This document provides an introduction to stylistics. It defines stylistics as the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective, linking literary criticism and linguistics. The document discusses topics like the objects of stylistic study, principles of stylistics, linguistic features that reveal meaning, concepts like foregrounding and collocation, and speech and thought presentation techniques.

1. JULIUS PAULO ESQUIJO FLORES
BSED ENGLISH 3-A
INTRODUCTION TO
STYLISTICS

2. What is stylistics?
Stylistics is the study and
interpretation of texts from a
linguistic perspective.
As a discipline it links literary
criticism and linguistics.

3. The preferred object of
stylistic studies is literature,
but not exclusively "high
literature" but also other
forms of written texts such as
text from the domains
of advertising, pop
culture, politics or religion.

4.  Stylistics also attempts to
establish principles capable of
explaining the particular choices
made by individuals and social
groups in their use of language,
such as socialisation, the
production and reception
of meaning, critical discourse
analysis and literary criticism

5. Other features of stylistics
include the use of dialogue,
including
regional accents and
people’s dialects,
descriptive language, the
use of grammar, such as
the active voice or passive

6. How do linguistic
features reveal
the meaning of a
text?

7. Linguistic features
and techniques
help in the
interpretation of
texts.

8. Take this example:
Woman without
her man is
nothing.

9. Woman, without
her, man is nothing.
Woman, without
her man, is nothing.

10. Let’s eat,
grandmother.
Let’s eat
grandmother!

11. Even in advertisements,
we can see that
stylistics is applied.
In Filipino culture,
unknowingly, we apply
stylistics in our
language.

12. Examples of Stylistics:
Petal attraction
 (flower shop)
Elizabeth Tailoring
 (tailors)
Farmacia with Love
 (pharmacy)

13. Mane Attraction
 (hairdresser)
Ken Afford
 (eatery)

14.  Felix the Cut
 (barber shop)
The Way We Were
 (boutique)

15. Fix Ahoy
 (electrical repair
shop)
Second Time Around
 (2nd Hand watch
repair)

16.  Summa Cum Laundry
 (laundry shop)
 Dish is Eat!
 (eatery)
 Sinangag Express
 (Sex ) Tayo!
 Luv Hon Ko Laundry
 (laundry shop)

17. How does language work in a
text?
This is Just to Say
William C. Williams
I II III
I have eaten and which Forgive me
the plums you were probably they were
delicious
that were in saving so sweet
the icebox for breakfast and so cold

18. Stylistics is a process of mediation
between language and literature.
Discipline:Linguistics Literary
Criticism
STYLISTICS
Subjects: Language
Literature

19. What is linguistics?
Linguistics is the scientific
study of language.Such
study has, broadly
speaking, three aspects:
language form, language
meaning, and language in
context.

20. Linguistics
 the scientific study of language and its structure,
including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics,
and semantics. Specific branches of linguistics include
sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics,
computational linguistics, historical-comparative
linguistics, and applied linguistics.

21. What is literary criticism?
 Literary criticism is the evaluation, analysis,
description, or interpretation of literary works. It is
usually in the form of a critical essay, but in-depth book
reviews can sometimes be considered literary criticism.
Criticism may examine a particular literary work, or
may look at an author's writings as a whole.

22. What is language?
 the method of human communication, either spoken or written,
consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.
 "a study of the way children learn language“
 any nonverbal method of expression or communication.
 "a language of gesture and facial expression“
 synonyms: speech, writing, communication, conversation,
speaking, talking, talk, discourse; More
 the system of communication used by a particular community or
country.

23. What is literature?
 writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of
permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential
features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.
 the entire body of writings of a specific language, period, people, etc.:
 the literature of England.
 the writings dealing with a particular subject:
 the profession of a writer or author.
 literary work or production.
 any kind of printed material, as circulars, leaflets, or handbills:

24. Boy of Blue
(Nadine Sarreal)
I thought I love you boy of blue
Boy of blue you said you love me, too.
It’s not how much the here and now
But more of how and why.
Yesterday my life was sane
And then you kissed me in the rain.
How I loved my boy of blue;
Boy of blue my love was you.

25. Stylistic analysis:
 Monosyllabic
 58 words
 Simplicity of structure
 Youthfulness
 There’s a rhyming scheme
 Repetition of the O sound

26. Definitions of Stylistics:
 Stylistics is the application of concepts
from linguistics and allied disciplines
in the analysis and interpretation of
samples of communication through
language. (Otanes.ms)
 The linguistic study of different styles.
(Chapman, 1973)
 A linguistic approach to the study of
literary text.(Brumfit and Carter,1997)

27.  The study of literary discourse from a linguistics
orientation. (Widdowson, 1975)
 Practical Stylistics is the process of literary text analysis
which starts from a basic assumption that the previous
interpretative procedures used in the reading of a
literary text are linguistics procedures.(Carter,1991)

28. Three basic principles of a linguistic
approach to the literary study and
criticism(Carter)
1. That the greater our detailed knowledge of the
working of the language system, the greater our
capacity for insightful awareness of the effects
produced by the literary texts.
2. That a principled analysis of language can be used
to make our commentary on the effects produced
in a literary work less impressionistic and
subjective.
3. That because it will be rooted in a systematic
awareness of language, bits of language will not
merely be spotted and evidence gathered casually
and haphazardly. Analysis of one linguistic pattern
requires checking against related patterns across
the text.

29. Importance of Practical Analysis
 It can provide the means whereby the student of
literature can relate a piece of literary writings to his
own experience of language and so can extend that
experience.
 It can assist in the transfer of interpretative skills, on
essential purpose of literary education.
 It can provide a procedure for demystifying literary
texts.
 The focus of literary text in itself provides a context in
which the learning of aspects of language can be
positively enjoyed.

30. Some Useful Concepts in Stylistics:
 Foregrounding – emphasis on textual feature; may be
achieved through unusual or strange collocations,
meaningful repetitions, contrast, deliberate deviation
from the norms/ rules/ conventions.
 "In literature, foregrounding may be most readily
identified with linguistic deviation: the violation of
rules and conventions, by which a poet transcends the
normal communicative resources of the language, and
awakens the reader, by freeing him from the grooves of
cliché expression, to a new perceptivity.

31.  Collocation – the co-occurrence of certain words.
 A familiar grouping of words, especially words that
habitually appear together and thereby convey meaning
by association.
 Collocational range refers to the set of items that
typically accompany a word. The size of a collocational
range is partially determined by a word's level of
specificity and number of meanings.

32. Examples of collocations:
 Take a break
 Break a leg
 Break a promise
 Break a record
 Make a noise
 Make an effort
 Keep the change
 Keep a promise
 Keep a secret

33. Etymology:
 From the Latin, "place together." The term was first
used in its linguistic sense by British linguist J.R. Firth
(1890-1960), who famously observed, "You shall know a
word by the company it keeps."
Examples and Observations:
 "Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine
Michael Smith."
(Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961)
"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there
was a moocow coming down along the road and this
moocow that was coming down along the road met a

34. Collocations:
 "The mule has more horse sense than a horse. He knows
when to stop eating--and he knows when to stop
working."
(Harry S Truman)
 "I'm an incredible man, possessing an iron will and
nerves of steel--two traits that have helped me become
the genius I am today as well as the lady killer I was in
days gone by."
(William Morgan Sheppard as Dr. Ira Graves, "The
Schizoid Man." Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1989)

35.  "Every lexeme has collocations, but some are much
more predictable than others. Blond collocates strongly
with hair, flock with sheep, neigh with horse. Some
collocations are totally predictable, such
as spick with span, or addled with brains . . .. Others
are much less so: letter collocates with a wide range of
lexemes, such as alphabet and spelling, and (in another
sense) box, post, and write. . . .

36. Diegesis and Mimesis
 Diegesis –is telling/narrating.
 Mimesis –is showing.
 Like mimesis, diegesis is a term explicated in the works
of Plato (Ion, The Republic) and Aristotle (Poetics). The
opposite of mimesis, it refers to the information related
by the narrator and many times is comprised of
characters thoughts and actions. This excludes dialogue,
which is categorized under mimesis. In addition,
diegesis can be characterized as the narrator's
commentary on the thoughts and actions of characters.

37. Example of Diegesis:
 "A twisted piece of paper lay half burned
upon the hearthrug; he picked it up, and
unfolded it, in order to get a better pipe-
light by folding it the other way of the
paper. As he did so, absently glandcing at
the pencilled writing upon the fragment
of thin paper, a portion of a name caught
his eye--a portion of the name that was
most in his thoughts. He took the scrap of
paper to the window, and examined it by
the declining light."
 -Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's

38. Mimesis
 Mimesis (Ancient Greek: μίμησις (mīmēsis), from
μιμεῖσθαι (mīmeisthai), "to imitate,"
from μῖμος (mimos), "imitator, actor") is
a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide
range of meanings, which
include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio,
receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of
resembling, the act of expression, and the presentation
of the self

39.  Greek name for the rhetorical pedagogy known as
imitation.
 The imitation of another's gestures, pronunciation, or
utterance.
 Examples The enemy said, "I will pursue, I will
overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be
satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand
shall destroy them." —Exodus 15:9

40. Reference vs. representation:
 Reference- is the indexical function of language,
pointing to different aspects of reality.
 Representation – is manipulating language to stand for
an experience/ situation.

41. Reference may be classified as
anaphora and cataphora
 In anaphora, as opposed to cataphora, reference is
made based on preceding parts of the utterance. For
example, in Susan dropped the plate. It shattered
loudly, the word it refers to the phrase the plate.
 In cataphora, reference is made based on succeeding
parts of the utterance. For example, in Because he was
very cold, David put on his coat the referent of the he is
determined by the succeeding reference to David.

42. Representation
 Speech Presentation
 Categories of speech presentation
I. Direct speech.
 Example: He said, “I’ll come back to see you again
tomorrow.”
II. Indirect speech (IS).
 He said he would return there to see her again the
following day.

43. III. Free Direct Speech (FDS)
 FDS is the DS form without a) the quotation marks (though
not always) and/or b) the reporting clause. The
combinations may differ.
E.g.
 He said I’ll come back to see you again tomorrow. →
 “I’ll come back here to see you again tomorrow.”
 I’ll come back here and see you again tomorrow.
 The effect of FDS is that the narrator withdraws as
intermediary.

44.  IV. Narrative Report of Speech Acts (NRSA)

 This includes sentences that merely report that speech occurred but not what was said,
either as sense or as the words themselves.

 He said, “I’ll come back to see you again tomorrow.” → He promised to return./he
promised to visit her again.

 V. Free Indirect Speech (FIS)

 Formal markers and changes from DS into FIS:
 The reporting clause is omitted.
 The tense and pronoun selection are those associated with IS (tense backshift, 1st and
2nd person pronouns become 3rd person). But if the form of narration includes the Historical
present, FIS is also in the present tense.
 “Near” deictics are usually preserved.

45.  Word order and sentence type may be preserved (inversion and use
of auxiliaries in questions, ellipsis and interjections in
exclamations, speaker’s individual syntactic choices). Individual
speech markers of dialect or idiolect are also preserved, as are
sentence adverbs such as “of course,” “certainly,” and conjuctions
such as “and,” “but,” etc.
 He said, “I’ll come back to see you again tomorrow.” →
 He would return there to see her again the following day.
 He would return there to see her again tomorrow.
 He would come back there to see her again the following day.
 He said that the bloody train had been late.
 Here the swearword points to FIS even though the reporting clause
is still there.

46. Thought presentation
 Categories:
I. Free Direct Thought (FDT):
 Does she still love me?
II. Direct Thought (DT):
 He wondered, “Does she love me?”→ (DT is rather
artificial and bears analogy with the dramatic mode of
the soliloquy)

47. III. Free Indirect Thought (FIT):
 Did she still love him?
 He was trembling now with annoyance. Why did she seem
so abstracted? He did not know how he could begin. Was
she annoyed, too, about something? (Joyce, “The Dead”)
IV. Indirect Thought (IT):
 He wondered if she still loved him.
 V. Narrative Report of a Thought Act (NRTA):
 He wondered about her feelings for him.