英语文体学讲稿

Chapter one: Introduction to Stylistics（4hrs）Definition of stylistics:Stylistics is a special kind of subject, which applies the techniques and concepts of modern linguistics to the study of literary texts. And it is based upon the idea that the examination or analysis of the language of a literary text can be a means to a fuller understanding and appreciation of the writer’s artistic achievement.So stylistics studies language as it is used in literary texts, with the aim of relating it to the artistic functions of language use.Stylistics is based upon the idea that all artistic works have content and form, usually the content can decide the form, but the other way round, the form can have counter-effect upon the content. It is also true of literary works.This definition does not mean that the learning of stylistics demands a great deal of linguistic knowledge. In stead, it requires the learner to be familiar with some basic concepts and traditional terms in grammar, phonetics, and rhetoric. And of course, the learner should also be curious and make full use of an explicit understanding of language——not just language used in the given literary context.Stylistic study/analysisStylistics makes for a widening and deepening of the aesthetic taste.Leo Spitzer’s insistence is that the smallest detail of the used by in a particular literary text can unlock the soul of a literary work.That is, by noticing the smallest detail, the reader can understand and explain how a particular effect or meaning is achieved. Then the reader is more likely to appreciate the creation of the writer’s.Leo Spitzer: the only way to get out of the state of un-productivity is to read and reread.Summing up:Any stylistic study of a literary text starts from some curiosity or the curious noticing of some details or some special features of a particular case of language use, or such uses in a literary text. For in both linguistic and literary spheres, much rests on the intuition and personal judgment for which a system, however good, is an aid rather then a substitute. So interest and curiosity is the mother of stylistic discovery. And the method of getting some interest or insight is to read and reread the text you are going to analyze.It goes through the linguistic analysis of these details and comes to the realization of the special effects realized thereby.The relation between stylistics and linguisticsLanguage plays the role of conceptualization and communication of meaning.1. Both st ylistics and linguistics are subjects that take language as their object ofstudy. They differ only in that the linguistics aims at the general and abstract aspects of language, ie. langue, while stylistics aims at the particular cases of language use, ie. speech/parole, together with special effect realized thereby.2. Stylistics is the application of linguistics to the study of literature.Stylists are interested in the details of the language used by certain writers in a certain text, and they look through these details to its significance.3. One of the major concerns of stylistics is to check or validate intuitions by detailedanalysis, but it is also a dialogue between a literary reader and a linguistic observer, and the goal of this dialogue is insight rather than objectivity.Linguistic analysis does not replace reader’s intuition, more importantly, it can prompt, direct, and shape it into an understanding.4. Stylistics builds on linguistics, and in return, it also challenges our linguisticframework, it always opens our eyes to the new horizons of our understanding of language and language use.The relation in between is a dialectical one.Different definitions of style:1. The most traditional definition of style is that style is a writer’s way/manner ofwriting or his mode of expression. This is a kind of dualist view about language based upon the belief that concerning language use there can be two aspects, namely, the content and the form. And some hold that style itself is part of the meaning or a component of the content of a form.2. Style as the dress of thought. This definition implies that style refers to the waysaying what one has to say.True wit is nature to advantage dressed,What oft was thought but n’er so well expressed.3. Style is manner of expression or manner of writing. So here in this definition,speech act is treated as the same as other common kinds of acts, the personal way of behaving forms the style of the person in question.4. Right word in the right place make a good style.Sum-up:1.Style is a way in which language is used, so it is related to parole rather thanlangue.2.Style consists in choices made from the repertoire of the language.3.Stylistic choice is limited to those aspects of linguistic choice which concernalternative ways of saying the same thing or of rendering the same subject matter.4. A style is defined in terms of a domain of language （what person said what inwhat place, what linguistic context, what manner, and for what purpose）.5.Stylistics has been typically concerned with literary language.6.Literary stylistics is typically concerned with explaining the relation between styleand literary or aesthetic functions.StylisticsLecture Two: Introduction to Stylistics（continued）Leech defines stylistics as the study of the use of language in literature and considers it as the meeting ground of linguistics and the study of literature. So stylistics straddles two disciplines: linguistics and literary criticism.Stylistics is an interdisciplinary subject. It is a study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation, that is, form a linguistic point of view. Therefore, it differs from linguistics and literary criticism in that it essentially links these two. In other words, it is an interdisciplinary subject.The start of this interdisciplinary subject:It is hard to determine when it became an academic field of study. But one thing is sure, that is, it did not achieve significant development as an independent subject until the late 1950’s. Now it has become a firmly established subject, which is supposed to provide useful insights into literary criticism and the teaching of literature.The basis on which stylistics has developed is English rhetoric, which can be traced back to Aristotle’s time.There have been three movements that promoted the development stylistics:1.Modernist movement in art and literature, which lasted from 1890 to World War II.This movement is characterized by its break away fro the tradition. This break away lifted all restraints upon the content and language used in art and literature.This led to the tolerance, acceptance, and appreciation of the different kinds of language that appear in literature and art.2.Another revolution occurred in the field of literary criticism, which had aprofound radical influence upon stylistics. The most important proponent of this revolution is I. A. Richards, who was dissatisfied with the criticism of his age for in his opinion the critics of his time had given too much attention to the moral aspect of literature, and he suggested that a more objective approach should be taken towards literary criticism. He based his approach upon close reading of the literary text and linguistic analysis of the language of the text.3.The third revolution that had helped the emergence of stylistics is the one thattook place in the science of linguistics in the late 1950’s. This revolution was initiated by the work of Noam Chomsky and Michael Halliday whose thoughts were directly or indirectly influenced by the linguistic theory of F. De Sassure.And generally speaking, the development in the domain of linguistics provided the stylisticians/stylists with effective and new tools for analyzing the language in use in both literature and other types of discourse.So the modernist movement aesthetically prepared the public or society for receiving and ushering in a new kind of literary criticism——stylistics.The neo-criticism directly enhanced the development of this new subject advocating objective analysis of the language of a literary text as the basis of literary criticism. The development of linguistics in the 1950’s supplied literary critics with the necessary and effective tools for investigating the language use in literary texts. So these three movements actually provided everything necessary for the appearance of this new subject.Two important assumptions of stylistics1.One important assumption of stylistics is that literature is made of language. It isan art of language. Now that literature is made of language, linguistics, which is the scientific study of language, is naturally helpful to us in analyzing and interpreting literary text.2.The second assumption is that literature is a type of communicative discourse.This assumption is just as important and basic as the first one. This assumption implies that, as Widdowson explicitly stated, a piece of language use, literary or otherwise, is invariably a piece of communication, a discourse of one kind or another. This assumption requires that one should understand the linguistic features of a literary text as occurring not randomly but rather with some meaning in it. These features are determined and also should be interpreted in reference to the context in which the communication occurs. This assumption extends the scope of the linguistic study of the language used in a literary text fro intra-sentential study to inter-sentential study.The first assumption justifies the necessity of the linguistic analysis of the literary text in the study of a literary work, while the second assumption puts the analysis of the language of the literary text in connection with context——both linguistic and social context.The goals, components, and procedure of stylistic inquiryGoalsThe first goal of stylistics is to help readers understand a literary text better. In other words, it provides insights into the meaning of the text.The second goal is to explain why and how one text is better than another one. That is to say that it is with interpretation that stylistics is more directly concerned.ComponentsDescription +interpretation +evaluationThe most important thing is to remember there is actually no rigid and fixed procedure of stylistic analysis of literary work. Linguistic observation and literary insight proceeds from each other and enhances each other and they form a cyclic motion.Procedure: Analytic phase +interpretative phaseThe nature of stylistic analysisGenerally, the stylistic analysis is mainly concerned with the uniqueness of the language use in a literary text. That is, to show what is peculiar to the language in a literary text. This is determined by the nature of style itself. This naturally involves comparison between the language used in the literary text under investigation and the language used in a conventional way.So essentially speaking, stylistic study is essentially comparative in nature.Lecture Two: Three Views of StyleWe have seen the definition of stylistics and some definitions of style.Next we will see some most influential and representative views of style.Text book p11Style as form. （Aristotle）（form and content ）Style as eloquence.（Cicero）（skill to use L persuasively）（the relation with rhetoric）Style is the man. （Buffon）（L use is using it in discourse）Style as personal idiosyncrasy.（Murry）Saying the right thing in the most effective way.（Enkvist）Style as the choice between alternatve expressions. （Ibid）Style as equivalence. （Roman Jacobson）（between form and function）Style as foregrounding. （Leech Mukarovsky）Style as deviation.（Mukarovsky & Spitzer）Style as prominence.（Halliday）Style as the selections features partly determined by the demands of genre, form, themes, etc. （Traugott & Pratt）Style as linguistic features that communicate emotions and thought.（Enkvist）When writers write, they will naturaly try to make their language difffernt from the others’, so as to attract the attention of the readers and also to ensure and secure an independent existence. Or to stand out from the multitude of men of letters. Or just a special position for his writing. And that is to depart from the normal way of expression in a certain sense.Style as deviance.This view of stylistics comes from Widdowson’s remark of style holding that stylistic analysis has no fixed procedure and the technique of doing this kind of analysis is to pick on features in the text which appear to first impressions as unusual or striking in some way and then explore their ramifications. This remark implies that only those unusual or striking features are stylistically relevant. And the implied assumption is that the literary aesthetic effects can only be achieved through deviance. Though some stylisticians hold different views.It leads to such an assumption as that the distinctiveness of a literary text lies in its departure from the characteristics of what is communicatively normal. It also gives birth to the approach to style as deviance from the norms of a given language.Mukarovsky is another famous proponent and founder of this view of style. In his famous article Standard Language and Poetic Language, he speaks of style as foregrounding.He asserts that the violation of the norm of standard, especially, its systematic violation, is what makes possible the poetic utilization of language; without this possibility there would be no poetry. According to Mukarovsky normal use of language “automatizes”language to such an extent that the users no longer see its expressive or aesthetic power; poetry must de-automatize or foreground language by breaking the rules of everyday language. P13Such as the expression “a grief ago”“a presidency ago”“Mr. Smarter”“Mr. Bumble””The advantage of this approach to style is that it helps us keep in mind the there is a difference between everyday language and the language of literature.The disadvantages are that:a.It is difficult to define the norm from which the style of a text deviates.Bloch considers the basis of norm to e statistical, that is, to determinestyle by counting or resorting to the frequency distributions of linguisticfeatures as they differ from that of the language as a whole.b.It tends to lead the readers and stylisticians to value only the language ofthe grammatically highly deviant authors and under value those authorsthat do not deviate or do not deviate so much from the norms of language.And generally speaking, it tends to lead underestimation of thenon-deviant language both within literature and without.Style as choice.Style results from a tendency of speaker or writer to consistently choose certain structures over others available in the language.The difference between L and style is that L is the sum total of the structuresavailable to the speaker, while style concerns the characteristic choices by a certain writer either consistently or in a given text or context.To say that style is choice of words is not the same thing as saying that it is always a conscious choice, though of course if the writer always chooses his word scrutinously the effect of his way of using L will be all the more obvious as a style. Then that is pick his way forward among words, and it is hard to imagine how much literary work can there be by now. The stock of literature of we human kind no doubt will be greatly diminished. But most, almost all poets, and some writers, and all writers at certain points in their writing do write that way, that is, they a kind of choose scrutinously and seem to pick their way forward among the forest of words.E.g. we Chinese posts have a tradition of refining words. 吟得一字安，捻断数茎须。