Тема 1 Stylistics and its basic notions 1

Тема 1. Stylistics and its basic notions. 1. Stylistics, its subject and tasks. Types of stylistics. Relations to nearby disciplines. 2. Theory of Information Transmission. 3. General linguistic notions of stylistics: a) language system; speech activity; language material – speech; b) the notion of code; c) paradigmatics and syntagmatics; d) selection and combination. 4. Different approaches to the notion of style. 5. The problem of norm. 6. Context. 7. Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices. 8. Image and Imagery.

1. Stylistics, its subject and tasks. Types of stylistics. Relations to nearby disciplines. Stylistics is a linguistic discipline which studies the means of realization of general language function - communiсative and cognitive, and complimentary - emotive (emotional, expressive), poetic, aesthetic, phatic (contact-establishing) which provide the effectiveness of the speech activity (O. Morokhovsky). Stylistics is a linguistic science which investigates communicative and nominative resources of the language system and principles of selection and usage of language means for transmitting thoughts and feelings with the aim of achieving definite pragmatic results in various communicative conditions (O. Morokhovsky).

David Crystal: stylistics is a branch of linguistics which studies the features of situationally distinctive varieties of language, and tries to establish principles capable of accounting for the particular choices made by individual and social groups in their use of language. ("Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics“) The term "stylistics" is occasionally used in a very broad sense, to include all situationally distinctive language, i. e. , including the variations of regional, social and historical dialects.

David Crystal subdivides stylistics into general, literary, applied, stylostatistics (or stylometry) and phonostylistics General stylistics deals with the whole range of non-dialectal varieties encountered within a language. Literary stylistic deals with the variations characteristic of literature as a genre and of the "style" of individual authors. Applied stylistics is often used for the study of contextually distinctive varieties of language, especially with reference to the style of literary and non-literary texts. Stylostatistics is a field which usually studies the statistical structure of literary texts, often using computers. The study of the expressive or aesthetic function of sound is called phonostylistics

Most linguists define such major types of stylistics as linguostylistics, communicative (decoding) stylistics, coding (literary) stylistics, and contrastive stylistics Linguostylistics is a science of functional styles and expressive potential of a language. Communicative stylistics describes expressive peculiarities of certain messages (texts). Coding stylistics deals with individual styles of authors. Contrastive stylistics investigates stylistic systems of two or more languages in comparison.

Charles Bally is considered to be the founder of linguostylistics. According to his view first proclaimed in "Traite de Stylistique" in 1902 style in language is a set of expressive means of the language. stylistics is a set of expressive means which aims at an account of all devices serving "expressiveness ".

G. Turner in his "Stylistics" writes that the "term" stylistics is not a stylish word, but it is well connected. The French write of la stylistique; the Germans discuss die Stylistik. The word allows the useful derivative stylistician for one who makes a methodical study of the principles of style. The stylistician is thus distinct from the stylist.

The subject of stylistics is the study of texts for the purpose of finding certain evidence concerning language as a system. Stylistics deals with two main tasks: 1) the investigation of the inventory of special language media which provide the desirable effect of the utterance ; 2) the investigation of certain types of texts which due to the choice and arrangement of language means are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of communication. The 1 st field of investigation touches upon such general problems as asthetic functions of language, synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea, emotional colouring of the language, the interrelation between language and thought. The 2 nd field of investigation discusses such general linguistic items as oral or written varieties of language, the notion of standard language, the generative aspect of literary texts, etc.

Stylistics as a branch of linguistics is related to other branches of linguistics. Thus, stylistics can be studied in connection with Phonetics, Lexicology, Grammar, Semasiology, etc. Phonetics studies sounds, articulation, rhythmics and intonation. Stylistics concentrates on expressive sound combinations, intonational and rhythmic patterns. Lexicology describes words, their origin, development, semantic and structural features. Stylistics also deals with words, but only those which are expressive in language or in speech. Grammar describes regularities of building words, wordcombinations, sentences and texts. Stylistics restricts itself to those grammar regularities, which make language units expressive. As a result of this connection there appeared such interdisciplinary sciences as stylistic phonetics, stylistic lexicology, stylistic morphology, stylistic syntax, stylistic semasiology and others.

Theory of Information Transmission The process of rendering the message of the author of the literary work to the reader can be successfully demonstrated in theory of Information. The theory of Information Transmission was founded in technical sciences in 1930 s. In 1940 s in the works of N. Winner and C. Shennon on сybernetics theory of Information Transmission was used in description of the ways of receiving, interpreting and transmitting information. According to this theory the speaker is the encoder or transmitter of the message. Into this notion we include all the information and the experience of the person who sends the message. The message are those thoughts or feelings which the encoder intends to raise in the adressee.

The encoder sends the message through the code (signal). The most universal and typical code is the human language. More complicated codes are the language of fiction, poetry, art, music, etc. The coder is the mechanism of coding (the human speech and thinking apparatus). The signal goes through the channel of connection. The channel of connection is this surrounding in which the signal functions. The decoder (decoding appliance) consists of the mechanism of reception and the code. It gets the message from the signal. The noise (interference) is possible discrepancy between the adresser and the adressee, changes in the channel of communication and the partial loss of the signal

3. General linguistic notions of stylistics: a) language system; speech activity; language material – speech; Language is a system of mental associations of elementary and complex signs (speech sounds, morphemes, word combinations, utterances, and combinations of utterances) with our mental picture of objective reality. Language is a psychological phenomenon of social significance. It exists in individual minds, but serves the purpose of social intercourse through speech. Language performs two functions: communicative and cognitive. The communicative function is of great importance because language arose from the needs of intercourse and social regulation. The cognitive function is also very important as it due to existence of language that mankind has acquired its immense knowledge of the outside world.

Language System is a set of elements (which cannot be chaotic) and rules which exist due to the possible relations between the elements in the given language (O. Morokhovsky). Language System is a set of the phonetic, grammatical and lexical data of the given language (I. Galperin). Speech Activity is the realization of the models of generation of the speech units of the higher level with the help of actualization of the language elements of the lower level (O. Morokhovsky).

As distinct from language, speech is not a purely mental phenomenon, not a system, but a momentary, fleeting psycho-physiological action, a process of sending acoustic signals (messages), perceptible to anyone within hearing. Speech is the realization of the language units in the speech activity (O. Morokhovsky). Language units are invariants without any individual communicative peculiarities. Speech units are variants which actualize language units and have individual communicative peculiarities.

b) the notion of code: Code is a dynamic system of signs and rules of their connection for transmitting over the definite canal of information (O. Morokhovsky). The human language is considered to be the most universal code. The term code is widely used in stylistics, semiotics and poetics. But there is no successful definition of code in any of these sciences.

c) paradigmatics and syntagmatics: The terms paradigmatics and syntagmatics are derived from the words paradigm and syntagm(a). The notion of paradigmatics should be known to the learner from such combinations as the paradigm of declension (or conjugation). The expression denotes all the grammatical forms of a noun (verb) that co-exist at the moment and could be presented in the form of a list to select from. The syntagm has also been used in phonetics or in syntax. It usually denotes a combination of words in speech and text, a linear sequence of lexical units.

The term paradigmatics denotes the totality of units which language has at its disposal. Or, otherwise, the units taken together make a paradigm. Paradigmatics is the totality of relations between the language elements of one level which are united by the associations in similarity (O. Morokhovsky). The totalities of these elements can be formed from the elements of different levels of language - phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, models of sentences and texts. The notion of paradigmatic relations is connected with characteristics of the language while syntagmatics deals with the speech.

The term syntagmatics was originally introduced by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure to refer to the sequential characteristics of speech, seen as a string of constituents in linear order. So, syntagmatics implies a totality or a certain number of sequences of units, chains of units following one another. Here, the units do not co-exist simultaneously ready to be chosen by the speaker (writer) for his communicative purposes, but on the contrary, each unit enters into combinations with its neighbours, with what precedes it and follows it. Syntagms can be formed from the units of speech of any level that is of allophones, allomorphs, words, utterances, segments of the text.

Realization of Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Relations paradigmatic relations language units phoneme morpheme lexeme model of the word combination model of the sentence model of the text syntagmatic relations speech units allophone allomorph word combination utterance text

d) selection and combination: R. Jakobson, "selection is realized on the basis of equivalence, similarity and difference, synonymy and antonymy, and combination which is the basis of the utterance is realized on the basis of contiguity ". For example, if "child" is the topical of the message, the speaker selects one among the more or less similar, nouns like child, kid, youngster, tot, all of them equivalent in a certain respect, and then to comment on this topic, he may select one of the semantically cognate verbs - sleeps, dozens, nods, naps “. Then words can be combined according to the suitable context: "the child sleeps", "the kid dozens", etc.

4. Different approaches to the notion of style. G. Turner examines two different approaches to the notion of the "style". Jonathan Swift's opinion: " Proper Words in proper Places, makes the true Definition of a Style. But this would require too ample a Disquisition to be now dwelt on… When a Man's Thoughts are clear, the properest Words will generally offer themselves first; and his own Judgment will direct him in what Order to place them, so as they may be best understood ". G. Buffon's "Style is the man himself" is a different point of view on the problem of style. It was shared by William Puttenham: "… Style is a constant and continual phrase or tenour of speaking and writing ". It is true that we do very often recognize the "voice" of someone we know when we read his writing, and even "get to know" a writer we have not met by reading his work.

In G. Turner's opinion, the definitions of both linguists may stand as the expression of two rival approaches to the subject. Buffon asserts the essential particularity of a particular writer's work. Swift's "proper places", with its hint of context, draws attention to the relations of a text, or part of a text, its setting. Swift's definition allows that a man might have different styles on different occasions; Buffon, interpreted rigorously, does not. It is more common to see the term "style" used in a highly restricted sense. For example, in the Hallidayan classification of language varieties, style refers to the relations among the participants in a language activity, especially the level of formality they adopt (colloquial, formal, etc. ). A very popular notion of style among teachers of language is that style is technique of expression. In this sense style is generally defined as the ability to write clearly, correctly and in a manner calculated the interest to the reader.

The most widely accepted definition of style is that "style" is choice". The linguist St. Ullmann thinks of style as the consequence of choices among variants. These choices carry some kind of meaning. In the course of the discussion of St. Ullmann's paper it was argued that not only the expressive but the cognitive too is stylistic, and the absence of "expressiveness" is stylistically relevant. D. Crystal and D. Davy in their book "Investigating English Style" concentrate their attention on the major varieties of English in use. They set up a hypothesis that linguistic features tend to be identified with certain extra-linguistic context. They call their approach "linguistically oriented“. Style can be defined as the peculiarity, the set of specific features of a text type or of a concrete text. Style is just what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts from all other groups. Some stylisticians find the ancient division into low, middle and elevated styles useful, as "style is here conceived as an internal characteristic of a kind of discourse, as an abstract category, not as a unique configuration of properties, to be found in an individual work. Further none of these three styles is seen as "deviant" in respect to any other". (Тodorov Tz. )

O. Akhmanova writes that the three main divisions of "stylistic space" can be represented in the following way: 1) words not associated with a particular speech situation (words of neutral style); they occur in the majority of texts and possess the highest frequency; 2) words associated with a particular speech situation: a) associated with rare speech situations (words of elevated style); b) associated with a frequent speech situation (low style)

The problem of norm. The problem of the norm of a literary language is one of the most difficult in linguistics. The most traditional understanding of the norm is "the form the native speaker habitually uses. Every speaker uses the only correct form of his native language and has a perfect command of his native language. And any other form of his native language is considered to be a deviation " [Arnold]. P. Guiraud calls a norm " the sum of the most frequent usages“. I. Galperin writes that different types and varieties of language have different norms. Some authors say that stylisticians should not speak of any norm. Tz. Todorov writes: "…ordinary language is the meeting place of a thousand norms and thus "normless" in the truest sense"

S. Levin distinguishes between: quatitative deviation (deviation in frequency of occurence) and qualitative deviation ("ungrammaticalness", something deviant because it cannot be generated by the normal rules of the language) and also between: - deviations from a norm present in the text (i. e. "syntagmatic" deviation) and - deviations from a norm which is elsewhere ("paradigmatic" deviation)

Quite a number of prominent scholars come to the conclusion that style may also be defined as deviations from the lingual norm. In their opinion, what is stylistically conspicuous, stylistically relevant, stylistically coloured is a departure from the norm of the given national language. They substitute the word norm for the word neutrality. But this is doubtful, because one should not confuse what is neutral with what is normal. There as many norms as there are sublanguages.

Context O. Morokhovsky's classification of the context Context extralinguistic ( situational ) context linguistic ( speech ) context single situational context linguistic context stylistic context typical situational context lexical historical context syntactical morphological-syntactical lexico-syntactical mixed Single situational context means that some utterance makes sense only in the given context. According to typical situational context some utterance is understood as comprehended in given situational conditions. Social historical context can be treated as a channel of connection with the past epoch. Linguistic context is the totality of fixed conditions, under which we should undoubtfully define the context of any language unit. Stylistic context is such context that broadens the meaning of this or that speech element

Classification of the Context according to its size microcontext (a sentence); megacontext linguistic macrocontext according to its meaning extralinguistic temporal (chronological) (a paragraph in a text); physical (a book chapter, a story or a book) abstract psychological

Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices. Expressive Means are those phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic units and forms which make speech emphatic. Stylistic Devices are non-language phenomena, which are formed in speech and do not exist out of context. The Difference between Expressive Means and Stylisic Devices Expressive Means 1) language elements of various levels which are stylistically marked at a definite language level; 2) stylistic meaning is fixed to the expressive means; Stylistic Devices 1) ways of combining speech units of the lower level in the unit of the higher level; 2) stylistic meaning appears in the context of a speech unit.

Image and Imagery. Image is a certain picture of the objective world, a verbal subjective description of this or another person, event, occurence, sight made by the speaker with the help of the whole set of expressive means and stylistic devices. Images are created to produce an immediate impression to human sight, hearing, sense of touch or taste. Imagery is diction that describes the five senses (tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, and emotional. e. g. Honeysuckle and purple wisteria hung from the trees and white magnolias mixed with their scents in the bee-humming air (Ralph Ellison "The Invisible Man").