Stylistic analysis

In linguistics the purpose of close analysis is to identify and classify the elements of language being used.

In literary studies the purpose is usually an adjunct to understanding and interpretation.

In both cases, an extremely detailed and scrupulous attention is paid to the text.

Stylistic analysis is a normal part of literary studies. It is practiced as a part of understanding the possible meanings in a text.

It is also generally assumed that the process of analysis will reveal the good qualities of the writing. Let’s take, for example, the opening lines of Shakespeare’s Richard III:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

A stylistic analysis might reveal the following points:

– the play is written in poetic blank verse

– that is – unrhymed, iambic pentameters

– the stresses fall as follows:

Now is the winter of our discontent

(notice that the stress falls on vowel sounds)

• the first line is built on a metaphor

• the condition of England is described in terms of the season ‘winter’

• the term ‘our’ is a form of the royal “we”

• the seasonal metaphor is extended into the second line

• …where better conditions become ‘summer’

• the metaphor is extended even further by the term ‘sun’

• it is the sun which appears, ‘causing’ the summer

• but ‘sun’ is here also a pun – on the term ‘son’

• …which refers to the son of the King

• ‘York’ is a metonymic reference to the Duke of York

In a complete analysis, the significance of these stylistic details would be related to the events of the play itself, and to Shakespeare’s presentation of them.

In some forms of stylistic analysis, the numerical recurrence of certain stylistic features is used to make judgements about the nature and the quality of the writing.

However, it is important to recognise that the concept of style is much broader than just the ‘good style’ of literary prose. For instance, even casual communication such as a manner of speaking or a personal letter might have an individual style. However, to give a detailed account of this style requires the same degree of linguistic analysis as literary texts.

Exercises:

Decide whether the following statements are true or false:

• Stylistic analysis of literary and non–literary texts has an identical outcome

• Stylistic features are elements of the text which we admire

• Analysing fiction spoils the reader’s pleasure

• Non–literary texts are easier to analyse than literary texts

• Stylistic analysis is a procedure by which we prove a hypothesis

• In stylistic analysis of non–literary texts, we look at phonology, graphology, vocabulary, grammar, and semantics

Classification of stylistic devices by g. Leech

The above mentioned expressive means and stylistic devices are based on Prof. Galperin’s classification.

A British scholar G. Leech in 1967 made his contribution into stylistic theory in the book “Essays on Style and Language” (2, p.45). His approach was an attempt to treat stylistic devices with reference to linguistic theory that would help to analyse the nature of stylistic function viewed as a result of deviation from the lexical and grammatical norm of the language.

According to his theory a linguist should approach literature with the degree of generality of statement about language. One of the types of generalization is implicit and would be appropriate in the case of language and dialect. The description of this sort would be composed of individual events of speaking, writing, hearing and reading. In this connection Leech maintains the importance of distinguishing two scales in the language: ‘register scale’ and ‘dialect scale’. ‘Register scale’ distinguishes spoken language from written language, the language of respect from that of arrogance, advertising from science, etc. The term covers linguistic activity within society. ‘Dialect scale’ differentiates language of people of different age, sex, social strata, geographical area or idiolect.

So, the literary work of any author must be studied with reference to both scales.

Leech points out that writers and poets use language marked by a number of deviant features. He builds his classification on the principle of distinction between the normal and deviant features in the language of literature.

Among deviant features he distinguishes paradigmatic and syntagmatic deviations. Linguistic units are connected syntagmatically when they combine sequentially in a linear linguistic form.

Paradigmatic figures give the author a choice from equivalent items, which are contrasted to the normal range of choices. For instance, the author’s choice of a noun may create a paradigmatic deviation in literary and poetic language:

Farmyards away, a grief ago, all sun long.

The contrast between deviation and norm may be accounted for by metaphor or, for instance, personification (the use of inanimate noun in a context appropriate to a personal noun).

e.g. As Connie has said, she handled just any other aeroplane, except that she had better manners than most. (Shute)

This sort of paradigmatic deviation Leech calls “unique deviation” – it comes as an unexpected and unpredictable choice that defies the norm. He compares it with what Prague school of linguistics called “foregrounding”.

Unlike paradigmatic figures based on the effect of gap in the expected choice of a linguistic form syntagmatic deviant features result from the opposite (the same kind of choice in the same place):

“Robert Rowley rolled a round roll round.”

Basically the difference drawn by Leech between syntagmatic and paradigmatic deviations comes down to the redundancy of choice in the first case and a gap in the predicted pattern in the second.