HOW CAN ONE DESCRIBE STYLISTICS AS A CONCEPT IN ENGLISH STUDIES

Authors Avatar

NAME:                SOLABOMI ADEBANJO-ANTWI

TERM PAPER:        HOW CAN ONE DESCRIBE STYLISTICS AS A CONCEPT IN ENGLISH STUDIES

Definition 

Stylistics applies linguistics to literature in the hope of arriving at analyses which are more broadly based, rigorous and objective. The pioneers were the Prague and Russian schools, but their approaches have been appropriated and extended by radical theory in recent years. Stylistics can be evaluative (i.e. judge the literary worth on stylistic criteria), but more commonly attempts to simply analyse and describe the workings of texts which have already been selected as noteworthy on other grounds.

Stylistic analysis in linguistics refers to the identification of patterns of usage in speech and writing. Analyses can appear objective, detailed and technical, even requiring computer assistance, but some caution is needed.

Stylistic analysis in literary studies is usually made for the purpose of commenting on quality and meaning in a text. Linguistics is currently a battlefield of contending theories, with no settlement in sight. Many critics have no formal training in linguistics, or even proper reading, and are apt to build on theories (commonly those of Saussure or Jacobson) that are inappropriate and/or no longer accepted. Some of the commonest terms, e.g. deep structure, foregrounding, have little or no experimental support.

Linguistics has rather different objectives, moreover: to study languages in their entirety and generality, not their use in art forms. Stylistic excellence — intelligence, originality, density and variety of verbal devices — play their part in literature, but aesthetics has long recognized that other aspects are equally important: fidelity to experience, emotional shaping, significant content. Stylistics may well be popular because it regards literature as simply part of language and therefore (neglecting the aesthetic dimension) without a privileged status, which allows the literary canon to be replaced by one more politically or sociologically acceptable.

Join now!

USE IN ENGLISH STUDIES

Why employ stylistics at all in the study of English? Because form is important in poetry and language, and stylistics has the largest armory of analytical weapons. At this point, the study of language moves into either 'stylistics' or 'literary studies'.

• Stylistic analysis is a normal part of literary studies. It is practised as a part of understanding the possible meanings in a text.

• It is also generally assumed that the process of analysis will reveal the good qualities of the writing.

• Take the opening lines of Shakespeare's Richard III 

...

This is a preview of the whole essay