Stylistics of the English language

 

 

Contents

Preface 7

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics  9

1. Problems of stylistic research  9
2. Stylistics of language and speech  14
3. Types of stylistic research and branches of stylistics 16
4. Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines  19
5. Stylistic neutrality and stylistic colouring  20
6. Stylistic function notion     24

Practice Section  28

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language  33

1. Expressive means and stylistic devices  34
2. Different classifications of expressive means .... 37

 

1. Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system  39
2. Stylistic theory and classification of expresssive means by G. Leech  45
 

Contents

3. I. R. Galperin's classification of expressive means and stylistic devices  50
4. Classification of expressive means and

stylistic devices by Y. M. Skrebnev  57

Practice Section  76

Chapter 3. Stylistic Grammar  87

1. The theory of grammatical gradation. Marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures  87
2. Grammatical metaphor and types of grammatical transposition  89
3. Morphological stylistics. Stylistic potential of the

parts of speech  92

1. The noun and its stylistic potential  92
2. The article and its stylistic potential  95
3. The stylistic power of the pronoun  97
4. The adjective and its stylistic functions ... 101
5. The verb and its stylistic properties  103
6. Affixation and its expressiveness  107

3.4. Stylistic syntax  110

Practice Section  116 

Contents

Chapter 4. The Theory of Functional Styles  122

1. The notion of style in functional stylistics  122
2. Correlation of style, norm and function in the language  124
3. Language varieties: regional, social, occupational . 128
4. An overview of functional style systems  133
5. Distinctive linguistic features of the major functional styles of English  145

 

1. Literary colloquial style  145
2. Familiar colloquial style  148
3. Publicist (media) style  150
4. The style of official documents  153
5. Scientific/academic style  155

Practice Section  159

Chapter 5. Decoding Stylistics and Its Fundamental Notions  . 162

1. Stylistics of the author and of the reader. The notions of encoding and decoding  163

2. Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis

and types of foregrounding  166

1. Convergence  169
2. Defeated expectancy    171
 

Contents

3. Coupling  173
4. Semantic field    176
5. Semi-marked structures     179

Practice Section  181

Glossary for the Course of Stylistics  190

Sources  202

Dictionaries  204

List of Authors and Publications Quoted     205 

Preface

The book suggests the fundamentals of stylistic theory that outline such basic areas of research as expressive resources of the language, stylistic differentiation of vocabulary, varieties of the national language and sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors that determine functional styles.

The second chapter will take a student of English to the beginnings of stylistics in Greek and Roman schools of rhetoric and show how-much modern terminology and classifications of expressive means owe to rhetoric.

An important part of the book is devoted to the new tendencies and schools of stylistics that assimilated advancements in the linguistic science in such trends of the 20"¹ century as functional, decoding and grammatical stylistics.

The material on the wealth of expressive means of English will help a student of philology, a would-be teacher and a reader of literature not only to receive orientation in how to fully decode the message of the work of art and therefore enjoy it all the more but also to improve their own style of expression.

he chapter on functional styles highlights the importance of «time

^a"   ^place» m language usage. It tells how the same language differs

^{len used} for different purposes on different occasions in communi-

ation with different people. It explains why we adopt different uses of

 

Preface

language as we go through our day. A selection of distinctive features of each functional style will help to identify and use it correctly whether you deal with producing or analysing a text of a certain functional type.

Chapters on grammar stylistics and decoding stylistics are intended to introduce the student to the secrets of how a stylistic device works. Modern linguistics may help to identify the nature and algorithm of stylistic effect by showing what kind of semantic change, grammatical transposition or lexical deviation results in various stylistic outcomes.

This book combines theoretical study and practice. Each chapter is supplied with a special section that enables the student and the teacher to revise and process the theoretical part by drawing conclusions and parallels, doing comparison and critical analysis. Another type of practice involves creative tasks on stylistic analysis and interpretation, such as identifying devices in literary texts, explaining their function and the principle of performance, decoding the implications they create.

The knowledge of the theoretical background of stylistic research and the experience of integrating it into one's analytical reading skills will enhance the competence and proficiency of a future teacher of English. Working with literary texts on this level also helps to develop one's cultural scope and aesthetic taste. It will also enrich the student's linguistic and stylistic thesaurus.

The author owes acknowledgements for the kindly assistance in reading and stylistic editing of this work to a colleague from the Shimer College of Chicago, a lecturer in English and American literature S. Sklar. 

Chapter 1 The Object of Stylistics

Problems of stylistic research. Stylistics of language and speech. Types of stylistic research and branches of stylistics. Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines. Stylistic neutrality and stylistic coloring. Stylistic function notion.

1.1. Problems of stylistic research

Units of language on different levels are studied by traditional branches of linguistics such as phonetics that deals with speech sounds and intonation; lexicology that treats words, their meaning and vocabulary structure, grammar that analyses forms of words and their function in a sentence which is studied by syntax. These areas of linguistic study are rather clearly defined and ^ave a long-term tradition of regarding language phenomena from ^{a leve,}-oriented point of view. Thus the subject matter and the material under study of these linguistic disciplines are more or less clear-cut.

 

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics

It gets more complicated when we talk, about stylistics. Some scholars  claim that this is a comparatively new branch of linguistics, which has only a few decades of intense linguistic interest behind it. The term stylistics really came into existence not too long ago. In point of fact the scope of problems and the object of stylistic study go as far back as ancient schools of rhetoric and poetics.

The problem that makes the definition of stylistics a curious one deals both with the object and the material of studies. When we speak of the stylistic value of a text we cannot proceed from the level-biased  approach that is so logically described through the hierarchical system of sounds, words and clauses. Not only may each of these linguistic units be charged with a certain stylistic meaning but the interaction of these elements, as well as the structure and composition of the whole text are stylistically pertinent.

Another problem has to do with a whole set of special linguistic  means that create what we call «style». Style may be belles-letters  or scientific or neutral or low colloquial or archaic or pompous, or a combination of those. Style may also be typical of a certain writer-Shakespearean style, Dickensian style, etc. There is the style of the j press, the style of official documents, the style of social etiquette and even an individual style of a speaker or writer—his idiolect.

Stylistics deals with styles. Different scholars have defined style  differently at different times. Out of this variety we shall quote the most representative ones that scan the period from the 50ies to the 90ies of the 20^<л century.

In 1955 the Academician V.V.Vinogradov defined style as «socially recognized and functionally conditioned internally united totality of the ways of using, selecting and combining the means of lingual 

1.1. Problems of stylistic research

ourse in the sphere of one national language or another...» /о      73) In 1971 Prof- J- ^R- Galperin offered his definition of style s a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication.» (36, p. 18).

According to Prof. Y. M. Skrebnev, whose book on stylistics was published in 1994, «style is what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts (an individual text) from all other groups (other texts)... Style can be roughly defined as the peculiarity, the set of specific features of a text type or of a specific text.» (47, p. 9).

All these definitions point out the systematic and functionally determined character of the notion of style.

The authors of handbooks on German (E. Riesel, M. P. Bran-des), French (Y. S. Stepanov, R. G. Piotrovsky, K. A. Dolinin), English (I. R. Galperin, I. V. Arnold, Y. M. Skrebnev, V. A. Maltsev, V. A. Kukharenko, A. N. Morokhovsky and others) and Russian (M. N. Kozhina, I. B. Golub) stylistics published in our country over the recent decades propose more or less analogous systems of styles based on a broad subdivision of all styles into two classes: literary and colloquial and their varieties. These generally include from three to five functional styles.

Since functional styles will be further specially discussed in a separate chapter at this stage we shall limit ourselves to only three popular viewpoints in English language style classifications.

^rof' LR-Galperin distinguishes 5 groups of functional styles for the written variety of language while Prof. I.V.Amold suggests only two ajor types of styles - colloquial and literary bookish — with their «пег division into substyles (see chapter 4.4).

 

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics 

Prof. Y. M. Skrebnev suggests a most unconventional viewpoint on the number of styles. He maintains that the number of sublanguages and styles is infinite (if we include individual styles, styles mentioned in linguistic literature such as telegraphic, oratorical, reference book, Shakespearean, short story, or the style of literature on electronics, computer language, etc.).

Of course the problem of style definition is not the only one stylistic research deals with.

Stylistics is that branch of linguistics, which studies the principles, and effect of choice and usage of different language elements in rendering thought and emotion under different conditions of communication. Therefore it is concerned with such issues as

1. the aesthetic function of language;
2. expressive means in language;
3. synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea;
4. emotional colouring in language;
5. a system of special devices called stylistic devices;
6. the splitting of the literary language into separate systems called style;
7. the interrelation between language and thought;
8. the individual manner of an author in making use of the language (47, p. 5).

These issues cover the overall scope of stylistic research and can only be representative of stylistics as a discipline of linguistic study taken as a whole. So it should be noted that each of them is concerned with only a limited area of research:

12 

1.1. Problems of stylistic research

The aesthetic function of language is an immanent part of works of art—poetry and imaginative prose but it leaves out works of science, diplomatic or commercial correspondence, technical instructions and many other types of texts.

2 Expressive means of language are mostly employed in types of speech that aim to affect the reader or listener: poetry, fiction, oratory, and informal intercourse but rarely in technical texts or business language.

3. It is due to the possibility of choice, the possibility of using synonymous ways of rendering ideas that styles are formed. With the change of wording a change in meaning (however slight it might be) takes place inevitably.
4. The emotional colouring of words and sentences creates a certain stylistic effect and makes a text either a highly lyrical piece of description or a satirical derision with a different stylistic value. However not all texts eligible for stylistic study are necessarily marked by this quality.
5. No work of art, no text or speech consists of a system of stylistic devices but there's no doubt about the fact that the style of anything is formed by the combination of features peculiar to it, that whatever we say or write, hear or read is not style by itself but has style, it demonstrates stylistic features.

Any national language contains a number of*sublanguages» or microlanguages or varieties of language with their own specific eatures, their own styles. Besides these functional styles that are oted in the norm of the language there exist the so-called «substandard» types of speech such as slang, barbarisms, vulgarisms, taboo and so on.

 

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics

7. Interrelation between thought and language can be described щ terms of an inseparable whole so when the form is changed a change in content takes place. The author's intent and the forms he uses to render it as well as the reader's interpretation of it is the subject of a special branch of stylistics—decoding stylistics.
8. We can hardly object to the proposition that style is also above | other things the individual manner of expression of an author in

his use of the language. At the same time the individual manner can only appear out of a number of elements provided by the common background and employed and combined in a specific | manner.

Thus speaking of stylistics as a science we have to bear in mind that the object of its research is versatile and multi-dimensional and the study of any of the above-mentioned problems will be a fragmentary description. It's essential that we look at the object of stylistic study in its totality.

1.2. Stylistics of language and speech

One of the fundamental concepts of linguistics is the dichotomy of «language and speech» (langue—parole) introduced by F. de Saussure. According to it language is a system of elementary and complex signs-phonemes, morphemes, words, word combinations, utterances and combinations of utterances. Language as such a system exists m human minds only and linguistic forms or units can be systematise" into paradigms. 

1.2. Stylistics of language and speech

language is a mentally organised system of linguistic units. An ^ъ0   .. _aj speaker never uses it. When we use these units we mix

m in acts of speech. As distinct from language speech is not relv mental phenomenon, not a system but a process of combining these linguistic elements into linear linguistic units that are called syntagmatic.

The result of this process is the linear or syntagmatic combination of vowels and consonants into words, words into word-combinations and sentences and combination of sentences into texts. The word «syntagmatic» is a purely linguistic term meaning a coherent sequence of words (written, uttered or just remembered).

StyUstics is a branch of linguistics that deals with texts, not with the system of signs or process of speech production as such. But within these texts elements stylistically relevant are studied both syntagmatically and paradigmatically (loosely classifying all stylistic means paradigmatically into tropes and syntagmatically into figures of speech).

Eventually this brings us to the notions of stylistics of language and stylistics of speech. Their difference lies in the material studied. the stylistics of language analyses permanent or inherent stylistic roperties of language elements while the stylistics of speech studies stylistic properties, which appear in a context, and they are called adherent.

word'' ^WOrds '^{ike тол}мач, штудировать, соизволять or English these ^prevaricate' comprehend, lass are bookish or archaic and of the^^{6 the}'^{r inherent} Properties. The unexpected use of any ProperT ^W°^rdS '" ^{3 modem context wil}> be an adherent stylistic

 

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics

So stylistics of language describes and classifies the inherent styli_sti_c colouring of language units. Stylistics of speech studies the compost, tion of the utterance—the arrangement, selection and distribution of different words, and their adherent qualities.

1.3. Types of stylistic research and branches of stylistics

Literary and linguistic stylistics

According to the type of stylistic research we can distinguish literary stylistics and lingua-stylistics. They have some meeting points or links in that they have common objects of research. Consequently they have certain areas of cross-reference. Both study the common ground of:

1. the literary language from the point of view of its variability;
2. the idiolect (individual speech) of a writer;
3. poetic speech that has its own specific laws.

The points of difference proceed from the different points of analysis. While lingua-stylistics studies

• Functional styles (in their development and current state).
• The linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language, their systematic character and their functions.

Literary stylistics is focused on

• The composition of a work of art. 

   Types of stylistic research and branches of stylistics

. Various literary genres. , The writer's outlook.

Comparative stylistics

Comparative stylistics is connected with the contrastive study of more than one language.

It analyses the stylistic resources not inherent in a separate language but at the crossroads of two languages, or two literatures and is obviously linked to the theory of translation.

Decoding stylistics

A comparatively new branch of stylistics is the decoding stylistics, which can be traced back to the works of L. V. Shcherba, B. A. Larin, M. Riffaterre, R. Jackobson and other scholars of the Prague linguistic circle. A serious contribution into this branch of stylistic study was also made by Prof. I. V. Arnold (3, 4). Each act of speech has the performer, or sender of speech and the recipient. The former does the act of encoding and the latter the act of decoding the information.