Lecture 1.1 General Problems of Style and Stylistics

The stylistic knowledge of any natural living language accumulates in itself the elements of knowledge of all the other branches of linguistics: phonetics, lexicology, grammar; and it crowns the general course, both theoretical and practical, of the above said language studies. One cannot apply the stylistic knowledge in practice before acquiring the knowledge of the so-called lower language levels – phonetics, word studies and grammar. In stylistics all the previous knowledge is interlinked, used together, and at times even corrected.

Stylistics is considered to be the most obscure branch among other branches of general linguistics. The terms style and stylistics originate from Latin stilus that is a stick once used to write on waxen plates. In Western linguistics the nomination stylistics is not widely used. The works on this scope of problems undertaken in the West are named figures of speech, or rhetoric, or rhetorical devices, etc. The term style is frequently perceived as a list of standard regulations which concern solely written speech and refer to punctuation, capitalization, orthography, abbreviations, compound words, numerals, etc. Thus, the terms style and especially stylistics denoting a definite branch of purely linguistic knowledge was introduced and is mainly used by Russian, former Soviet, linguists. At the same time this linguistic branch has already been recognised and accepted by Western scholars as well.

First, we should differentiate between the basic terms style and stylistics. Style is a broad notion, as it may be applied to architecture, literature, dress, manners, etc. The term style may also mean the learning of how to write clearly, correctly, and emphatically. Besides, it would be rightful to speak about an individual author’s style meaning by this term the peculiarities of a writer’s manner of using language means to achieve the desired effect. Proceeding from this we may say that stylistics can be defined as a special branch of a linguistic theory which deals with different stylistic means producing impression and causing a certain impact upon the reader or listener. The true mechanism of the above said means should not be evident and is normally hidden. Thus, when referring to the speaker, style is the controlled choice of linguistic means, whereas when referring to the reader or listener, style is the variation of conformation of possible expectations that is the observation and parallel interpretation of linguistic specifics.

We should further differentiate between linguistic stylistics and literary stylistics, whose objects of investigation are different.

Thus, for linguistic stylistics these are:

a) styles of the literary language, their development and establishment;

b) the psycholinguistic nature of various stylistic devices: metaphors, epithets, irony, etc.;

c) two basic manifestations of language: spoken or oral, or colloquial and written or bookish, as well as their interrelations.

For literary stylistics such objects are:

a) the author’s individual outlook;

b) the well-known literary trends such as classicism, romanticism, realism, etc.;

c) genres of literary works such as fable, novel, play, etc.;

d) composition of literary works.

As stylistics is a sister-science of linguistics, though not concerned with the elements of language but with the expressive potentiality of such elements, then it should have the same basic subdivision as general linguistics. So stylistic analysis should and can be carried out upon the following principal levels of linguistics which are: phonological, lexical and syntactical levels. Here we approach the problem of interconnections between stylistics and the above mentioned branches of linguistics:

1) stylistics and phonetics > there is a special branch named the stylistics of sounds, or phonostylistics, which shows how separate sounds, sound combinations, stress, rhythm, intonation, etc. can serve as expressive means;

2) stylistics and lexicology > lexicological studies embrace the words and the vocabulary. But words do not only have denotational meanings, they have connotations as well and are able to express the speaker’s personal attitude, negative or positive, or evaluation of the object in his speech, so this emotional and/or evaluative connotation is the realm of stylistics, lexicological stylistics studies the principles of the usage of words and word combinations performing their expressive functions;

3) stylistics and grammar > stylistics treats grammatical phenomena as expressive means, which add specific colouring to the utterance;

4) syntactical stylistics > the expressive values of the sentences, their structure as well as texts and speech flow.

On the other hand, it should be realised that the whole theory of style can be divided into two large, yet unequal sections:

a) expressive stylistics > the theory of stylistic devices, or expressology;

b) functional stylistics > the theory of how such devices are embodied in utterances forming different styles – those of scientific prose, official documents, publicistic speeches, newspaper articles, fiction.

This subdivision is commonly accepted in the Russian linguistics.

In general, the stylistic theory in its present way is rather a young system of knowledge which was realised and developed since the middle of the 20^th century. At the same time the origin of modern stylistics may be traced back to the antique times. Its beginning is associated with the names of such authors of Ancient Greece and Rome as Aristotle, Quintilian and others. The problem of expressive means then named schemata or figures of speech was elaborated in detail in ancient times and served the practical needs of rhetoric. That problem was given further attention in Medieval Times and the Renaissance. Out of the newest times scholars’ contribution into stylistics was made by such foreign researchers as Antoine Meillett (France), J.M. Murrey, F.L. Lucas (Great Britain), Samour Chatman, Richard Lanham (USA) and others. The best-known Russian scholars of the post-war period concerned with the English stylistics are I.R. Galperin, I.V. Arnold, Yu.M. Skrebnev, etc. Russian stylistics was studied by prof. M.N. Kozhina, prof. Th.G. Khazagerov and others.

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