Description
Refer to Simpsons 2008, page 73 for a model of analysis. Apply Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale to a folktale or a contemporary narrative of your choosing (in written form or movie). Prepare a 2-minute presentation for your face-to-face class to explain your choice and your application.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
412 The Thirty-One Functions in Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale: An Outline
and Recent Trends in the Applicability of the Proppian Taxonomic Model
I.
One of the members of a family absents himself from home. (Definition: absentation.
Designation: β.)
II. An interdiction is addressed to the hero. (Definition: interdiction. Designation: γ.)
III. The interdiction is violated. (Definition: violation. Designation: δ.)
IV. The hero is married and ascends the throne. (Definition: wedding. Designation: W.)
V. And so on
To put it in tabular form the thirty-function are:
Number
Designation
Definition
Example
1
β
Absentation
One of the members of a family absents himself
from home.
2
γ
Interdiction
An interdiction is addressed to the hero.
3
δ
Violation
The interdiction is violated.
4
ε
Reconnaissance
The villain makes an attempt at reconnaissance.
5
ζ
Delivery
The villain receives information about his
victim
Trickery
The villain attempts to deceive his victim in
order to take possession of him or of is
belongings
Complicity
Victim submits to deception and thereby
unwittingly helps his enemy.
6
η
7
θ
8
A
villainy
The villain causes harm or injury to a member
of a family
8A
a
Lack
A member of a family lacks something or
desires to have something.
9
B
Meditation
Misfortune or lack is made known; the hero is
approached with a request or command; he is
allowed to go or he is dispatched.
10
C
Beginning
counteraction
The hero agrees to or decides upon
counteraction.
11
↑
Departure
The hero leaves home.
12
D
First function
of the Donor
The hero is tested, interrogated, attacked etc.,
which prepares the way for his receiving either a
magical agent or a helper.
413
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, V9N2, 2017
13
E
The hero’s
reaction
The hero reacts to the actions of the future
Donor.
14
F
Provision of a
magical agent
The hero acquires the use of a magical agent.
15
G
Guidance
Hero is led to the whereabouts of an object of
search
16
H
Struggle
The hero and the villain join in direct combat
17
I
Branding
The hero is branded
18
J
Victory
The villain is defeated
19
K
Liquidation of
Lack
The initial misfortune or lack is liquidated
20
↓
Return
The hero returns.
21
Pr
Pursuit
The hero is pursued
22
Rs
Rescue
Rescue of the hero from pursuit
23
o
Unrecognized
arrival
Unrecognized, he arrives home or in another
country
24
L
Unfounded
claims
A false hero presents unfounded claims
25
M
Difficult task
A difficult task is proposed to the hero
26
N
Solution
The task is resolved
27
Q
Recognised
The hero is recognised.
28
Ex
Exposure
The false hero or villain is exposed
29
T
Transfiguration
The hero is given a new appearance
30
U
Punishment
The villain is punished
31
W
Wedding
The hero is married and ascends the throne
Propp (1968) also observes that there are several actions of tale heroes in individual cases
which do not conform to any of the functions already mentioned. He says “Such cases are rare.
They are either forms which cannot be understood without comparative material, or they are
forms transferred from tales of other classes (anecdotes, legends, etc.). We define these as
unclear elements and designate them with the sign X” (p. 64).
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STYLISTICS
Routledge English Language Introductions cover core areas of language study and are
one-stop resources for students.
Assuming no prior knowledge, books in the series offer an accessible overview of
the subject, with activities, study questions, sample analyses, commentaries and key
readings – all in the same volume. The innovative and flexible ‘two-dimensional’
structure is built around four sections – introduction, development, exploration and
extension – which offer self-contained stages for study. Each topic can be read across
these sections, enabling the reader to build gradually on the knowledge gained.
Stylistics :
❏
❏
❏
❏
❏
provides a comprehensive overview of the methods and theories of stylistics:
from metre to metaphor, dialogue to discourse
enables students to uncover the layers, patterns and levels that constitute
stylistic description
helps the reader to develop a set of stylistic tools of their own, which can be
applied to any text
is written in a clear and entertaining style with lively examples from authors as
diverse as Shakespeare and Irvine Welsh
provides classic readings by key names in the field, such as Roger Fowler, Mick
Short, Walter Nash and Marie Louise Pratt.
Written by an experienced teacher and researcher, this accessible textbook is an
essential resource for all students of English language, linguistics and literature.
Paul Simpson is a Reader in English Language at Queen’s University, Belfast. He
edits the journal Language and Literature and is the author of On the Discourse of
Satire (2004). His other books for Routledge include Language, Ideology and Point of
View (1993) and Language through Literature (1997).
Series Editor: Peter Stockwell
Series Consultant: Ronald Carter
ROUTLEDGE ENGLISH LANGUAGE INTRODUCTIONS
SERIES EDITOR: PETER STOCKWELL
Peter Stockwell is Senior Lecturer in the School of English Studies at the University
of Nottingham, UK, where his interests include sociolinguistics, stylistics and
cognitive poetics. His recent publications include Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction
(Routledge 2002), The Poetics of Science Fiction, Investigating English Language (with
Howard Jackson), and Contextualized Stylistics (edited with Tony Bex and Michael
Burke)
SERIES CONSULTANT: RONALD CARTER
Ronald Carter is Professor of Modern English Language in the School of English
Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is the co-series editor of the
forthcoming Routledge Applied Linguistics series, series editor of Interface, and was
co-founder of the Routledge Intertext series.
OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES:
Sociolinguistics
Peter Stockwell
Pragmatics and Discourse
Joan Cutting
Grammar and Vocabulary
Howard Jackson
Psycholinguistics
John Field
World Englishes
Jennifer Jenkins
Practical Phonetics and Phonology
Beverley Collins & Inger Mees
FORTHCOMING:
Child Language
Jean Stilwell Peccei
Language in Theory
Mark Robson & Peter Stockwell
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STYLISTICS
A resource book for students
PAUL SIMPSON
First published 2004
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2004 Paul Simpson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-49658-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-57093-6 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–28104–0 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–28105–9 (pbk)
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HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
The Routledge English Language Introductions are ‘flexi-texts’ that you can use to
suit your own style of study. The books are divided into four sections:
A Introduction – sets out the key concepts for the area of study. The units of this
section take you step-by-step through the foundational terms and ideas, carefully
providing you with an initial toolkit for your own study. By the end of the section,
you will have a good overview of the whole field.
B Development – adds to your knowledge and builds on the key ideas already introduced. Units in this section might also draw together several areas of interest. By the
end of this section, you will already have a good and fairly detailed grasp of the field,
and will be ready to undertake your own exploration and thinking.
C Exploration – provides examples of language data and guides you through your
own investigation of the field. The units in this section will be more open-ended and
exploratory, and you will be encouraged to try out your ideas and think for yourself, using your newly acquired knowledge.
D Extension – offers you the chance to compare your expertise with key readings in
the area. These are taken from the work of important writers, and are provided with
guidance and questions for your further thought.
You can read this book like a traditional text-book, ‘vertically’ straight through from
beginning to end. This will take you comprehensively through the broad field of
study. However, the Routledge English Language Introductions have been carefully
designed so that you can read them in another dimension, ‘horizontally’ across the
numbered units. For example, Units A1, A2, A3 and so on correspond with Units
B1, B2, B3, and with Units C1, C2, C3 and D1, D2, D3, and so on. Reading A5, B5,
C5, D5 will take you rapidly from the key concepts of a specific area to a level of
expertise in that precise area, all with a very close focus. You can match your way of
reading with the best way that you work.
The index at the end, together with the suggestions for further reading, will help to
keep you orientated. Each textbook has a supporting website with extra commentary, suggestions, additional material and support for teachers and students.
vi
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
STYLISTICS
In this book, the twelve numbered units in section A introduce you to key concepts
in stylistics. These introductions are compact and are ordered in a linear way, so if
you read progressively through this section you can assemble a composite picture of
the core issues in both stylistic theory and practice. Then, or alternatively, you can
use the numbered units of section A to follow a particular strand through the book.
The units which comprise section B develop the topic introduced in the equivalent
numbered unit in section A. In this book in the Routledge English Language
Introductions (RELI) series, B units are either illustrative expansions of the model
introduced in A or surveys of important research developments in the relevant area
of stylistics. For example, unit A3 sets out a compact model for the study of grammar
and style. In B3 you will find some applications of this grammatical model to a variety
of texts. In unit A6, the concept of transitivity is developed but the corresponding
unit in Section B is in this case a survey of the uses stylisticians have made of this
model over the years.
Of course, the most productive way of learning about stylistics is simply to do it.
The units that make up section C provide the opportunity to try out and apply what
you have learned from A and B. For example, following from A3 and B3, unit C3
offers a practical activity involving the exploration of patterns of grammar in a short
poem. Similarly, following from A6 and B6, unit C6 offers a chance to investigate
the concept of transitivity in different kinds of texts. Finally, section D allows you to
read what other scholars have written on the relevant subject over the years and to
this effect, it offers a wide-ranging selection of readings by some of the best known
stylisticians in the world.
This then is the basic blueprint for the better part of the book. There are some minor
exceptions: for example, the reading in unit D5, because of its broad subject matter,
covers strand 7 also. As strand 8 includes a detailed workshop programme which
goes right down to the micro-analytic features of textual patterning, the space for
the reading has been vacated to carry extra practical material. Whatever its narrower
variations in structure, the core organising principle of this book is that in every
strand a key topic in stylistics is introduced, defined and then elaborated progressively over the remainder of the strand.
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CONTENTS
Contents cross-referenced
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
x
xii
xiii
A
Introduction: key concepts in stylistics
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
What is stylistics?
Stylistics and levels of language
Grammar and style
Rhythm and metre
Narrative stylistics
Style as choice
Style and point of view
Representing speech and thought
Dialogue and discourse
Cognitive stylistics
Metaphor and metonymy
Stylistics and verbal humour
1
2
5
9
14
18
22
26
30
34
38
41
45
B
Development: doing stylistics
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Developments in stylistics
Levels of language at work: an example from poetry
Sentence styles: development and illustration
Interpreting patterns of sound
Developments in structural narratology
Style and transitivity
Approaches to point of view
Techniques of speech and thought presentation
Dialogue in drama
Developments in cognitive stylistics
Styles of metaphor
C
Exploration: investigating style
1
2
3
4
5
Is there a ‘literary language’?
Style, register and dialect
Grammar and genre: a short study in Imagism
Styles in a single poem: an exploration
A sociolinguistic model of narrative
49
50
53
59
66
70
74
77
80
85
89
92
97
98
102
108
112
114
viii
CONTENTS
6
7
8
9
10
11
Transitivity, characterisation and literary genre
Exploring point of view in narrative fiction
A workshop on speech and thought presentation
Exploring dialogue
Cognitive stylistics at work
Exploring metaphors in different kinds of texts
119
123
130
136
139
142
D
Extension: readings in stylistics
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
How to use these readings
Language and literature (Roger Fowler and F. W. Bateson)
Style and verbal play (Katie Wales)
Teaching grammar and style (Ronald Carter)
Sound, style and onomatopoeia (Derek Attridge)
Style variation in narrative (Mick Short)
Transitivity at work: a feminist-stylistic application (Deirdre Burton)
Point of view
Speech and thought presentation
Literature as discourse: the literary speech situation (Mary Louise Pratt)
Cognitive stylistics: the poetry of Emily Dickinson (Margaret Freeman)
Cognitive stylistics and the theory of metaphor (Peter Stockwell)
Style and verbal humour (Walter Nash)
147
148
148
158
161
168
176
185
195
195
196
201
211
217
Further reading
References
Primary sources
Glossarial index
225
233
241
243
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CONTENTS
UNITS
1
2
CROSS-REFERENCED
INTRODUCTION
What is stylistics?
Developments in stylistics
2
50
Stylistics and levels of language
Levels of language at work:
an example from poetry
53
5
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Grammar and style
9
Sentence styles: development
and illustration
59
Rhythm and metre
Interpreting patterns of sound
14
66
Narrative stylistics
18
Developments in structural
narratology
70
Style as choice
Style and transitivity
22
74
Style and point of view
Approaches to point of view
26
77
Representing speech and thought
30
Techniques of speech and
thought presentation
80
Dialogue and discourse
Dialogue in drama
34
85
Cognitive stylistics
38
Developments in cognitive
stylistics
89
Metaphor and metonymy
Styles of metaphor
41
92
Stylistics and verbal humour
45
Further
Reading
References
Primary
Sources
Index
DEVELOPMENT
CONTENTS
CROSS-REFERENCED
11
EXPLORATION
Is there a ‘literary language’?
EXTENSION
UNITS
Language and literature
(Roger Fowler and F. W. Bateson)
148
1
2
102
Style and verbal play
(Katie Wales)
158
Grammar and genre: a short
study in Imagism
108
Teaching grammar and style
(Ronald Carter)
161
3
Styles in a single poem: an
exploration
112
Sound, style and onomatopoeia
(Derek Attridge)
168
4
A sociolinguistic model of
narrative
114
Style variation in narrative
(Mick Short)
176
5
Transitivity, characterisation
and literary genre
119
Transitivity at work
(Deirdre Burton)
185
6
Exploring point of view in
narrative fiction
123
Point of view
7
A workshop on speech and
thought presentation
130
Speech and thought presentation
Exploring dialogue
Literature as discourse
(Mary Louise Pratt)
196
98
Style, register and dialect
111
11
111
136
Cognitive stylistics at work
195
8
195
9
10
139
Cognitive stylistics
(Margaret Freeman)
201
Exploring metaphors in
different kinds of texts
142
Cognitive stylistics and the theory
of metaphor (Peter Stockwell)
211
11
Style and verbal humour
(Walter Nash)
218
12
Further
Reading
References
Primary
Sources
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
A5.1 A model of narrative structure
A6.1 A model of transitivity
A9.1 Dialogue in plays
C8.1 Template for charting narrative organisation in Old Man and
the Sea extract
D5.1 Extract from Marabou Stork Nightmares
D6.1 Subdivision of material processes in Burton’s study
133
177
186
Tables
A6.1 Relational processes grid
B5.1 Propp’s model and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
C2.1 Standard and non-standard accents and dialects
C2.2 Register and dialect in narrative
C5.1 Labov’s model of natural narrative
25
73
103
107
115
20
26
34
11
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11
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Sonia Zyngier and Greg Watson for their helpful comments
on an earlier proposal for this book, and Fran Brearton and Michael Longley for
their help during the book’s later stages. As ever, special thanks go to Janice Hoadley
for her patience and perseverance, on both the family and academic fronts. I am also
grateful to my friends and colleagues in the Poetics and Linguistics Association for
their support over the years, and to my students, well, everywhere I suppose, for their
participation in the various seminars and tutorials that helped shape parts of section
C of the book. I am especially indebted to Derek Attridge, Mary Louise Pratt, Katie
Wales, Mick Short, Margaret Freeman and Bill Nash for kindly allowing me to reproduce some of their work in section D.
My thanks are due to Routledge’s steadfast team of Louisa Semlyen, Christy
Kirkpatrick and Kate Parker, and to series consultant Ron Carter for his friendship
and support for the best part of a quarter of a century. Finally, a huge debt of gratitude goes to series editor Peter Stockwell, not least for his uncanny knack of weeding
out superfluous blarney which helped keep the length of the book within the bounds
of decency. Any waffle, nonsense or unnecessary digression that may remain is of
course entirely the fault of the author.
Derek Attridge, ‘Fff! Oo!; Nonlexical Onomatopoeia’ from Peculiar Language:
Literature as Difference from the Renaissance to James Joyce Methuen, 1988.
Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis Books Ltd (Methuen).
D. Burton, extract from ‘Through Glass Darkly, Through Dark Glasses’ from
Language and Literature by Ronald Carter, published by Unwin Hyman/Routledge
1982. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Ronald Carter, ‘What is Stylistics and Why Can We Teach it in Different Ways?’
from Reading, Analysing and Teaching Literature edited by Mike Short, Longman
1989. Reproduced by permission of Ronald Carter.
e e cummings, ‘love is more thicker than forget’ is reprinted from Complete Poems
1904–1962, edited by George J. Firmage, by permission of W. W. Norton
& Company. Copyright © 1991 by the Trustees for the e e cummings Trust and
George James Firmage.
Roger Fowler, extracts from The Languages of Literature published by Routledge &
Kegan Paul Ltd, 1971. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Ralph W. Franklin, ed., text reprinted from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College, Cambridge, Mass.:
xiv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President
and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979 by the President
and Fellows of Harvard College.
Ralph W. Franklin, ed., poetry text reprinted from The Manuscript Books of Emily
Dickinson: A Facsimile Edition, by permission of the publishers and the Trustees
of Amherst College, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, Copyright © 1981 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Margaret Freeman, reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd from ‘Grounded
spaces: deictic -self anaphors in the poetry of Emily Dickinson’, Copyright (© Sage
Publications Ltd, 1997).
Ernest Hemingway, extract from The Old Man and the Sea published by Jonathan
Cape. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited (UK). Reprinted
with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing
Group (US). Copyright 1952 by Ernest Hemingway. Copyright renewed © 1980
by Mary Hemingway.
Michael Longley, ‘The Comber’ from The Weather in Japan published by Jonathan
Cape. Used by permission of the Random House Group Limited
Roger McGough, ‘40 – Love’ from After the Mersey Sound by Roger McGough.
Reprinted by permission of PFD on behalf of Roger McGough © Roger McGough.
Edwin Morgan, ‘Off Course’ from Collected Poems by Edwin Morgan. Reproduced
by permission of Carcanet Press Limited.
Walter Nash, extracts from The Language of Humour by Longman, 1985. Reproduced
by permission of Pearson Education Limited.
Dorothy Parker, ‘One Perfect Rose’ from The Portable Dorothy Parker edited by
Brendan Gill. Used by permission of Duckworth Publishers (UK) and Viking
Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc. (US). Copyright 1926, renewed ©
1954 by Dorothy Parker.
Ezra Pound, ‘In a Station of the Metro’ from Collected Shorter Poems, reproduced by
permission of Faber and Faber (UK). From Personae, copyright © 1926 by Ezra
Pound, reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp (US).
Mary Louise Pratt, extracts from Toward a Speech Theory of Literary Discourse,
Indiana University Press, 1977. Reproduced by permission of Indiana University
Press.
Mick Short, ‘Graphological Deviation, Style Variation and Point of View in Marabou
Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh’. Reproduced by permission of Mick Short and
Journal of Literary Studies/Tydskrif vir Literatuurwetenskap.
Peter Stockwell, ‘The Inflexibility of Invariance’, reprinted by permission of Sage
Publications Ltd Copyright (© Sage Publications Ltd, 1999).
Kate Wales, ‘Zodiac Mindwarp meets the Horseflies’ reprinted from English Today,
29, January 1992. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press.
Irvine Welsh, extract from Marabou Stork Nightmares, published by Jonathan Cape.
Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited (UK) and W. W.
Norton & Company, Inc. (US). Copyright © 1995 by Irvine Welsh.
Irvine Welsh, extract from Trainspotting published by Secker & Warburg. Used by
permission of The Random House Group Limited.
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SECTION A
INTRODUCTION
KEY CONCEPTS IN
STYLISTICS
2
A1
INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS STYLISTICS?
Some years ago, the well-known linguist Jean-Jacques Lecercle published a short but
damning critique of the aims, methods and rationale of contemporary stylistics. His
attack on the discipline, and by implication the entire endeavour of the present book,
was uncompromising. According to Lecercle, nobody has ever really known what the
term ‘stylistics’ means, and in any case, hardly anyone seems to care (Lecercle 1993:
14). Stylistics is ‘ailing’; it is ‘on the wane’; and its heyday, alongside that of structuralism, has faded to but a distant memory. More alarming again, few university
students are ‘eager to declare an intention to do research in stylistics’. By this account,
the death knell of stylistics had been sounded and it looked as though the end of the
twentieth century would be accompanied by the inevitable passing of that faltering,
moribund discipline. And no one, it seemed, would lament its demise.
Modern stylistics
As it happened, things didn’t quite turn out in the way Lecercle envisaged. Stylistics
in the early twenty-first century is very much alive and well. It is taught and researched
in university departments of language, literature and linguistics the world over. The
high academic profile stylistics enjoys is mirrored in the number of its dedicated
book-length publications, research journals, international conferences and symposia,
and scholarly associations. Far from moribund, modern stylistics is positively flourishing, witnessed in a proliferation of sub-disciplines where stylistic methods are
enriched and enabled by theories of discourse, culture and society. For example, feminist stylistics, cognitive stylistics and discourse stylistics, to name just three, are established branches of contemporary stylistics which have been sustained by insights from,
respectively, feminist theory, cognitive psychology and discourse analysis. Stylistics
has also become a much valued method in language teaching and in language learning, and stylistics in this ‘pedagogical’ guise, with its close attention to the broad
resources of the system of language, enjoys particular pride of place in the linguistic
armoury of learners of second languages. Moreover, stylistics often forms a core
component of many creative writing courses, an application not surprising given
the discipline’s emphasis on techniques of creativity and invention in language.
So much then for the current ‘health’ of stylistics and the prominence it enjoys
in modern scholarship. It is now time to say a little more about what exactly stylistics
is and what it is for. Stylistics is a method of textual interpretation in which primacy
of place is assigned to language. The reason why language is so important to stylisticians is because the various forms, patterns and levels that constitute linguistic
structure are an important index of the function of the text. The text’s functional
significance as discourse acts in turn as a gateway to its interpretation. While linguistic
features do not of themselves constitute a text’s ‘meaning’, an account of linguistic
features nonetheless serves to ground a stylistic interpretation and to help explain
why, for the analyst, certain types of meaning are possible. The preferred object of
study in stylistics is literature, whether that be institutionally sanctioned ‘Literature’
as high art or more popular ‘noncanonical’ forms of writing. The traditional connection between stylistics and literature brings with it two important caveats, though.
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WHAT IS STYLISTICS?
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The first is that creativity and innovation in language use should not be seen as the
exclusive preserve of literary writing. Many forms of discourse (advertising, journalism, popular music – even casual conversation) often display a high degree of
stylistic dexterity, such that it would be wrong to view dexterity in language use as
exclusive to canonical literature. The second caveat is that the techniques of stylistic
analysis are as much about deriving insights about linguistic structure and function
as they are about understanding literary texts. Thus, the question ‘What can stylistics
tell us about literature?’ is always paralleled by an equally important question ‘What
can stylistics tell us about language?’.
In spite of its clearly defined remit, methods and object of study, there remain a
number of myths about contemporary stylistics. Most of the time, confusion about
the compass of stylistics is a result of confusion about the compass of language. For
instance, there appears to be a belief in many literary critical circles that a stylistician is simply a dull old grammarian who spends rather too much time on such
trivial pursuits as counting the nouns and verbs in literary texts. Once counted, those
nouns and verbs form the basis of the stylistician’s ‘insight’, although this stylistic
insight ultimately proves no more far-reaching than an insight reached by simply
intuiting from the text. This is an erroneous perception of the stylistic method and
it is one which stems from a limited understanding of how language analysis works.
True, nouns and verbs should not be overlooked, nor indeed should ‘counting’ when
it takes the form of directed and focussed quantification. But the purview of modern
language and linguistics is much broader than that and, in response, the methods of
stylistics follow suit. It is the full gamut of the system of language that makes all
aspects of a writer’s craft relevant in stylistic analysis. Moreover, stylistics is interested in language as a function of texts in context, and it acknowledges that utterances
(literary or otherwise) are produced in a time, a place, and in a cultural and cognitive context. These ‘extra-linguistic’ parameters are inextricably tied up with the way
a text ‘means’. The more complete and context-sensitive the description of language,
then the fuller the stylistic analysis that accrues.
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The purpose of stylistics
Why should we do stylistics? To do stylistics is to explore language, and, more specifically, to explore creativity in language use. Doing stylistics thereby enriches our ways
of thinking about language and, as observed, exploring language offers a substantial
purchase on our understanding of (literary) texts. With the full array of language
models at our disposal, an inherently illuminating method of analytic inquiry presents
itself. This method of inquiry has an important reflexive capacity insofar as it can
shed light on the very language system it derives from; it tells us about the ‘rules’
of language because it often explores texts where those rules are bent, distended or
stretched to breaking point. Interest in language is always at the fore in contemporary stylistic analysis which is why you should never undertake to do stylistics unless
you are interested in language.
Synthesising more formally some of the observations made above, it might be
worth thinking of the practice of stylistics as conforming to the following three basic
principles, cast mnemonically as three ‘Rs’. The three Rs stipulate that:
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INTRODUCTION
stylistic analysis should be rigorous
stylistic analysis should be retrievable
stylistic analysis should be replicable.
To argue that the stylistic method be rigorous means that it should be based on an
explicit framework of analysis. Stylistic analysis is not the end-product of a disorganised sequence of ad hoc and impressionistic comments, but is instead underpinned
by structured models of language and discourse that explain how we process and
understand various patterns in language. To argue that stylistic method be retrievable means that the analysis is organised through explicit terms and criteria, the
meanings of which are agreed upon by other students of stylistics. Although precise
definitions for some aspects of language have proved difficult to pin down exactly,
there is a consensus of agreement about what most terms in stylistics mean (see
A2 below). That consensus enables other stylisticians to follow the pathway adopted
in an analysis, to test the categories used and to see how the analysis reached its
conclusion; to retrieve, in other words, the stylistic method.
To say that a stylistic analysis seeks to be replicable does not mean that we should
all try to copy each others’ work. It simply means that the methods should be sufficiently transparent as to allow other stylisticians to verify them, either by testing them
on the same text or by applying them beyond that text. The conclusions reached are
principled if the pathway followed by the analysis is accessible and replicable. To this
extent, it has become an important axiom of stylistics that it seeks to distance itself
from work that proceeds solely from untested or untestable intuition.
A seemingly innocuous piece of anecdotal evidence might help underscore this
point. I once attended an academic conference where a well-known literary critic
referred to the style of Irish writer George Moore as ‘invertebrate’. Judging by the
delegates’ nods of approval around the conference hall, the critic’s ‘insight’ had met
with general endorsement. However, novel though this metaphorical interpretation
of Moore’s style may be, it offers the student of style no retrievable or shared point
of reference in language, no metalanguage, with which to evaluate what the critic is
trying to say. One can only speculate as to what aspect of Moore’s style is at issue,
because the stimulus for the observation is neither retrievable nor replicable. It is as
if the act of criticism itself has become an exercise in style, vying with the stylistic
creativity of the primary text discussed. Whatever its principal motivation, that critic’s
‘stylistic insight’ is quite mean
