The subject of stylistics. The notion of style

The term “style” originated from the Latin stylos, which meant “a stick for writing on wax tablets”. Later the wordcame to denote metonymically a manner of writing and speaking, the manner of using language.

Any idea can be verbalized in several different ways.

“May I offer you a chair?”

“Take a seat, please.”

“Sit down”

“Stylistics is primarily the study of synonymiclanguage resources” (Charles Bally)

Style is:

the correspondence between thought and expression

embellishment of language

technique of expression

a literary genre or trend

system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication

The roots of modern stylistics can be discovered in the work of Charles Bally (1865-1947) and Leo Spitzer (1887-1960). Bally stressed the description and analysis of generally available stylistic properties of a language. Spitzer insisted upon following the more philologically based tradition of textual (and often literary-textual) analysis.

Stylisticsis a branch of general linguistics which investigates the principles and the effect of the choice and usage of various language means to convey thoughts and emotions in different communication conditions.

I.R. Galperin defines stylisticsas a branch of general linguistics which deals with the following two interdependent tasks:

a) it studies the totality of special linguistic means (expressive means and stylistic devices) which secure the desirable effect of the utterance;

b) it studies certain types of texts “discourse” which due to the choice and arrangement of the language are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of communication (functional styles).

Stylistics is concerned with such issues as:

the aesthetic function of language

expressive means in language

synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea

a system of special devices called stylistic devices

the splitting of the literary language into separate systems

the interrelation between language and thought

the individual manner of an author in making use of the language

The stylistics of languageanalyses permanent or inherent stylistic properties of language elements.

The stylistics of speechstudies stylistic properties which appear in a context.

Linguistic stylistics (linguostylistics) studies:

functional styles

the linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language and their functions

Literary stylistics is focused on:

expressive means and stylistic devices characteristic for a definite work of art

the language of various literary genres

the way language is used by a definite writer or literary movement

Linguostylistics as a branch of linguistics embraces such disciplines as phonetics, morphology, lexicology, and syntax. The basic difference lies in the fact that phonetics, morphology, lexicology, or syntax are level disciplines, i.e. disciplines treating one linguistic level each. But stylistics is not a level discipline because it pertains to all the levels.

2. The stylistic classification of the formal (literary) vocabulary.

The major meaning of a word is denotative, it informs of the subject of communication.

But there is also a connotative meaning, which contains additional components, shades of meaning and informs about the participants and conditions of communication. This is the meaning of the word imposed by the context.

Stylistics is mostly interested in connotative or contextual meanings of words.

Types of connotations:

emotive connotation

evaluative connotation

expressive connotation

stylistic connotation

The normshould be regarded as the invariant of the phonemic, morphological, lexical and syntactical patterns circulating in language at a given period of time.

Style then may be defined as deviation from the lingual norm.

Stylistically coloured words are divided into literary (bookish) and colloquial.

E.g.:

continue (neutr.) - proceed (bookish) - go on, carry on (coll.);

clothes – attire – rags/ togs;

refuse – decline – turn down.

The aspect of the literary layeris its markedly bookish character. The literary layer of words consists of groups accepted as legitimate members of the English vocabulary. They have no local or dialectal character.

Special literary word

Termsare words denoting objects, processes, phenomena of science, humanities, technique. They may be subdivided into:

popular terms of some special spheres of human knowledge known to the public at large (typhoid, pneumonia);

terms used exclusively within a profession (phoneme, semantics, linguostylistics).

Archaismsarewords which are practically out of use in present-day language and are felt as obsolete. Archaisms may be subdivided into two groups:

denoting historical phenomena which are no more in use (“yeoman”, “pallet”);

ousted by newer synonymic words (“to deem” - to think; “nay” – no) or forms (“thou art” – you are; “brethren” - brothers).

Poeticismsare words used in poetry to create romantic and elevated atmosphere.

E.g. : foe (enemy), realm (kingdom), oft (often), morn (morning).

Fоrеign wordsare words and phrases loaned from other languages. They haven’t undergone grammatical or phonetic assimilation.

E.g.: au revoir, ad absurdum.

Neologisms are new words or expressions. There are different groups of neologisms: