The inventory of special language media can be analysed and their ontological features revealed if presented in a system in which the co-relation between the media becomes evident.

The ultimate aim, as well as the general method, of stylistics may be formulated as the description of specific spheres of sublanguages. Therefore, whatever level we take, stylistics describes not what is in common use, but what is specific in this or that respect, what differentiates one sublanguage from others. (Skrebnev)

The types of texts can be analyzed if their linguistic components are presented in their interaction, thus revealing the unbreakable unity and transparency of constructions of a given type. The types of texts that are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication are called functional styles of language (FS); the special media of language which secure the desirable effect of the utterance are called stуlistiс devices (SD) and expressive means (EM).

The first field of investigation, i.e. SDs and EMs, necessarily touches upon such general language problems as the aesthetic function of language, synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea, emotional colouring in language, the interrelation between language and thought, the individual manner of an author in making use of language and a number of other issues.

The second field, i.e. functional styles, cannot avoid discussion of such most general linguistic issues as oral and written varieties of language, the notion of the literary (standard) language, the constituents of texts larger than the sentence, the generative aspect of literary texts, and some others.

In dealing with the objectives of stylistics, certain pronouncements of adjacent disciplines such as theory of information, literature, psychology, logics and to some extent statistics must be touched upon. This is indispensable; for nowadays no science is entirely isolated from other domains of human knowledge; and linguistics, particularly its branch stylistics, cannot avoid references to the above mentioned disciplines because it is confronted with certain overlapping issues.

The branching off of stylistics in language science was indirectly the result of a long-established tendency of grammarians to confine their investigations to sentences, clauses and word-combinations which are "well-formed", to use a dubious term, neglecting anything that did not fall under the recognized and received standards. This tendency became particularly strong in what is called descriptive linguistics. The generative grammars, which appeared as a reaction against descriptive linguistics, have confirmed that the task of any grammar is to limit the scope of investigation of language data to sentences which are considered well-formed. Everything that fails to meet this requirement should be excluded from linguistics.

But language studies cannot avoid subjecting to observation any language data whatever, so where grammar refuses to tread stylistics steps in. Stylistics has acquired its own status with its own inventory of tools (SDs and EMs), with its own object of investigation and with its own methods of research.

The stylistics of a highly developed language like English or Russian has brought into the science of language a separate body of media, thus widening the range of observation of phenomena in language. The significance of this branch of linguistics can hardly be over-estimated. A number of events in the development of stylistics must be mentioned here as landmarks. The first is the discussion of the problem of style and stylistics in "Вопросы языкознания" in 1954, in which many important general and particular problems were broadly analysed and some obscure aspects elucidated. Secondly, a conference on Style in Language was held at Indiana University in the spring of 1958, followed by the publication of the proceedings of this conference (1960) under the editorship of Thomas Sebeok. Like the discussion in "Вопросы языкознания" this conference revealed the existence of quite divergent points of view held by different students of language and literature. Thirdly, a conference on style and stylistics was held in the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages in March 1969. At this conference lines were drawn along which studies in linguo-stylistics might be maintained. An interesting symposium was also held in Italy, the proceedings of which were published under the editorship of professor S. Chatman in 1971.

It is in view of the ever-growing significance of the exploration of language potentialities that so much attention is paid in linguo-stylistics to the analysis of expressive means (EMs) and stylistic devices (SDs), to their nature and functions, to their classification and to possible interpretations of additional meanings they may carry in a message as well as their aesthetic value.

In order to ascertain the borders of stylistics it is necessary to go at some length into the question of what style is.

The word s t у l e is derived from the Latin word 'stilus' which meant a short stick sharp at one end and flat at the other used by the Romans for writing on wax tablets. Now the word 'style' is used in so many senses that it has become a breeding ground for ambiguity. The word is applied to the teaching of how to write a composition (see below); it is also used to reveal the correspondence between thought and expression; it frequently denotes an individual manner of making use of language; it sometimes refers to more general, abstract notions thus inevitably becoming vague and obscure, as, for example, "Style is the man himself" (Buffon), "Style is depth" (Derbyshire); "Style is deviations" (Enkvist); "Style is choice", and the like.

All these ideas directly or indirectly bear on issues in stylistics. Some of them become very useful by revealing the springs which make our utterances emphatic, effective and goal-directed. It will therefore not come amiss to quote certain interesting observations regarding style made by different writers from different angles. Some of these observations are dressed up as epigrams or sententious maxims like the ones quoted above. Here are some more of them.

"Style is a quality of language which communicates precisely emotions or thoughts, or a system of emotions or thoughts, peculiar to the author." (J. Middleton Murry)

"... a true idiosyncrasy of style is the result of an author's success in compelling language to conform to his mode of experience." (J. Middleton Murry)

"Style is a contextually restricted linguistic variation." (Enkvist)

"Style is a selection of non-distinctive features of language." (L. Bloom-field)

"Style is simply synonymous with form or expression and hence a superfluous term." (Benedetto Croce)

"Style is essentially a citational process, a body of formulae, a memory (almost in the cybernetic sense of the word), a cultural and not an expressive inheritance." (Roland Barthes)

Some linguists consider that the word 'style' and the subject of linguistic stylistics is confined to the study of the effects of the message, i.e. its impact on the reader. Thus Michael Riffaterre writes that "Stylistics will be a linguistics of the effects of the message, of the output of the act of communication, of its attention-compelling function".¹ This point of view has clearly been reached under the influence of recent developments in the general theory of information. Language, being one of the means of communication or, to be exact, the most important means of communication, is regarded in the above quotation from a pragmatic point of view. Stylistics in that case is regarded as a language science which deals with the results of the act of communication.

To a very considerable degree this is true. Stylistics must take into consideration the "output of the act of communication". But stylistics must also investigate the ontological, i.e. natural, inherent, and functional peculiarities of the means of communication which may ensure the effect sought.

Archibald A. Hill states that "A current definition of style and stylistics is that structures, sequences, and patterns which extend, or may extend, beyond the boundaries of individual sentences define style, and that the study of them is stylistics."¹

The truth of this approach to style and stylistics lies in the fact that the author concentrates on such phenomena in language as present a system, in other words, on facts which are not confined to individual use.

The most frequent definition of style is one expressed by Seymour Chatman: "Style is a product of individual choices and patterns of choices (emphasis added) among linguistic possibilities."²

According to the definition given in the dictionary of literary terms style is “a way of narrating, composition of speech”. With respect to the contents and form of a work of literature “ style is a uniting and organizing factor of the form of a work of literature.” Another definition of style says that “style is a form of literary thought movement” that sounds vague.

It is also worthwhile to consider a definition of style from a well-known western source: (Leech & Short, 1981:18) : Style is generally known as the manner of writing or “manner of expression” as realized in “linguistic characteristics of a particular text”. Stylistic evaluation of texts should be approached regarding style as a function of frequency. If a text shows a repeated preference for the usage of certain grammatical or lexical items (say, passives over actives), it is then “natural to consider this preference as a feature of style” (Ibid:42). Thus, quantitative methods of stylistic analysis are to be used in order to evaluate style markers which are salient features of style.