MAJORSHIP
LET Competencies:
1. apply the basic stylistic principles
to arrive at meaning of literary texts
2. demonstrate skills in a principled analysis
of literary texts to produce less impressionistic or subjective interpretation
3. grasp the ‘grammar of literature’ through
various linguistic tools
A. Definition of Stylistics
1.
Some of the more common definitions of
stylistics follow.
1.1. Stylistics is the application of concepts
from linguistics and allied disciplines in the analysis and interpretation of
samples of communication through language (Otanes, ms.).
1.2. The linguistic study of different styles is
called stylistics (Chapman, 1973:11).
1.3. Stylistics is a linguistic approach to the
study of literary text (Brumfit and Carter, 1997:93).
1.4. Stylistics is the study of literary
discourse from a linguistics orientation. What distinguishes it from literary
criticism… is that it is a means of linking the two (Widdowson, 1975).
1.5. 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 linguistic procedures (Carter, 1991:4).
2.
Three basic principles of a linguistic
approach to literary study and criticism (Carter):
2.1. 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
2.2. 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
2.3. 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. Evidence for the text will be provided in an overt or principled way. The conclusions can be attested and retrieved by another analyst working on the same data with the same method. There is also less danger that we may overlook textual features crucial to the significance of the work.
3.
Importance of practical stylistics:
3.1. 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.
3.2. It can assist in the transfer of
interpretative skills, on essential purpose of literary education.
3.3. It can provide a procedure for demystifying
literary texts.
3.4. The focus of a literary text in itself
provides a context in which the learning of aspects of language can be positively
enjoyed.
4. Grid of
Relationships of Stylistics with other Disciplines
5. Some Useful Concepts in Stylistics:
Foregrounding – emphasis on a textual feature; may be achieved through unusual or strange collocations, meaningful repetitions, contrast, deliberate deviation from the norms/ rules/ conventions.
Collocation – the co-occurrence of certain words
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.
Diegesis and Mimesis – Diegesis is telling/ narrating; mimesis is showing.
Co-operative Principle – According to Grice, people can engage in meaningful extended conversation because, under normal conditions, the interlocutors observe certain principles, which he calls the four conversational maxims. The maxim of Quality upholds the value of truth/ sincerity; the maxim of Manner refers to the avoidance of obscurity of expression and ambiguity, and to be orderly (Pratt, 1977, pp. 129-130, in Weber, 1996).
Four
convention maxims in carrying out a conversation
(The co-operative principle and its regulative conventions)
1. The maxim of quantity: make your contribution as informative as is
required – don’t give too much or too little information.
2. The maxim of quality: make your contribution one that you believe to be
true.
3. The maxim of relation: be relevant
4. The maxim of manner: avoid unnecessary prolixity, obscurity of expression and ambiguity, and be orderly.
Four
cases when maxims are often violated:
a) A speaker may unostentatiously violate a
maxim; this accounts for lies and deceits.
b) He may opt out of the co-operative principle,
e.g., government officials’ refusal to answer questions requiring classified
information.
c) Faced with clash, he may break one maxim or
another.
d) He may ostentatiously flout a maxim, so that it is apparent to his interlocutors.
Speech Act – The theory that “many utterances are significant not so much in terms of what they say, but rather in terms of what they do” (Sullivan, et al., 1994, p. 293).
The speech act has three conditions:
1. Introduction of context or
the preparatory and sincerity conditions.
Ex. I promise to return the book next week.
2. Marking of clear social
relationships.
Ex. Normally, a servant cannot threaten a master.
3. Observance of felicity
conditions before and post speech event.
Ex. “From Waiting for Godot” by Samuel
Beckett
Vladimir: Well, shall we go?
Estrogen: Yes, let’s go.
(They do not move).
B. Some Common Ways of Interpreting (Literary Texts) in Stylistics
1.
Systematic Grammar in Literary Analysis
(Halliday, 1970 in Carter, 1991).
Halliday sees language in
terms of three functions: (1) The ideational
(2) The interpersonal, and (3) the textual. The ideational function is
concerned with cognitive meaning, the interpersonal with describing the
relations between persons (hence, questions and answers, positive and negative
forms, are part of this function), and the textual with process enabling the
speaker or writer to construct texts as a logical sequence of units.
One possible option with the
ideational function, Halliday goes on to say, is the transitivity function, to illustrate how stylistics may profit from
applying a grammatical model to analyze a literary text. The transitivity
function has three elements:
(a)
the process represented by the verb. Ex.: Alex watered the plants.
(b) the participants – the
roles of persons and objects. In the above sentence, Alex is the actor, the
plants object/goal.
(c) circumstantial function
- in English typically the adverbials of time, place, and manner.
Roles come in the form of (a) actor, (b) goal or object of result, (c) beneficiary or recipient as in Rykel gave his brother Shen some cookies, and (d) instrument of force as “The tree was hit by a lightning.”
In dealing with clause types, Halliday distinguishes three types: those of (a) action, (b) mental process, and (c) relation. The mental process verbs are further divided into verbs of perception, reaction, cognition, and verbalization, all having a processor and phenomenon, rather than having actor and goal as participant roles.
Ex.
Shen heard his younger
brother (person)
the
reason (abstraction)
the singing of the anthem
(event) bracketed words
the radio (object) are phenomena
Relational clauses are those
in which the process describes or states a relation between two roles.
Ex.: 1. Arnel Pineda acts as the lead singer. (attributive type)
2. The Journey band is as popular as the Jonas.
(equative type)
Halliday also classifies
action clauses and mental process clauses in terms of the ergative function in which an affected participant has an inherent
role associated with action clauses and which is the goal in a transitive
clause and the action in an intransitive clause.
Ex..: 1. Raskolnikov fell ill. (the affected
participant)
2. The theory consumes him. (‘causer’ of the process)
2. Meaning Beyond
The Sentence
The kernels of meaning in
long-winding sentences, particularly in the stream-of-consciousness technique,
may be derived by listing them down to create a discourse or arrive at meaning.
In this regard Chapman (1973) enumerates 9 of the most frequently used connectives, as among the essential features of discourse.
a. Conjunctions and conjunctive adjectives
(e.g., however, but, furthermore, nevertheless).
Ex. In Dapitan, Rizal engaged in farming, sculpture, poetry-writing and other useful activities, but life there proved routine until Josephine Bracken came to his life.
b. Pronominal linkage with a preceding noun.
Ex. “For an hour and a half he wondered aimlessly up and down side streets, immersed in solving some problem – chess, of course – the meaning of which suddenly had become the meaning of his whole existence on earth.”
Leonid Leonov’s “The Wooden Queen”
c. Repetition of a keyword or proper name,
either identically or in a different grammatical form:
Ex. “He was a formidable player; few dared play with him for his stakes were so high and reckless.”
Hesse’s Siddhartha
d. Use of synonyms or related word or phrase:
Ex. “For they sometimes, perhaps even on the majority of occasions, waited for their squires to grow old, and then when they were cloyed with service, having endured bad days and worse nights, they conferred upon them some title, such as count, or at least marquis
Cervantes’s Don Quixote
e. Deictic words – ‘pointers’ like the, this,
that – either governing a noun or referring back to the whole sentence.
Ex. “Is that the way they do things where
you’ve been,” he asked. “– for the ladies to escort the gentleman home?”
That was a nasty hit for Eleseus; he
turned red…”
Hamsun’s
Growth of the Soil
f. Repetition of opening structure
Ex. We
work when the sun rises,
We rest when the sun sets.
We
dig wells for drink,
We
plow the land for food.
What
has the power of the Emperor
to do with us?
Shih Shing (Book of Songs)
g. Class-member relationships, or relationships
of the parts of referent to the whole
Ex. “They were friends, yet enemies; he was master, she was mistress; each cheated the other, each feared the other, each felt this and knew this enemy time they touched hands…”
Virginia Woolf’s “Duchess and the Jeweler”
h. Loosen semantic connection without repetition
of items.
Ex. I had soon realized I was speaking to a Catholic, to someone who believed – how do they put it? – in an omnipotent and omniscient Deity, while I was what is loosely called an Agnostic.”
Graham Greene’s “The Hint of an Explanation”
i. Clear sequence of events
Ex. “Those were the happiest years of my life, my friendship with Lojzik and stamp-collecting. Then I had scarlet fever and wouldn’t let him come to see me, but he used to stand in the passage and whistle so that I could see him.”
Karel Capek, “The Stamp Collection”
3. Pedagogical Stylistics
Carter (in Weber, 1996) bats for a more extensive and integrated study of language and literature which are better given as pre-literary, linguistic activities.
3.1 Predicting how the narrative will develop
after omitting the title, or after reading the first paragraph. This can be
done by paired group.
¨ Lyric poems or texts which evoke
descriptive states do not benefit from this activity.
¨ Texts with a strong plot component do
¨ Even the best narrative could make students
read back and project forward.
3.2 Use of cloze procedure
¨ Focus on individual words/sequence of
words, rather than on stretches of texts.
¨ Do some lexical prediction during the act
of reading/ after a story is read.
¨ Show careful/close reading.
¨ Do reasonable and supportable predictions
to be alerted to the over-all pattern of the story.
3.3 Summarizing strategies
¨ Limit the summary, from 25-40 words to: (a)
re-structure, delete, re-shape their word to meet the word limit, (b) focus on
structure and shape of the narrative.
¨ Compare and criticize alternative
summaries.
3.4 Forum: Debating opposing viewpoints
¨ Mobilize discussion and debate.
¨ Do small-group activity.
¨ Provide counter-examples from other groups
to listen.
¨ Use their prior knowledge and the text in
question.
3.5 Guided re-writing
¨ Recognize the broader discourse patterns of
texts and styles appropriate to them.
¨ Re-write stretches of discourse to change
its communicative value.
¨ Rewrite a set of instructions, as a
description, or turning a lecture transcript into academic discourse.
¨ Specify clearly information about
audiences/purpose.
¨ Rewrite one style into another to explore
connections between styles and meaning, particularly juxtaposing literary and
non-literary texts.
¨ Focus on varied ways in instructing
information for readers in different texts.
¨ Infer more on semantic overlaps, degrees of information supplied to a reader, even the omission of certain expected propositions assigned thematic significance.
E.
Pragmatic Stylistics
Below is a grid showing six
major speech act functions and sub-functions, (cited in Hatch, 1992):
|
Kind of Exchange |
Examples |
Speech Act Equivalent |
|
1. Factual
Information identify,
ask, report, say, think 2. Intellectual
Information agree/disagree,
remember/forget, certain/uncertain, ask/give, accept/decline,
capable/incapable 3. Emotional
attitudes surprise, hope, fear, worry, preference, gratitude, intention,
want, desire 4. Moral
attitudes apology,
approval, appreciation, regret, indifference 5. Suasion suggest,
request, invite, instruct, advice, warn, offer 6. Socializing greet,
take leave, introduce, propose, congratulate, etc. |
a)
The IIRC report inflicts many. b)
The plane departs at 7:10. c)
Is Sunshine Corazon a threat to Lea Michelle? a)
These arguments are correct. b)
Sorry, I can’t attend the meeting! c)
Global warming melts the Artic. a)
I’m worried about my term papers. b)
Usec Puno intends to resign. c)
Make my coffee black. a)
I appreciate your help. b)
He regretted his decision. c)
The mother abandons the baby. a)
Hand in your assignments. b)
Watch out for falling debris! c)
The doctor suggests that Ana lessen her
sugar intake. a)
Hi, Larry, how are you? b)
You made it! I’m happy for you. c)
See you tomorrow! |
Representative
(judged for truth value, may either be hedged or aggravated) Representative Expressive Expressive
(states joy, disappointment, likes, dislikes, etc.) Directive
(makes a request to be complied with Directive
(i.e., Tell me how you are.) |
Other speech acts include:
1. Commissives are
statements that function as promise or refusals for action. Like directives,
commissives vary in strength – either strong or highly hedged in either
positive or negative directions.
Ex. Don’t worry, I’ll be there.
2. Declaratives (To Austin,
declaratives are performatives). When uttered, they bring about a new
state of being.
Ex. a)
I now pronounce you husband and wife!
b) You won the lotto!
c) Here are your walking papers!
F. Recent Trends in Stylistics
Structural Stylistics
1. As viewed by Taylor and Toolan (in Weber, 1996), structural stylistics is split into Objectivist and Affective theories. While the Objectivist stylisticians hold that style is an inherent property of the text itself, if not an utterance, Affective stylisticians consider “unarbitrary cultural myths and tastes, if not renewed awareness of the provisionality of interpretations” (Toolan), both ‘limiting and enabling’ (Armstrong, 1983).
2. Within the objectivist camp, the two factions of formalists and the functional exist. The functionalists, “take the stylistic system of a language to be bi-planar linking formal stylistic features with specific stylistic functions (or ‘effects’ or ‘values)” as in comparing the synonyms of an expression, for their stylistic potential. By contrast, the formalists prefer purely formal criteria in identifying stylistic patterns and features.
3. The “Achilles heel” of functional stylistics, to Toolan, is the problem of criterial perspective, other than an eclecticism of methods, ideas and techniques derived from: (a) Griceian pragmatics, (b) generative syntax, (c) Prague school of functionalism, (d) quantitative stylistics, (e) speech-act theory, (f) structuralist poetics, (g) discourse analysis, and (h) French semiotics.
4. Applying Halliday’s two notions on function used in describing language – (a) in the sense of ‘grammatical’ (or “syntactic’) function to refer to elements of linguistic structures such as actor and goal or subject and object or theme and rheme, as roles occupied by classes of words phrases, and the like in the higher structural units; (b) to the generalized notion of ‘functions of language’ – ideational, interpersonal, and textual.
5.
