Style in Literature

Literary vs. Non-literary

texts

a. What is genre? What is text type? Give examples.
b. How can you differentiate between literary texts and
non-literary texts?

The significance of being familiar with the social and

stylistics conventions of different text types
 Language of poetry characteristics:

 Ambiguous meaning
 May break the conventional grammar rules
 Unique sound structure
 Arranged in stanzas (define) or metrical lines.
 Foregrounded patterns
 Indirect references to other texts
 Text type and style:

 No one to one correspondence between style and
text type.

 Advertisements
 Text type and function:

Language of literary texts vs. language of everyday life
communication
 There is a social function of most texts we are confronted with.
The majority of these texts have some practical function in that
they have intentions which can be related to the real world around
us.
 When language does not refer to our everyday social context , as
in literary texts, when it is the only available to us to construct an
imaginary context, then things are entirely different. Then the
language becomes the constant factor to which we have to go back
every time we wish to recall what we imagined.
 The interpretation of literary texts may differ from reader to
reader because we have different expectations and different
emotions.
 Text type and function:

 What is the function/purpose of headlines, blurbs, advertisement?
Encouragement to read new stories/ buy books/promote products.

 What is the function of poems?

It has no relation to our social needs and conventions because poetry is
detached from the ordinary context of social life. Poetry does not make a
direct reference to the world of phenomena but provides a representation of it
through its peculiar and unconventional use of language which motivate,
invite and provoke the reader to create an imaginary alternative world.

 Do literary texts and non-literary texts have the same function? Explain
Individualizing vs. Socialization
The function of the literature is not socializing but individualizing. Why?
Because its essential function is to enable us to satisfy our needs as
individuals, to escape from our socializing existence, to feel reassured about
our disorder and confusion in our minds, and to find a reflection to our
conflicting emotions
 Foregrounding
Simpson’s book chapter B(pp.50-51)

 Definition:

• ‘deviation from a norm’ OR ‘more of the same’
• Foregrounding elements often include a distinct patterning or parallelism in a
text’s typography, sounds, word-choices, grammar or sentence structures.
Other potential style markers are repetition of some linguistic elements and
deviations from the rules of language in general or from the style you expect in
particular text type or context. (Chapter 1)
• Definition of parallelism: a balance within one or more sentences of similar
phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure. Parallelism allows
the text to be readable, and easier to process. Examples: Life on Mars- War of
the words. She likes cooking, jogging, and reading. She likes to cook, to jog, and
reading. X (lacks parallelism)
 The purpose of foregrounding:
• Reader’s attention
• Development of ideas
• Aesthetic purpose
Hemingway’s The Old man and the Sea


 Two types/ levels of
foregrounding:

 A. Across texts = primary
 B. within texts = internal foregrounding=secondary
 Hemingway’s The Old man and the Sea
• Flat noun phrases
• Using no adjectives
 This pattern changed at the end
Example: When a poisonous jellyfish approaches the old
man’s boat, the narrative refers to it as ‘the purple,
formalised iridescent gelatinous bladder of a Portuguese
man-of-war’
 Secondary foregrounding is a kind of deviation within a
deviation’
 ‘Neutral Tones’ by Thomas Hardy

Tips to analyze poems:
 Read the poem a couple of times to:
a. have an idea about the way the poem is structured
b. Notice the sound pattern, stress patterns
 Look up the meaning of unfamiliar words
 Read stanza by stanza and find all poetic devices used
 Try to develop ideas out of the images used
 Look for foregrounded patterns=sounds, structure,
images
 Neutral Tones by Thomas Hardy

We stood by a pond that winter day,


And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove

Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing

Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing...

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,

And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.
 Foregrounded Patterns:

1. It is striking that, with the exception of “we”, all the
grammatical subjects refer to inanimate entities
(personification)
Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing is
given human attributes.
2. ‘We’ is the only human subject. The woman is constantly
reduced to parts of her body w/ the exception of we
(your eyes, the smile on your mouth, grin of bitterness)
If we assume foregrounding has a psychological effect, this
prominent patterning invites the reader’s interpretation. In
the material world, we associate human agentive subjects
with intention, control and responsibility. One might
conclude that these two people are powerless to deal with
their relationship.
 Foregrounded Patterns:

3. Most of the images contain a verbal element. The chain of
images call up a sense of utter desolation reflecting the desolate
state of their love (a pond on a winter’s day, a pale sun, a few gray
leaves, which have fallen from the ash tree, a bitter grin, an
ominous bird) * Ash reinforces the grayness of the scenery.
4. The nature images in the first stanza and the image of the
women’s face in the middle stanzas (note the oxymoron “alive
enough to have strength to die) are repeated in the final stanza.
The speaker’s experience has been transformed from a personal
event into a symbol of a commonly shared experience and we
notice this in the:
a. Nature images b. tense shift c. stress pattern
An extra stress added to the final line (internal foregrounding) i.e.
a deviation from a pattern set up by the text of the poem itself.
 Interpretation of the title:

The title may be interpreted as:
a. Neutral tones of white and gray
b. Indifferent tones of voice, with an obvious allusion
to the lovelessness between the two people.
 
 QUESTIONS?