General considerations on Stylistics as a branch of linguistics

STYLISTICS AS A BRANCH OF LINGUISTICS:GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

1)   The subject of stylistics

2)   Problems of stylistic research

3)   Types of research and branches of stylistics

4)   The concept of norm and its variants

5)   Individual study

6)   The concept of functional styles

 

Units of language on different levels are studied by traditional branches of linguistics such as phonetics that deals with speech sounds and intonation; lexicology that treats words, their meaning and vocabulary structure, grammar that analyzes forms of words and their function in a sentence which is studied by syntax. These areas of linguistic study are rather clearly defined and have a long-term tradition of regarding language phenomena from a level-oriented point of view. Thus, the subject matter and the material under study of these linguistic disciplines are more or less clear-cut.

It gets more complicated when we talk about stylistics. Some scholars claim that it is a comparatively new branch of linguistics which has only several decades of intense linguistic interest behind it. Actually, the term stylistics came into existence not so long ago.

Thus, stylistics or as it is often called linguo-stylistics is on the list of the youngest sciences. This branch of linguistic came into active functioning in the middle of the 20th century. At that period of time one could observe a serious decline in structural linguistics when grammar failed to explain some linguistic phenomena. So, stylistics came in.

As a matter of fact the problems of style and the  object of stylistics go as far back as to ancient schools of rhetoric and poetics.

In ancient times rhetoric appeared as an oratorical science. It was aimed at solving practical tasks – to teach people how to express their thoughts skillfully. Ancient Greeks stated that elaborately combined language means really possessed strong power of persuasion and they appealed to embellish human speech by all possible language resources.

Actually, the word stylistics is derived from the Latin word stylus/stilus – which means a slender-pointed writing instrument  (or a small stick with a pointed end) used by both Romans and Greeks for scratching letters on wax-covered plates/tablets.

In the course of time this word acquired several meanings, each of these meanings can be applied to a specific study of language areas and their use in speech.

It will not be an exaggeration to say that among various branches of linguistics, the most obscure in content is undoubtedly stylistics. It happens due to a number of reasons.

First of all, we should bear in mind that there is a confusion between the terms “style” and “stylistics”. The concept of “style’ is really broad and it is difficult to regards it as a term. The word style today is used in its reference to completely different spheres of human activity. We can speak of style in architecture (gothic, classical, barocco, neo-classical); style in literature (naturalism, sentimentalism, realism); art (surrealism, classicism, realism); behavior (eccentric; reserved; outspoken); fashion (casual; classical);

In the given context style is viewed as a mode of doing something.

We can say that the scope of problems in stylistics is open to discussion up to the present day. In linguistics the word style is used so widely that it requires some interpretation.

Out of different approaches as to the fields of investigation, the most representative was worked out by professor I. Galperin who singled out its leading aspects.

1)   The aesthetic function of the language;

2)   Expressive means of the language;

3)   Synonymous ways of expressing one and the same idea;

4)   Emotional colouring in language;

5)   A system of special devices – called SDs;

6)   The splitting of a literary language into separate systems – called styles;

7)   The interaction between language and thought;

8)   The individual manner of an author in making use of language (individual study).

Practically all of these statements have a certain bearing on the subject. Let’s examine them one by one.

1)   The Aesthetic function of the language is an immanent part of works of art – poetry, imaginative prose – but one can’t observe it in the works of science, diplomatic and business documents and other types of texts. Thus, the definition covers only a limited part of the problems of stylistics.

2)   Expressive means are more typical of the language of poetry, fiction, oratory, colloquial speech rather than the language of science, technology, commercial documents.

3)   Synonymous ways of expressing one and the same idea is a doubtful statement as with the change of wording - a change of meaning inevitably takes place – no matter how slight this change is.

4)   The emotional colouring of words and sentences is partially accepted as there are many types of texts that seem to be unemotional but still subject to stylistic investigation.

5)   A system of special devices – called SDs – is also questionable as no work of art, no text, no speech consists of a system of SDs. At the same time we can’t deny the fact that the style of anything is formed by the combination of features, peculiar to it.

6)   The splitting of a literary language into separate systems – called styles. The given aspect also requires some corrections. As any national language contains a great variety of sublanguages or sub-standard types of speech – slang, barbarisms, vulgarisms, taboo and a number of other – reflecting a fleeting character of language development. The same concerns the problem of nomenclature of styles – in general.

7)    The interaction between language and thought. Thought and its lingual expression make an inseparable unity, though a real intention may be different from what a person says. At the same time the idea can be misinterpreted. Moreover, in case form is changed – a change in content can be observed accordingly.

8)   The individual manner of an author in making use of language (individual study). The given thesis can be partly accepted as individual analysis is based on the principle of generalizations.

Thus,  none of the given entries can be entirely acceptable.

The most representative definitions of style were introduced from the 50-tieth to the 90-iethof the 20th century.

In 1955 the academician V Vinogradov defined style as a “socially recognized and functionally conditioned, internally united totality of the ways of using, selecting and combining the means of  lingual intercourse in the sphere of national language”.

Prof. I. Galperin offered his definition of style as “a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication”.

According to prof. Y.I. Screbnev style is what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts  (an individual text) from all other groups (other texts).

Such researchers as Riesel E., Brandes M.P., Stepanov Y.S., Piotrovsky R.S., Dolinin K.A., Arnold I.V., Maltsev V.A., Kukharenko V.A., Morokhovsky P.N., Kozhina M.N., Golub I.B. propose more or less analogous systems of styles based on the subdivision of styles into 2 classes: literary and colloquial.

Different approaches to the phenomenon of style were outlined by the representatives of foreign linguistic thought.

The set of rules how to write a composition – sometimes style is associated with very simple notions like “style is the man himself (Buffon 18thc.)

“Style – is depth,” said Darbyshire in 1971 “A Grammar of Style”;

“style is deviation”- considered Enkvist in his book Linguistic Stylistics published in the Hague in 1973.

All these definitions deal somehow with the essence of style that is summed up by the following

observations:

Style is a quality of language which communicates precisely emotions or thoughts or a system of them peculiar to the author

A true idiosyncrasy of style is the result of an author’s success in compelling language to conform to his mode of experience (Middleton Murry)

Style is a contextually restricted linguistic variation (Enkvist)

Style is a selection of non-distinctive features of  language(Bloomfield)

Style is simply synonymous with form or expression (Benedetto Croce)

Archibald Hill states “structures, sequences and patterns which extend or may extend beyond the boundaries of individual sentences define style”.

The most frequently met definition of style belongs to Seymour Chatman: “Style – is a product of individual choices and the patterns of choices among linguistic possibilities”.

Werner Winter continues this idea by claiming that the style may be characterized by a pattern of recurrent selections from the inventory of optional features of a language.

A famous French linguist Ch. Bally claimed that stylistics is primarily the study of various language resources of human emotions and that each stylistic form is marked either by expressivity and emotivity.

The term style is also applied to the teaching  how to write clearly, simply and emotionally to achieve correctness in writing and avoid ambiguity.

From the practical point of view stylistics is a science which provides a guide and recommendations aimed at ensuring that speech is not only correct and precise, clear but at the same time expressive and addressed not only to the hearer’s intellect but to his feelings as well.

This practical emphasis in stylistics presupposes  the existence of some definite norms that have taken shape as a result  of selection from the whole range of language means of definite patterns recognized by the majority of native speakers as the most suitable for a particular situation of verbal communication.

THE CONCEPT OF NORM

The problem of linguistic norm, including among others stylistic norm arises from the immediate essence of language in use.

 It is quite evident that in any literary language norm is regarded as the invariant of phonetic, morphological, lexical, syntactical patterns in circulation during a given period in the development of the given language.

On the one hand – a norm must possess a definite degree of stability so as to provide a firm basis for its functioning without which no norm could exist.

On the other hand – the linguistic norm is inevitably subject to change a various periods of the evolution of a language, since language is a social phenomenon.

Variants of these patterns may sometimes diverge from the invariant but never sufficient to become unrecognizable or misleading.

The development of any literary language shows that variants will always center around invariant forms.

The concept of linguistic norm is very complex. The flexibility of the linguistic norm results in the situation where there may exist 2 equally valid variants  of expression for 1 and the same language phenomenon, both of which are accepted as correct. So, there may appear such a situation when the old norm still exists as it hasn’t yet fallen into disuse and a new one appears – though it has not yet fully asserted itself.

 Thus, we can assume that variants appear all the time, enriching  the language to the degree which no artificial language will ever be able to reach.

The norm of the literary language will always presuppose vacillations from the received standard. The problem is to establish the range of permissible vacillations from the norm.  

It is a constant process of gradual change observed in the forms and meanings of the language forms at a given period. And it is therefore very important to understand the received standard of the given period of the language development in order to comprehend the direction of further process.

To sum up, we can conclude that  variant as the term itself suggests will never detach itself from the invariant to such a degree as to claim entire independence. Yet, there is a tendency to estimate the value of the individual style by the degree it violates the norms of the language.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INDIVIDUAL STYLE STUDY

Problems concerning the choice of the most appropriate language means and their organization into a message from the viewpoint of the addresser are  in the centre of attention of the individual style study.

The message is the common ground for communicants in an act of communication, in the exchange of information between two participants of the communicative act –

the addresser (the supplier of information, the speaker, the writer) and the addressee (the receiver of the information, the listener, the reader).

The individual style study puts particular emphasis on the study of an individual author’s style, it looks for correlations between the creative concepts of the author and the language of his works.

In terms of information theory the author’s stylistics may be termed as the stylistics of the encoder. In this case he tries to encode the information and the supplier of the information, the addresser as the encoder. His immediate task is to decode the information – to understand the message ad all the implications and the problems connected with the adequate reception of the message (without any informational losses or deformations, i.e. with adequate decoding - the concern of decoding stylistics.