This document discusses stylistic analysis of literary texts. It identifies four levels of stylistic analysis: phonological, grammatical, lexical, and graphological. At the phonological level, it examines sound patterns. The grammatical level analyzes sentence structure and parts of speech. Lexically, it studies word choices and semantics. Graphologically, it considers writing conventions. The document provides an example analysis of the poem "maggie and milly and molly and may" to illustrate the application of these levels and derivation of meaning through stylistic techniques. It concludes that stylistic analysis is useful for literary interpretation and for teachers to help students better understand poetry.

1. STYLISTICS ANALYSIS
Rona D. Depalac
MAEd-English Language Teaching

2. OBJECTIVES:
1. Identify the levels of stylistics analysis.
2. Derive meaning from a selected literary text using stylistics.
3. Appreciate the importance of stylistics in analysing literary texts.

3. LEVELS OF STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
1. PHONOLOGICAL LEVEL. Concerned with the rules for
the organization of the sound systems of a
language.
2. GRAMMATICAL LEVEL. In this level both the syntactic
and morphological levels are discussed.

4. •The aim is to analyze the internal structure
of sentences in a language and the way they
function in sequences. Clauses, phrases,
words, nouns, verbs, etc. need to be
distinguished and put through an analysis to
find out the foregrounding and the deviation.

5. • FOREGROUNDING. Giving unusual prominence to one element or property
of a text, relative to other less noticeable aspects
Deviation Parallelism
FOREGROUNDING
 Foregrounding is realized by linguistic deviation and linguistic parallelism
Figure (1) The Realization of Foregrounding (Leech, 1969:43)

6. DIFFERENT KINDS OF DEVIATION FOUND IN POETRY (LEECH, 1969:42-52)
a.Phonological Deviation
b.Morphological Deviation
c.Lexical Deviation
d.Grammatical Deviation
e.Semantic Deviation
f.Graphological Deviation

7. 3. LEXICAL LEVEL. Study of the way in which
individual words and idioms tend to pattern in
different linguistic context; on the semantic level
in terms of stylistics.
4. GRAPHOLOGICAL LEVEL. It is the analogous study of
a language’s writing system; the formalized rules
of spellings.

8. USING STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
According to McIntyre [2] there are a few points to consider (a set of
questions to answer) while analyzing a text from a stylistic perspective:
•Does the text contain some striking irregularities of form in comparison
to traditional texts that are within the same genre?
•Are there deviant grammatical or graphological elements?

9. • Despite all deviant characteristics, is there order in the text?
• How about the text’s phonological qualities? Are some
sounds repeated? Are there some sounds missing?
• Are there neologisms or awkward word usage? Does the
author use jargon, slang, or standard language?
• What kind of feeling do the verbs give? By looking at the
verbs, do you get the feeling of the past or do they point at an
ongoing activity?

10. A Stylistic Analysis of “maggie
and milly and molly and may” by
E. E. Cummings

11. maggie and milly and molly and may
•1- maggie and milly and molly and may
•2-went down to the beach (to play one day)
•3- and maggie discovered a shell that sang
•4-so sweetly she couldn‘t remember her troubles, and
•5-milly befriended a stranded star
•6-whose rays five languid fingers were;
•7-and molly was chased by a horrible thing
•8-which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
•9-may came home with a smooth round stone
•10-as small as a world and as large as alone.
•11-for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
•12-it‘s always ourselves we find in the sea

12. A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS AT THE PHONOLOGICAL LEVEL:
This lyric has a nursery rhyming, song for little children. So there is ample use of
alliteration. It helps in creating rhythm and music suitable for a table for example:
i. maggie and milly and molly and may
ii. so sweetly
iii. stranded star
iv. five languid fingers
v. blowing bubbles
vi. a smooth round stone

13. ANALYSIS AT THE MORPHOLOGICAL LEVEL:
•The words used in this poem are those which figure in children‘s
language or domain. They are related to the toys or for which children
have attraction. So they evoke the world of children and their interests.
These can be treated as words of a set with their associated words or
collocated words. For example:
“beach – sea – stranded – star – shell – sing – horrible thing – round
stone – bubbles – blowing- sang-not remember troubles, befriended-
chased”

14. ANALYSIS AT THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL
There are many cases of parallel structures:
1- Maggie discovered a shell. S.V.O
2- She couldn‘t remember the troubles. S.V.O
3- Milly befriended a stranded star. S.V.O
4- We loose. S.V.
5- We find. S.V.

15. •Note the grammatical deviation in line11 ―”like a you or me”
(misclassification- word of one class for another), here the personal
pronouns turn up as heads of noun phrases.
•See also the deviant syntax in the use of “alone” as an object of
comparison―”as small as a world and as long as alone”.

16. ANALYSIS AT THE GRAPHOLOGICAL LEVEL
•Capitalization is an important element in Cummings‘ poems. His style of writing
poetry is manifested by violating the regular rules of capitalization or
punctuation in general. He often writes proper names in small letters. Even his
own name is written using small letters. Rather than capitalizing the first word of
every sentence, or every proper name, Cummings seems to have an entirely
different use for capitalization in a poem. In this poem there are numerous
examples of the graphological deviation. Examples from the poem include;
―maggie, milly, molly and may” also starting the lines of the poem without
capitalization.

17. FIGURATIVE USE OF LANGUAGE
•1-― “it’s ourselves we find in the sea (of life)” and ―
“whose rays five languid fingers were”.
These two lines are metaphors, which mean an implied
comparison between two things of unlike nature.

18. •2-― “as small as a world and as large as alone”
This line is a simile. Notice the use of the word “as” to compare
the likeness of the size of the world. A simile is a figure of
speech by which one thing, action, or relation is likened or
explicitly compared, often with as or like, to something of
different kind or quality.

19. P
O
E
M
A
N
A
L
Y
S
I
S

20. •Pedagogical stylistics is useful for teachers in formulating questions that
could direct their students’ responses to poetry or any literary piece.
•The teachers knowledge of the use of stylistics could help students to
their better understanding of literature and may help them overcome their
fear of poetry in particular and literature in general.
•Teachers who have knowledge in stylistics gain the confidence to teach
literature in classrooms which can engender a culture of reading and
creative writing to the students.
TEACHING IMPLICATIONS