STYLISTICS

Seminars 1-2
Stylistics:
Theoretical Framework and Key Concepts

1. Points for discussion

2. Stylistics as a linguistic discipline (origin, definition, roots, object and
subject-matter).
3. What is the purpose of stylistics according to P. Simpson? Why should we
do stylistics?
4. What are three Rs of stylistic analysis according to Paul Simpson?
5. Discuss the concept of a stylistician, or a literary linguist as Sherlocke
Stylistica, or sleuth (M. Burke). Choose any contemporary song lyrics and
demonstrate the workings of this concept. (M. Burke, see references below).
6. Specify basic approaches to the investigation of language.
7. Stylistics and the theory of information. The notion of information.
Denotative (basic) and connotative (additional) information. Types of connotative
information. Principle model of information transmission.
8. What are the links and correlations of stylistics with other branches of
linguistics. Talk on linguostylistics (phonological stylistics, morphological
stylistics, stylistic lexicology, stylistic syntax and stylistic semasiology) and
literary stylistics (stylistics from the author, or genetic stylistics; stylistics from the
reader, or stylistics decoding and immanent stylistics).
9. Discuss the following key concepts of stylistics: style, norm, context (its
types). Give examples.
10. Talk on the concept of foregrounding. What is its relation to the concept of
defamiliarization? What are the types or means of foregrounding. Give examples
from films, paintings, advertising, fiction, etc.
11.Talk on the notion of image. The structure and types of images.
12. Do the following tasks from Self-Study Guide to Stylistics of English:
навчально-методичний посібник зі стилістики англійської мови для
самостійної роботи (IV курс, факультет германської філології, Н.П. Ізотова,
І.А. Редька), 2013.
Task 1. Study the definitions of stylistics suggested by the prominent scholars.
Which of them, in your opinion, is the most precise? Prove your point of view.

1. Stylistics is the study of style which can be defined as the analysis of

distinctive expressions in language and the description of its purpose and effect.
(P. Verdonk)
2. Stylistics is a method of textual interpretation in which primacy of place is
assigned to language. (P. Simpson)
3. Stylistics is a linguistic discipline which studies nominative
and communicative language units and the principles according
to which the units of all language levels are selected
and combined for achieving a certain pragmatic aim in different communicative
situations. (O.M. Morokhovsky)
4. Stylistics is primarily the study of various language resources of human
emotions and each stylistic form is marked either by expressivity or emotivity.
(Ch. Bally)
5. Stylistics can be defined as a separate branch of linguistics studying the
expressive possibilities of the English language. Its final aim is to study
the language behavior (selection and combination of the language means).
It covers such factors as: situation, aim, sphere of communication,
pragmatic effect, conventional appropriativeness, emotiveness and
expressiveness. (V.I. Shakhovsky)
6. Stylistics is a branch of linguistics dealing with variants, varieties of
linguistic expressions and, hence, with subsystems making up the general system
of language. (M.P. Ivashkin)
To my opinion the fourth definition is the most precise because the basic
notion of stylistics is style that means a quality of language which
communicates precisely emotions or thoughts. Furthermore, the style is itself
the synonym to expression, that’s why I absolutely agree with that explanation
of the stylistics.
Task 2. Complete the following sentences inserting a proper term.

a) decoding stylistics, b) cognitive stylistics, c) practical stylistics,

d) functional stylistics, e) contrastive stylistics

1) _____e_____ is connected with the contrastive study of more than one

language. It analyzes the stylistic recourses not inherent in a separate language, but
at the crossroads of two languages, or two literatures and obviously linked to the
theory of translation.
2) ______d____ is a branch of linguostylistics that investigates functional styles,
that is special sublanguages or varieties of the national language such as scientific,
colloquial, business, journalistic and so on.
3) ______c____ proceeds from the norms of language usage at a given period
teaching these norms to language speakers, especially the ones, dealing with the
language professionally (editors, publishers, writers, journalists, teachers, etc.).
4) ______a____ makes an attempt to regard the aesthetic value of a text based on
the interaction of specific textual elements, stylistic devices and compositional
structure in delivering the author’s message.
5) _____b_____ combines the kind of explicit rigorous and detailed linguistic
analysis of literary texts that is typical of the stylistic tradition with a systematic
and theoretically informed consideration of the cognitive structures and processes
that underlie the production and reception of language.

Task 3. Consider the following definitions of style. What basic characteristics

of style do they point out?

Style is socially cognized and functionally conditioned internally united

totality of the ways of using, selecting and combining the means of lingual
intercourse in the sphere of one national language or another, a totality
corresponding to other analogous ways of expression that serve different purposes,
perform different functions in the social communicative practice of the given
nation. (V.V. Vinogradov)
Style is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim
of communication. (I.R. Galperin)
Style is what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts (an individual text)

from all other groups (other texts). Style can be roughly defined as
the peculiarity, the set of specific features of a text type or a specific text.
(Y.M. Skrebnev)
Style may be defined as a system of interrelated language means,
which serves a definite aim in communication and is used in a
definite sphere of communication of different people and fulfills a definite
function: aesthetic and cognitive, informative, convincing, progressing of ideas,
reaching agreements, regulating, coordinating relations between people and state.
(V.I. Shakhovsky)

Task 4. Match the following notions with their definitions.

1) context, 2) foregrounding, 3) image, 4) norm

a) 4 the invariant of the phonemic, morphological, lexical, and stylistic

patterns circulating in language-in-action at a given period of time.
b) 2 the ability of a verbal element to obtain extra significance in a definite
context.
c) 1 the encirclement of a language unit by other language units in speech.
d) 3 a certain picture of the world, a verbal subjective description of this or
another person, event, occurrence, sight made by the speaker with the help of the
whole set of expressive means and stylistic devices.

Task 5. Comment on the way different fonts mark a word "style".

Style ● Style ● Style ● Style ● Style ● Style

The style is the set of characteristics by which we distinguish one author
from another. It also includes the handwriting. We see different ways of
writing the word “style”, so in this case we talk about form which means itself
the concept style.

Task 6. Study the following text. State which linguistic means are
foregrounded in it. Justify your answer.

It's as good a place as any. Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, two hundred souls at most, no

more than a blip on the fast road between Toulouse and Bordeaux. Blink once and
it's gone. One main street, a double row of dun coloured half-timbered houses
leaning secretively together, a few laterals running parallel like the tines of a bent
fork. A church, aggressively whitewashed, in a square of little shops.
Farms scattered across the watchful land. Orchards, vineyards, strips of earth
enclosed and regimented according to the strict apartheid of country farming:
here apples, there kiwis, melons, endives beneath their black plastic shells, vines
looking blighted and dead in the thin February sun but awaiting
triumphant resurrection by March . . . Behind that, the Tannes, small tributary of
the Garonne, fingers its way across the marshy pasture. And the people?
They look much like all others we have known; a little pale perhaps in the
unaccustomed sunlight, a little drab. Headscarves and berets are the colour
of the hair beneath, brown, black or grey. Faces are lined like last summer's apples,
eyes pushed into wrinkled flesh like marbles into old dough. A few children,
flying colours of red and lime-green and yellow, seem like a different race. As the
char advances ponderously along the street behind the old tractor which pulls it,
a large woman with a square, unhappy face clutches a tartan
coat about her shoulders and shouts something in the half-comprehensible
local dialect; on the wagon a squat Santa Claus, out-of-season amongst
the fairies and sirens and goblins, hurls sweets at the crowd with barely restrained
aggression.
(J. Harris "Chocolat")
Nouns, verbs with ending -ing, adjectives

Task 7. Study the excerpts from different texts. State which type of
foregrounding (convergence, coupling or defeated expectancy) is present in
them. Justify your answer.

1)
[…]
The small girl [little red riding hood] smiles. One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature's head [woolf’s],
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.

A few weeks later, in the wood,

I came across Miss Riding Hood.
But what a change! No cloak of red,
 No silly hood upon her head.
She said, "Hello, and do please note
My lovely furry wolfskin coat." (Coupling: there are cases of alliteration,
assonance, paranomasia; rhyme, rhythm and meter.)
(R. Dahl "Little Red Riding Hood")

2) Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and
they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know
this America: They will be met. (Applause)
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of
purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the
petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that
for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation. But in the
words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has
come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward
that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation: the
God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to
pursue their full measure of happiness. (Applause)
(Defeated expectancy: There are elements of low predictability that
appear in the context of the ordered elements)
(Barack Obama. Inaugural speech 2008)

3) I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and
winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig
was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee
Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South
America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of
other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an
Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more
figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree,
starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I
would choose. I wanted each
and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and,
as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by
one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
(Convergence: there are lots of stylistic features which all participate to create
a particular emotional effect or a certain image or mood)
(S. Plath "The Bell Jar")

4) The Really Ugly Duckling

Once upon a time there was a mother duck and a father duck who had seven baby
ducklings. Six of them were regular-looking ducklings. The seventh was a really
ugly duckling. Everyone used to say, "What a nice looking bunch of ducklings –
all except one. Boy, he’s really ugly." The really ugly duckling heard these people,
but he didn’t care. He knew that one day he would probably grow up to be a swan
and be bigger and look better than anything in the pond. Well, as it turned out, he
was just a really ugly duckling. And he grew up to be just a really ugly duck. The
end.
(сonvergence: there are lots of stylistic features which all participate to create
a particular emotional effect or a certain image or mood)
(J. Scieszka)

Task 8. Identify the images in the following sentences and analyze their
structure: T (tenor), V (vehicle), G (ground).

T. V G
1. […] long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the
houses. (O. Wilde)
T V
2. We have spoken of Pearl’s rich and luxuriant beauty; the beauty that shone
G
with deep and vivid tints. (N. Hawthorn)
T V G
3. Scrooge was hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out
T. V
generous fire: secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. (Ch. Dickens)

4. […] old crystal Moon leaned down and listened. Then she gave the last burst

of music. The white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered in the
sky. (O. Wilde)
T. V T. V T G
5. Hours are leaves of life / and I am their gardener / Each hour falls down
slow. (Miracles: Poems by Children of the English-Speaking World)

6. He played with the idea, and grew willful; tossed it into the air and

transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy, and

winged it with paradox. (O. Wilde)

7. In voice furred with frost, ghost said to priest … (S. Plath)

T. V
8. My love is like a red, red rose. (R. Burns)
T. V
9. Their [people’s] feet dragged sullenly at the cobbles like the feet of children
going to school. (J. Harris)
T. V. G
10. Memory is an ocean and he [Pi] bobs on its surface. (Y. Martel)

Task 9. Create your own images in which the following notions will appear as
a tenor:

 Life
 Love
 Jealousy
 Ukraine
 Friend

I. Get ready for the presentation on the following topic:

New branches of stylistics, their scopes of issues

References and recommended literature

1. Self-Study Guide to Stylistics of English: навчально-методичний

посібник зі стилістики англійської мови для самостійної роботи (IV курс,
факультет германської філології, Н.П. Ізотова, І.А. Редька), 2013.
2. Kukharenko V.A. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. – Vinnytsia : Nova
Knyga, 2000.
3. Key Terms in Stylistics / [N. Norgaard, B. Busse, R. Montoro]. –
N.Y.: Continuum International Publishing, 2010 (for Key Branches of Stylistics).
4. P. Simpson. Stylistics : A Resource Book for Students / [Ed. P.
Simpson]. – London : Routledge, 2004. – P. 2 – 4.
5. The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics / Michael Burke / [Ed. M. Burke]. —
Abingdon; New York : Routledge, 2014. P. 1 – 3.
6. Методичні вказівки до семінарських та практичних занять
ізстилістикианглійськоїмови для студентівIV курсу / Уклад.
О.П.Воробйоватаінш. – К.:КДЛУ, 1996 (1997).
7. МороховскийА.Н., Воробьева О.П., ЛихошерстН.И., Тимошенко З.В.
Стилистика английского языка. – Киев, 1991.
8. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка. – М.:
Флинта, 2004.