文体学复习材料汇总

Part 1 Stylistics: Definitions―Stylistics is a branch of linguistics which applies the theory and methodology of modern linguistics to the study of Style.―Simply defined, Stylistics is a discipline that studies the ways in which language is used: it is a discipline that studies the styles of language in use.‖―The stylistics we are discussing here is Modern Stylistics, a discipline that applies concepts and techniques of modern linguistics to the study of styles of language use.‖•General stylistics concentrates solely on the general features of various types of language use. It studies the stylistic features of the main varieties of language, covering the functional varieties from the dimension of fields of discourse (different social activities), formal vs informal varieties from the dimension of tenors of discourse (different addresser-addressee relationships), and the spoken vs written varieties from the dimension of modes of discourse (different mediums). •Meanwhile, general stylistics covers the various genres of literature (fiction, drama, poetry) in its study. But it focuses on the interpretation of the overall characteristics of respective genres, with selected extracts of literary texts as samples. Literary stylistics: concentrates solely on unique and overall linguistic features of the various genres of literature. （考点）Part 2: Views on Languagenguage as a social activity. Language is also a social phenomenon, or institution, whereby people communicate and interact with each other.2.The philosophical view of Language or A language is related to the actual occurrence of language in society –what are called language activities. All utterances (whether a word, a sentence, or several sentences) can be thought of as goal-directed actions. (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969) Such actions as carried out through language are Speech Acts. Social activities in which language (either spoken or written) plays an important role such as conversation, discussion, lecture, etc., are Speech Events.‖nguage is often compared to a Code, a system of signals or symbols used for sending a Message, a piece of information. In any act of verbal communication (both spoken and written, primarily spoken), language has been regarded as a system for translating meanings in the Addresser‘s (the speaker‘s / writer‘s) mind into sounds / letters, i.e., Encoding (meaning-to-sound/letter), or conversely, for translating sounds/letters into meanings in the Addressee‘s (the hear‘s / reader‘s mind, ie Decoding.(sound / letter-to-meaning), with lexis and grammar as the formal code mediating between meanin g and sound / letter.‖•―But we must keep in mind that, unlike other signaling codes, language code does not operate in a fixed way – it is open-ended in that it permits generation of new meanings and new forms (such as metaphorical meanings, and neologisms); ie it is in a way creatively extendible.‖―Text, then, is verbal communication (either spoken or written) seen as a message coded in a linear pattern of sound waves, or in a linear sequence of visible marks on paper.‖Part 3: Text―A text is any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that forms a unified whole. It may be the product of a single speaker/writer (e.g. a sign, a letter, a news report, a statute, a novel), or that of several speakers (e.g. a piece of conversation, a debate).‖•A text is realized by a sequence of language units, whether they are sentences or not. The connection among parts of a text is achieved by various cohesive devices, and by semantic andpragmatic implication.‖材料Examine the following conversation, find out whether linguistic units in it are overtly cohesive or not.A: See who that is. B: I‘m in pyjamas. A: OK.•Linguistic units in the conversation are not overtly cohesive. In this text, the relevance of B‘s remar k to A‘s first remark is conveyed by pragmatic implication. ―I‘m in pyjamas‖ implies an excuse for not complying with A‘s command (= ―No, I can‘t, because I‘m in pyjamas.‖) A‘s second remark implies that he accepts B‘s excuse and undertakes to do himself w hat he originally asked B to do (= OK. I‘ll go myself and see.‖ Texts are therefore recognized as appropriately coherent in actual use. A full understanding of a text is often impossible without reference to the context in which it occurs.Part 4: Aspects of the Speech Event•―Language is transmitted, patterned, and embedded in the human social experience. So it is both possible and useful to discern three crucial aspects of a speech event: the substantial, the formal, and the situational.‖•Contextual factors that are socially, regionally or situa-tionally relevant to the production and interpretation of texts fall into the two following categories:1) Characteristics of the User of language: a. Age; b. Sex; c. Socio-regional or ethnic background; d. Education2) Characteristics of the Use of language in situation: a. Medium of communication – speech or writing; b. Setting – private or public; c. Role-relationship between addresser and addressee – the degree of intimacy; the degree of social distance; d. Purpose for which language is used, e.g. to inform, to command, to express feelings, to establish social relations, etc.; e. Subject matter (of limited stylistic significance.•Practice 4. Analyze the following conversation(Jenny comes to Alan‘s house. She is conducting a survey for the government.)Alan: Won‘t you come in, Miss-er-.Jenny: Cartwright, Jenny Cartwright.Alan: I‘m Alan Marlow. (Alan shows Jenny into the living room.)Alan: Oh won‘t you make yourself comfortable, Jenny?(After some minutes of talk, which is omitted here)Jenny: Mr. Marlow … Alan: Call me Alan. (The Marlows, Episode 11)The context shows clearly that Alan and Jenny are total strangers. The conven-tional address form between strangers is Title + Sur-name (Mr./Miss So-and-so). But Alan addresses the girl by her first name and later asks her to do the same. His adoption of first-naming is an example of the manipulation of language. It is a move towards a friendlier relationship, indicating that Alan does not want their encounter to be formal and distant, as it is customary between strangers. In contrast, Jenny chooses to remain formal and distant by addressing Alan as ―Mr. Marlow‖.Part 5: Language varieties and function1.影响文体变化的因素多种多样，主要可以归为三个方面：第一方面是讲话内容(field of discourse)，第二是讲话方式(mode of discourse), 第三是讲话人和听话人的地位关系(tenor of discourse)2.The Ideational / Referential function serves for expressing the speaker‘s/writer‘s experience of thereal world, including the inner world of his/her own consciousness.The Interpersonal or Expressive/Social function serves to establish and maintain social relations, for the expression of social roles, and also for getting things done by means of interaction between one person and another.The Textual function provides means for making links within the text itself and with features of its immediate situation.Part 6: StyleDefinition:*Style may refer to a person‘s distinctive language habits, or the set of individual characteristics of language use.*Style may refer to a set of collective characteristics of language use.To be exact, we shall regard Style as the language habits of a person or group of persons in a given situation.Part 8: The Concern of Stylistic Study•Stylistics: It is a discipline that studies the sum of stylistic features characteristic of the different varieties of language.•Stylistic study concerns itself with the situational features that influence variations in language use, the criterion for the classification of language variety, and the description and interpretation of the linguistic features and functions of the main varieties (both literary and non-literary) of a language – here, of the Modern English language.*The Need for Stylistic Study1) Style is an integral part of meaning.Practice 5. Analyze the following text.Policeman: What‘s your name, boy?Black psychiatrist: Dr. Poussiant. I‘m a physician.Policeman: What‘s your first name, boy?Black psychiatrist: Alvin.•The word ‗boy‘ may be used to address a male inferior. In above conversation, the form is used to address a physician, who is usually accorded high respect in the US and is addressed as ‗Dr. So-and-so‘ (Title + Surname). Insistently using the form ‗boy‘, the white policeman shows his racist contempt of and prejudice against the black people.2) Stylistics may help us to acquire a ‗sense of style‘.3) Stylistics prepares the way to the intrinsic study of literature.Session 5 Varieties of Language5.1 Two kinds of varieties: Dialectal varieties, Diatypic varieties (语言变体或语域) DIALECTAL VARIETIES, commonly called DIALECTs, are language varieties that areassociated with different users of the language. As users in a society can be defined in terms of their individual, temporal, regional, and social affiliations, and their range of intelligibility, there are individual, temporal, regional, social and standard varieties respectively. These are relatively permanent features of the language user in a speech event.DIATYPIC VARIETIES, commonly called REGISTERs, are language variations that are associated with the different use to which they are put. Such varieties do not depend on the peoplewho use the language, but on the occasion when it is used. Different types of language are selected as appropriate to different types of occasion. The choice is determined by the convention that a certain kind of language is appropriate to a certain use. The occasions can be classified along three dimensions, each presenting an aspect of the situation and the part played by the language in them. In this way, registers may be distinguished according to field of discourse, mode of discourse and tenor of discourse.⏹Temporal Dialect: A variety which correlates with the various periods of the development of language.⏹Social Dialect: A variety associated with certain social group.1) Socioeconomic status varieties 2) Ethnic varieties3) Gender varieties 4) Age varieties 5) Standard Dialect⏹5.3 Registers语域1) Field of Discourse语场is the linguistic reflection of the purposive role of the language user, --the type of social activity the language user is engaged in doing in the situation in which the text has occurred.a. Some roles are non-specialist in nature and relate to non-specialist fields such as 'establishing personal contact' or 'phatic communion'. They are likely to have related topics: weather, health, news, etc.b. Field of discourse can be more or less restricted in language.c. The language of legal documents and the language of religious observance are also highly situation-tied.d. Technical fields have their own special vocabulary and favorite grammatical patterns.e. More radical grammatical differences are found in the language of legal documents.2) Mode of Discourse 语式is the linguistic reflection of the relationship that the language user has to the medium of communication.3) Tenor of Discourse 语旨is the linguistic reflection of the personal relationships between speaker/writer and hearer/reader—called personal tenor, and of what the user is trying to do with language for/to his or her addressee (s) -- called functional tenor.*Personal tenor is concerned with the degrees of formality of the language used.*Functional tenor is concerned with the intention of the user in using the language.4) The Notion of RegisterThe concurrence of instances of contextual categories: field, mode, tenors of discourse-produces text varieties called registers, which can be defined in terms of phonological, lexical, and grammatical features.Registers are distinctive varieties of language used in different types of situation.⏹5.5 The Social Meaning of Language Varietiesl) the period of development of the language in which the speaker/ writer spoke or wrote it (temporal dialect);2) the geographical area he or she is from (regional dialect);3) the social group he or she belongs to (social dialect);4) the range of intelligibility of his or her language (standard or non-standard dialect);5) the activity he or she is engaged in (field);6) the medium he or she is using (mode);7) the social relationship existing between him or her and his or her addressee (s) (personal tenor);8) the intention in his or her mind in conveying the message (functional tenor);9) the distinctive language habits he or she has shown (idiolect).Session 6 Linguistic Description* The level of lexis and grammar1) Morphology and syntaxGrammar studies the sentence structures in a language, and the way they function in sequences. Traditionally, grammar consists of two parts: morphology (the internal structure of words and word-formation rules) and syntax (external relationships of words in a sentence).2) Lexicology studies the choice of specific lexical items in a text, their distribution in relation to one another, and their meanings.* The levels of semanticsSemantics (here) studies the overall meaning of a text, the meaning derived not from the formal properties of words and structures but from the way sentences / utterances are used and the way they are related to the context in which they are used / uttered.6.4 Procedure of linguistic description1) Work systematically through the text and note down points we feel of some stylistic significance respectively under the various headings.2) Quantify the frequency of a linguistic feature.3) Assess the importance of stylistic features.4) Make statements about the overall linguistic picture of the text in question, bringing together diverse features to show how they form a coherent, integrated pattern, and making judgments about or interpreting the significance of such patterns in relation to the context of the text as a whole.Session 9 Formal vs Informal Language9.3 Functional tenor and degrees of formality1.Functional tenor tells us the addresser‘s intention of using the langua ge.2.Certain functional tenors can hit any point on the personal tenor formality continuum.*an expository speech: formal, with many passive constructions and a technical vocabulary; or, informal, in an ad-lib manner, with personal anecdotes, reference to the audience.*an insult: formal (formal structure and vocabulary, calm or deliberate delivery) or informal. 9.4 Martin Joos‘ classification(Martin Joos, 1967) The range of formality:frozen, formal, consultative, casual, and intimate.⏹The frozen level: In Joos' analysis, the frozen level is used for written legal documents or highly solemn speech which consists of memorized sentences that must be repeated verbatim. These might include quotations from proverbs or ritual expressions which are part of a formal ceremony.⏹The formal level is used for public addresses such as lectures or speeches where the audience is not known to the speaker personally or where personal acquaintance is not acknowledged. This level requires much attention to form (with well-planned thematic structure and phonological, lexical and syntactical coherence), and allows little or no interaction. It is typically marked with the use of may place of might , can (in 'May I present Mr Smith ?'). The speaker is usually considered to be an authority and, therefore, has higher status than the hearers for that particular event.⏹The consultative level is used at less formal gatherings such as committee meetings where status is still fairly clearly designated, but where participants interact. There is still considerable attention to form (with rather clear pronunciation, accurate wording and complete sentences), andparticipants may not know each other well. It may be necessary for speakers to elaborate and givea significant amount of background material.⏹In contrast, the casual level is used among friends, or peers who know each other well enough that little elaboration is necessary. Participants pay very little attention to form (shown by the use of slang and ellipsis as in 'Been a good thing if...') and concentrate totally on content and relationship. One of the markers of this level is the use of 'Come on' with the implication 'Consider yourself among friends'.⏹The final level identified by Joos is 'intimate', language used between people who see each other daily (family members for instance) and share the majority of their daily life experiences. As a result, language is unelaborated and conversation may be meaningless to outsiders because of its telegraphic quality. No attention is paid to form.e.g.1) My beloved parent has just passed to his heavenly reward.2) My dear father has just expired.3) My father has just passed away.4) My dad has died.5) My old man just kicked the bucket. --- by Martin Joos⏹Joos' categories present an efficient way of looking at degrees of formality. It is fairly easy to distinguish the frozen style of (written) legal documents with their Latinate diction and impersonal syntax, from the intimate style of (spoken) interchanges between close friends, with their slang and elliptical syntax. But it is not easy to categorize the intervening degrees, or relate them to linguistic features. So most linguists agree that the situation is more complex than Joos imagined and see the range as a continuum from the most formal to the most Situation and Formality informal/intimate, with an infinite number of stopping places in between.Session 10 Spoken vs Written Language10.1 Striking differences1) Hearer/Reader involvement.*Generally most speeches assume the presence of the hearer*Non-verbal signals like facial expressions of incomprehension or boredom, feedback in the way of laughter, applause and even booing (feedback from audience attening a lecture and the like).* A written text normally presumes the absence of the reader, and direct feedback from the reader is not possible.2) Linguistic explicitness*In speech, the participants rely heavily on their common background knowledge and the immediate context for much of their information.*The immediate context can eliminate the ambiguity or dark information carried by implicit linguistic structures, bring some words with concrete referents, and recrysta-lize the denotations of some otherwise abstract words.*Writing, generally, does not rely on the immediate context for understanding. Nor can the writer normally hope that his /her readers share with him/her much of the personal background knowledge needed for the understanding of the written text. On the contrary he/she must give great explicitness to whatever he/she is trying to say on paper.3) Preparedness*Writing is on the whole more ‗careful‘ than speaking.*Permanent record, a clear idea about the subject matter and logical arrangement of thought, compact and self-contained.*Speech, esp. conversation, is often spontaneous. Random shift of topic, a general lack of conscious planning, features of hesitation, slips of the tongue, overlapping or simultaneous speech.10.2 Stylistic differencesSpoken texts contrast with written texts in terms of grammatical, lexical and phonological/ graphological features.Gregory(19107):1) Distinctions amongst speechSpeech can be spontaneous (such as casual conversation) or non-spontaneous (as what actors and teachers are doing).*Within spontaneous speech, there is conversing (with the participation of others) versus monologuing (with no interruption from others). The latter kind of sustained spontaneous speech is found in classroom teaching, TV interviewing, radio commenting, and the talking between scholars.*Non-spontaneous speech can be sub-categorized as reciting (such as story telling, poem recitation and singing) and as the speaking of what is written. In literate cultures, most non-spontaneous speech is the speaking of what has been written.2) Distinctions amongst writingThe text that has been written may be written to be spoken as if not written, or written to be spoken, or even written not necessarily to be spoken.a) Texts written to be spoken as if not written such as the lines in a drama, sound like real speech. But they are speeches that have been planned and prepared, whereas ordinary speech is spontaneous; and their situations are more compact and self-contained than those of conversing and monologuing.b) Texts written to be spoken with no effort to conceal their written origin such as scripts for sermons, speeches, lectures, news bulletins and commentaries, can be really the reading of an article or essay but the hearer is not in the same situation as the reader where he/she can turn back a page to check his/her understanding. Hence their repeating of the main points in a slightly different way and their manipulation of prosodic and paralinguistic features for the spoken mode.c) Texts written not necessarily to be spoken with no relation to the spoken mode such as a telephone book or a dictionary may be described as written to be read.d) Texts written not necessarily to be spoken but with a relationship with the spoken mode such as dialogue in a novel, may be categorized as written to be read as speech (as if heard); and the interior monologue related to such texts may be categorized as written to be read as if thought (as if overheard).10.5 Mode, field, and tenors●The mode of discourse is primarily related to the textual function of language. Yet it has some relations with the ideational function of language by way of field of discourse: some fields such as legal statutes and dictionaries tend to occur in the written mode; some fields such as telephone conversation and spontaneous speech tend to occur in the spoken mode.●Mode also has relations with the interpersonal function of language by way of personal and functional tenors of discourse: the written texts tend to be formal and the spoken tend to be informal; the phatic function is common in the spoken as is the descriptive function in the written.。