Discourse Analysis in Stylistics and Literature Instruction

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Annua l Review of Applied Linguistics

(1990) 11, 181-195. Printed in the USA.

Copyright © 1991 Ca mbrid ge University Press 0267-1905/91 $5.00 + .00

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN STYLISTICS AND LITERATURE INSTRUCTION

Mick Short

INTRODUCTION

The terms

discourse analysis

an d

stylistic analysis

mean different things to

different peo ple. Mo st narrowly defined, discourse analysis has only to do with the

structure of spoken discourse. Such a definition separates discourse analysis from

literary stylistics and pragmatics—the study of how people understand language in

context. At the other end of the spectrum, discourse analysis can be carried out on

spoken and written texts, and can include matters like textual coherence and cohesion,

and the inferencing of meaning by readers or listeners. In this case, it includes

pragmatics and much of stylistics within its bou nds. Similarly, stylistics can apply just

to literary texts or not, and be restricted to the study of style or, on the other hand,

include the study of mean ing. For the purposes of this review, relatively w ide

definitions of both areas have been assumed in order to make what follows reasonably

comprehensive. The main restriction assum ed is that the works discussed will be

relevant to the examination of literature in some w ay. The section on literature

instruction will include matters relevant to both native and non-native learners of

English, and will also make reference to the integration of literary and language study.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN STYLISTICS

Perhaps the clearest examples of extended attempts to apply a particular

method of discourse analysis to literature are Burton (1980) and Korpimies

(1983). Both of these studies build on Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), which was

developed originally to account for interactional patterns in classroom language. The

Birmingham model is a relatively static, taxonomic model, which analyzes conversa-

tional

exchanges

as consisting of initiating

moves

(broken down into

acts

reminiscent

of, but not exactly the same as, Searle's speech acts). Exchanges themselves are

sub-units of higher level units, and so on. Burton and Korpimies both use the model,

with modifications, on dramatic texts. Burton discusses

The bald prima donna

by

Ionesco and

The dumb waiter

by Pinter. Korpim ies concentrates on Pinter's

The

181



182 MICK SHORT

birthday party.

Both Burton and Korpimies find the need to redefine and invent

categories in order to account properly for their data, and this is one continual

disadvantage of the Birmingham m odel. How ever, this kind of approach does allow

one to describe patterns of interactional exchange; the approach can then be used to

show changes in the kind of interaction taking place, and the interactional traits of

different characters in terms of, for example, the kinds of speech acts used, tendencies

to take up the initiating or responding part in the dialogue, and so on.

Similar kinds of analysis using speech acts, sometimes in conjunction with

Labov's event analysis and the more flexible turn-taking descriptions of Sacks and

Schegloff and others, have also been used (e.g., Coulthard 1977, Fowler 1986, Downes

1988,

Austin 1989). Not surprisingly, descriptions developed to account for

conversational exchanges have tended to have their first applications on dramatic

dialogue. Bu t work on the other literary genres is also beginning to appear. Fow ler

(1986) and Leech and Short (1981) have commented on the novel, and Carter (1989),

Herman (1989), and Hoey (1989) all examine poetic texts.

The last three citations all refer to articles in Carter and Simpson (1989), one

of a group of recent volumes of papers concentrating partly or entirely on discourse

approaches to literature. Other significant collections in this area include van Dijk

(1985), Hickey (1989), van Peer (1988), van Peer and Renkema (1984), and Sell

(1990a). There is not space to describe each of these volumes in detail, and single

papers often undertake a number of different kinds of analysis, but some general trends

can be discerned. Th e Birmingham approach is continued by the work of Nash

(1989a) and Toolan (1989 ). La bo v's work on the structure of oral narratives is used in

Carter (1984) and also in Simpson (1988 ). La bo v's approach has parallels with a well

established approach to the study of narrative structure emanating from the work of

Propp (1968) and anthropologists such as Levi-Strauss. Maranda (1985) and Pavel

(1985) continue this tradition, and Longacre (1985) carries on another parallel strand,

that of macrostructure/microstructure analysis, associated principally with van Dijk and

his followers (cited elsewhere in this volume). Fleischman (1990) is a stimulating and

scholarly attempt to explain tense variation in narrative texts from medieval to modern

times using a wide range of discourse-analytical approaches, including Labov's work

on oral narratives, pragmatic accounts of meaning (see below), and Halliday and

Ha san 's (1989) work on textual cohesion. To olan 's (1988) book on narrative also

examines point of view, along with other aspects of narrative, including a Proppian

account of plot.

The methodologies discussed in the previous paragraph center on issues of

textual structure. But analysts interested in literature have also wanted to examine

discourse approaches that contribute more directly to the study of textual meaning.

Beginning with Pratt (1977), there has been some take-up of the Gricean approach in

pragmatics; this approach examines how a hearer infers intended meanings, distinct

from the meaning of the sentences uttered, on the basis of an assumed cooperative

principle in conversation and a series of related maxims of conversational behavior.

More recently, Grice's approach has been used in Downes (1988), Fowler (1986),

Herman (1986), Leech and Short (1981), Noguchi (1984), and Short (1989a). Sperber



DISCOURSE ANALY SIS IN STYLISTICS AND LITERATURE INSTRUCTION 183

and Wilson's (1986) relevance theory model builds on and challenges Grice, and

claims to account for metaphor and irony, two notions at the heart of much literary

debate. Further attempts to elucidate these and other literary concepts include Furlong

(1989), Pilkington (1989; 1990), and Wilson and Sperber (1989). This use of Gricean

and neo-Gricean approaches is likely to grow in the future, and Searle's work on direct

and indirect speech acts is so endemic throughout recent collections that there is little

point in singling out particular articles which use Searle. York (198 6) uses pragmatic

theory, particularly speech acts, presupposition, and conversational implicature to

discuss, necessarily somewhat superficially, the interactive aspects of a range of

modern European poets. Nash (1985) provid es an account of com ic discourse which

makes reference to discoursal and pragmatic concepts in its explanation.

It can be seen from the above account that the take-up of particular discourse

approaches in stylistics tends to lag a few years behind their discussion in linguistics.

As a consequence, stylisticians often use somewhat old-fashioned and simplified

accounts of discourse approaches. For example, work using speech acts rarely takes

account of the now well-established fact that utterances are usually multi-valent in

speech act terms. This aspect of speech-act analysis is likely to receive more attention

in the future, as will, given the conflictual nature of much fictional dialogue, the more

recent criticisms of the Gricean approach that focus on the way in which the

cooperative principle ignores non-cooperative data.

It is likely that, in the future, work in politeness theory will gain more

currency. Like the work of Grice and Searle, politeness theory can be used to help

explain how unstated meanings get into texts and how we infer character relations.

Simpson (1989) and Wadman (1983) use politeness theory to discuss poems by George

Herbert and Ionesco's

The lesson

respectively, and Sell (1990b) examines politeness in

literature as a general phen om enon. Leech (1983) uses Grice in conjunction with

Leech's own version of politeness theory in an account of Johnson's "Celebrated

Letter" to Lord Chesterfield, and a forthcoming article will use a similar approach to

characterization in Shaw's

You never can tell.

Some discourse analysts use fiction as one of their sources of illustrative data

(e.g., Thomas 1989; forthcoming). Tannen (1989) explicitly discusses literature in her

interesting account of repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversation. Given the

connection between her approach and various extant aspects of literary stylistics, it is

likely that her work will be taken up in the future by linguistic analysts of literature.

As yet, there has been relatively little use of schema theory in the discussion

of literary understanding, but given its role in explaining understanding by examining

assumptions brought to texts in interaction with the texts themselves, this is likely to

be a future grow th area. Be aug rand e's work in schema theory is already well kno wn ,

and Beau grande (198 7) discusses schemas for literary interpretation. Cook (199 0) also

uses schema theory, suggesting a connection with foregrounding theory in an

interesting, though highly debatable, claim that literary texts are "schema refreshing"

whereas non-literary texts like advertisements are merely "schema reinforcing."



184 MICK SHORT

Schema theory in particular, but also the inferential approaches of Grice and

others, presuppose a psychological account of what happens in the process of under-

standing. Psychological approach es to reading are evident in Halasz (1987) and van

Pe er's (1986) important work on foregrounding theory. Psychological approaches to

textual understanding have also resulted in mo re experimental, often informant-based,

empirical approaches. Van Peer (1986) and Halasz (1987) make contributions in this

area, as do Alderson and Sho rt (1989) and Short and van Peer (1989 ). The re is a

particularly strong tradition of empirical work on literary understanding in continental

Europe, as evidenced by the work of Schmidt and his followers (e.g., Schmidt 1982

and various contributions over the last few years to the journal

Poetics

and Steen

(1989). Kintgen (1983) is a book-length discussion of stud ents' protocol responses to

poetry which raises many interesting questions but has serious methodological flaws.

(See, for example, Carter's [1985] review.)

A recent growth area in British and Australian linguistics has been the area of

so-called critical linguistics, associated with the work of Fowler,

et al.

(1979),

Fairclough (198 9a), and others. This rapidly developing school uses linguistic analysis

to uncover hidden assumptions and ideological positions in texts, and thus has some

parallels with deconstructionist accounts of literature. M ost of the propon ents have

left-wing political views and use their accounts as a way of laying bare ideological

assumptions behind right-wing political speeches and docu men ts. Fairclough (1989b)

has recently coined the term critical discourse analysis for much of this work in order

to capture its avow edly text and discourse approach. Fo wle r's (1986) introduction to

linguistic criticism explicitly takes this approach into the field of literature, and Birch

(1989) and W eber (1989) continue the tradition. Although the work of this school is

undoubtedly stimulating, challenging assumptions about the avowed purpose of

particular discourses, it often tends to assume an automatic agreement with a left-wing

socio-political viewpoint; and it is perhaps surprising that analysts with more right-

wing political views have not used this approach on texts about which they feel

critical.

Critical linguists and discourse analysts often associate their work with the

linguist M . A. K. Halliday and the Russian linguistic critic M. M. Bakhtin. A

recurring theme that links the works of these two influential figures is the way in

which language varies from one person and situation to another, and the way in which

(what might at first sight look like) one kind of language regularly contains more than

one, varieties that are often at odds with one another. Specifically literary e xplorations

of language variety in literature can be seen in the contributions by Wales (1988),

Geyer-R yan (19 88), and Fowler (1989 ). Recen t explicitly Hallidayan, bu t rather

unexciting, introductions to stylistics are Cummins and Simmons (1983) and Haynes

(1989).

Hasan (1989) is also Hallidayan in orientation. Chapm an (1989) exam ines the

pragmatic use of dialect in Hardy's

The mayor of Casterbridge.

OTHER RECENT WORK IN STYLISTICS

The works discussed so far have in some reasonably explicit way taken the

findings of discourse analysis from linguistics and applied them to the study of



DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN STYLISTICS AND LITERATURE INSTRUCTION 185

literature. But, as noted in the introduction, most work in stylistics could be called

discourse analysis in the sense that it analyzes texts and deals with textual under-

standing. Toolan (1990 ), for exam ple, uses stylistic analysis in a critical account of

William Faulkner's

Go down Moses,

including a chapter, "monologue and dialogue,"

which looks at how discourse analysis and pragmatics can be used in accounting for

the novel. A volum e from the stylistics 'sta ble ' which tries to span the literary/

non-literary divide is Nash (1989b), a modern treatise on the persuasive art of rheto-

ric. Mo re disappointing, though an honest reflection of the conference it represen ts, is

Fabb,

et

a/.'s (1987) collection of papers from the 'Linguistics of Writing' conference

held in Glasgow in 1986. Billed as the 25th anniversary conference of the Indiana

"Conference on Style," which included Jakobson's (1960) famous article on linguistics

and poetics, this conference claimed to provide the impetus for language and literary

studies for the next quarter century. By and large, how ever, the proceed ings vo lume

consists of papers re-stating well-known positions and presents very little genuine

dialogue between the linguists and the literary critics.

Extending a systematic text analysis approach, Hasan (1989) claims a central

position for language analysis in verbal art. Assum ing that there is no such thing as a

special language of literature, she begins by examining stylistic features in nursery

rhymes to show how such rhymes are used to make young children aware of verbal

art, and goes on to employ similar forms of analysis on a poem and a short story. An

extremely useful handbook for someone trying to cope with the intersection of literary

and linguistic studies, including discourse analysis and pragmatics, is Wales' (1989)

dictionary of stylistics.

LITERATURE PEDAGOGY

While there is a considerable volume of material and texts compiled for the

purpose of teaching literature, much of it is fairly traditional in outlook. In order to

situate the role of discourse analysis and stylistics in the teaching of literature, two

introductory remarks will be helpful:

1. Very few work s devoted to literature teaching make explicit use of work in

discourse analysis and pragmatics. There are one or two exceptions to this

generalization, as we will see below, and a number of works do make more

covert use of discoursal concepts. As a consequence of the relative paucity of

discoursal approaches to literature teaching, this section will also examine

some of the issues related to the role of language in literature pedagogy and

vice versa.

2.

W e also need to be aware of two broad and separate traditions of English

literature teaching, one emanating from traditional university English depart-

ments in the English-speaking world, which has a generally humanistic bent,

and one from those interested in stylistics, language study, and the teaching of

English as a foreign language, which, not surprisingly, focuses more directly

on linguistic issues related to textual understanding.



186 MICK SHORT

The humanistic approach to the teaching of English literature tends to assume

that the students being taught already have an ability to read, understand, and respond

sensitively to literature. This view, in my experience, is erroneou s, even at the

university level in the UK. But because large numbers of students want to study

English literature at the university, it has been possible for literature teachers to ignore

the problem of helping those wh o have understanding difficulties. By an almost

Darwinian process, those with problems go away and are replaced by other 'mo re

sensitive' read ers. Th e consequ ence is that talk about the nuts and bolts of teaching

methodology and the role and needs of the leamer seen in English-language teaching

contexts does not, by and large, take place in university English departm ents. The on e

hugely dominant and relatively unquestioned methodology is to have students read a

text, which is then discussed in class. In secondary schools in Britain, at least, in

which teachers have been trained mainly

via

this humanistic tradition, the approach

adopted to cope with student difficulties has tended to revolve around the selection of

simpler and more accessible texts for students to read and discuss.

The humanist tradition to English teaching is exemplified in Engell and

Perkins (1988), a collection of essays on what is needed in teaching literature.

Discussion of how to teach some text or other is entirely absent, and none of the

contributors embark on considering what an English syllabus appropriate to today's

students should look like. Instead, the issues discussed are of a much mo re general-

ized kind: should English courses include creative writing and political theory? To

what extent should they take account of feminist and deconstructionist readings, and

the latest views of critical theorists? And so on. The se are issues that those teaching

English literature should address, and I would certainly not want to argue against the

role of literary studies in the establishment of humanist and self-critical values; but for

the contributors to Engell and Perkins, a high-level reading competence on the part of

students is unquestioningly assum ed. This is in spite of the fact that many of the

volume's commentators themselves appear to be completely ignorant of how reading

works.

Vendler (1988), for example, appears to believe, in spite of considerable

research evidence in linguistics and psychology to the contrary, that reading is an

entirely passive process: "the state of reading...is a state in which the text works on us,

and not we on it" (1988:14). And her answer to the question "what texts should we

teach?" is that students should be taught "to love what we have loved" (1988:17 ). For

other commentators, the reading of poetry appears to be a quasi-mystical experience,

wh ere textual understanding appea rs almost irrelevant. Kenn er (1988) quotes

approvingly a ten-year-old girl's response to a poetry reading of

Briggflats

by the

author, Basil Bunting, as described in an essay written in adolescence:

It was his voice, raspy, deep, purring, falling like water, that carried

me aw ay....We w ere alone, he and I, in poetry...a self-sufficient unit

that read poetry and poured wine....I did not understand much of

Ba sil's vocabu lary, topics or historical allusions. His images utterly

lost me . I did not know w ho he was. Yet we experienced something



DISCOURSE ANA LYS IS IN STYLISTICS AN D LITERATURE INSTRUCTION 187

special. W e travelled via poetry to places and images far away

(1988:10-11).

Kenner ends his essay with the comment

Now a collegian, she'd put that more maturely. No hurry. And

some day she'll get around to reading

Briggflats.

Bu t that evening

she learned the gist of how poetry works (1988:11).

It is apparent from her prose style that this 'collegian' was a precocious adolescent,

who w as always likely to do well. But the issue of how to help those not quite so

adept is never addressed by Kenner or his co-writers, in spite of the fact that in my

university, at least, first-year English students can be seen failing to understand poetry

with some regularity.

In contrast, Carter and Nash (1990) represents the more linguistic tradition in

literary studies and is designed for university students of English who have little or no

knowledge of linguistics and stylistics. Drawing on a range of examples from literary

and non-literary sources (particularly newspaper, advertising, and political language), it

discusses issues such as literariness, creau'veness in literary and non-literary usage,

ideological positions in texts, and competing accounts of style. This book concludes

with a set of exercises which provides a rich fund of issues for discussion in class. The

pedagogical technique of the book is reminiscent of that adopted in a number of

volumes devoted to the integration of language and literature study for advanced

non-native students of English. It is difficult to see, however, how such a text can be

used to equip native-speaking undergraduates with the linguistic analytical techniques

that the volume presupposes, and pushes the student towards. Herein lies a general

difficulty for teachers interested in using linguistics as a tool to help students under-

stand literary texts, a difficulty that can be seen most dramatically in the British

situation.

In Britain, explicit work on the English language has been absent for some

years from the school curriculum, and so students lack the metalanguage and descrip-

tive apparatus needed to talk sensitively about the language of texts, as is made clear

in Kingman,

et al.

(1988 ). Students can talk eloquently about their feelings after or

during reading , bu t much less well abou t the texts themselve s. Mo reover, the tradition

of teaching that students have experienced tends to make those who most need it

resistant to more analytical approaches like the linguistic one. How , then, can the

problem be solved? Th e latest approach of the stylistician is to try to talk interestingly

about literature in a way that assumes elements of linguistic knowledge so that the

linguistic knowledge can be introduced as it relates specifically to the text or issue

under discussion, and at a time when the student feels the information to be relevant.

The student thus feels less alienated from linguistic study. Th e hope is that an interest

in language will be awaken ed, which can then be built upon . W hether this approach

will be successful remains to be seen, but it should be clear that detailed matters of

teaching style and m ethodology are likely to play a crucial part. Carter and Nash

(1990) exemplify this new tradition, as do Breen and Short (1988), Hasan (1989) and,



188 MICK SHORT

to some extent, Fow ler (1986 ). Dura nt and Fabb (1990) include this kind of approach

in a much wider task-based approach to the study of literature. As a consequence of

its wide coverage, the Durant and Fabb volume is most open to the criticism that it

raises interesting questions without giving students enough tools to tackle the problems

successfully. Such a book could, however, be a useful stepping- off poin t for a

well-informed teacher.

The approach discussed above is related to a parallel interest among special-

ists in English as a foreign language to reintroduce literary study into the English

language-learning curriculum. For som e years now, and for a variety of reason s, many

have regarded literary study as largely irrelevant to language teaching. The h uman ist

tradition referred to above tended to ignore the comprehension problems of non-native

learners and made literature seem special and different from the rest of language. This

view was reinforced by early work in stylistics which concentrated on the linguistic

deviation extan t in many poetic texts. Literary study was further marginalized by the

cost-benefit approach introduced with the advent of the concept of English for specific

purposes. Many teachers and students have reacted to this marginalization of literature

in second-language teaching; they would prefer to work for some of the time with

literary texts as they find them interesting and stimulating, and the assumption that

literature has a special language is subject to heated debate.

The consequence of this interest has been a number of collections devoted to

exploring the role of literature in language teaching. The mo st notable are B rumfit

(1983), Brumfit and Carter (1986), Carter, Walker and Brumfit (1989), and Short

(1989b). Volum e 1, num ber 2, of the journ al

Parlance

is also almost exclusively

devoted to this area. The common threads which connect these volumes are an

openness to discuss the status of literature and its role in language learning, a healthy

interest in the learner and appropriate teaching methodologies, and a similar interest in

the nuts and bolts of how texts work. As a consequence, contributions to literature

pedagogy that make use of discoursal approaches are beginning to appear. Van Peer

(1989), for example, examines ways of using literary texts to teach concepts related to

textual cohesion. Trengove (1989), examining the use of style variation in a poem by

Philip Larkin, shows how the analysis of the poem can be used to sensitize language

learners to style variation in English generally. To date, however, although emerging

influences can be perceived, there has been relatively little explicit use of discourse

theories in approaches to the teaching of literature.

Related to this more academic discussion of issues in the linguistic approach

to literature pedagogy has been the development of textbooks and teacher resource

books designed to introduce the foreign-language learner to the study of the language

of literature. Mo st notable are Carter and Long (198 7), a student workbook w ith an

associated teacher's book; Collie and Slater (1987), a resource book for teachers;

Gower and Pearson (1986), which, in spite of Gower's professed antipathy to the

stylistics approach in

ELTJ

and elsewhere, incorporates many ideas from stylistics in a

stimulating workbook aimed toward EFL students; and Greenwood (1988), a teacher

resource book aimed at helping teachers use class readers, but whose ideas are just as

helpful for teaching unmodified literary texts. Maley and Duff in various publications



DISCOURSE ANA LYSIS IN STYLISTICS AN D LITERATURE INSTRUCTION 189

(e.g., Duff and Maley 1990) often use literature not just as an object of study in itself

but also as a stimulus to other class work emanating from ideas and attitudes found in

literary texts.

It should be clear from the foregoing that the linguistic approaches to the

teaching of literature in the native-speaking and non-native speaking classrooms have

much in common, in spite of what many literature specialists would have supposed.

An increasing cross-fertilization of ideas across the native/hon-native teaching divide is

thus likely in the new decade.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brumfit, C. J. and Carter, R. (eds.) 1986.

Literature and language teaching.

Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

This collection of twenty articles focuses on ways of linking language and

literary study. In particular, it addresses the concept of literariness, the

educational issues surrounding the teaching of literature in different countries,

and the competing demands of accurate and fluent reading for literature.

Carter, R. and W. Nash. 1990.

Seeing through language: A guide to styles of English

writing.

Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

As a text for students and teachers, the book attempts to develop an awareness

of language and the role it plays in literary and non-literary texts. Com ing

with a series of exercises and a glossarial index, it devotes chapters to

language and style, the concepts of literariness and creativity, and the role of

language in a range of text-types (e.g., poetry, fictional prose, advertising,

newspapers, political speeches and debate, and literary criticism).

Carter, R. and P. Simpson (eds.) 1989.

Language, discourse and literature.

London:

Unwin Hyman.

This is a wide-ranging collection of thirteen articles devoted to the use of

discourse and pragm atic approach es to literature. Exam ples from all three

literary genres are analyzed, and concepts employed include discourse

structure, the cooperative principle, politeness, the function of phatic

communication in fictional dialogue, language variation in literature, and

critical linguistics. It is the most impressive collection to date of

discoursal/pragmatic work on literature, with useful exercises for students at

the end of each essay.



19 MICK SHORT

Carter, R., R. Walker and C. Brumfit (eds.) 1989.

Literature and the learner: Method-

ological approaches.

London: Modern English Publications and The British

Council.

Eleven articles discuss the use of literature and its stylistic analysis in the

teaching of language and literature. The articles range from the theoretical to

the extremely practical.

Hickey, L. (ed.) 1989.

The pragma tics of style.

London: Routledge.

This collection of eleven articles investigates the notion of style in literary and

non-literary discourses, and suggests the indispensability of a pragmatic

com ponen t to the study of style. W ith three sections— style in com munication

and comprehension, style in speech and situation, and style in literature and

learning—this collection includes experimental work on reading as well as

more armchair-based approaches.

Nash, W. 1989b.

Rhetoric: The wit of persuasion.

Oxford: Blackwell.

This volume, a modern treatise on the persuasive art of rhetoric, concentrates

on rhetoric functions as much a s its forms. Nash says that his aim is "to

rehabilitate rhetoric as an ordinary human competence," to be found every-

wh ere in langua ge use. Although Na sh 's view on rhetoric is one that has

considerable merit, and the book itself is clearly and entertainingly written, it

would have been more convincing if rather more space had been given to

interesting rhetorical practices in non-literary texts.

Peer, W. van and J. Renkema (eds.) 1984.

Pragmatics and stylistics.

Louvain:

Uitgeverij Acco.

The eleven articles (five are in German) represent a wide-ranging collection,

which varies in quality. The articles, as a group, explore the relevance of

pragmatics as developed in the Anglo-American and German traditions to

literary and non-literary stylistics. Topics covered include the relevance of

pragmatics to the concepts of style, narrative structure, foregrounding, and

creativeness. Th e text-types exam ined include poetry, fictional pros e, and

newspaper reports.

Sell, R. (ed.) 1990a.

Literary pragmatics.

London : Routledge and Kegan Paul.

This book provides an extremely wide ranging collection of articles in what

the editor claims is the area of literary pragm atics. As defined her e, literary

pragmatics as a concept seems to be so general as to lose real descriptive

power, although the aim of providing an antidote to over-specialization is to

be welcom ed. Areas covered include literariness, interpretability, politeness,

relevance theory, indirect discourse, empirical approaches, the interaction

between writer and audience in dramatic texts, the effect of the circumstances




of publication on interpretation, and cross cultural problems in the perception

of literature.

Short, M. 1989b.

Reading, analysing and teaching literature.,

London: Longman.

This volume is a collection of eleven articles on stylistics, experiments in the

reading comprehension of literary texts, and the use of stylistic approaches in

the teaching of language and literature. It contains a useful bibliograph ical

account by Carter of the aims and methods of stylistic analysis.

Wales, K. 1989.

A dictionary of stylistics.

London: Longman.

In an attempt to be useful to students and scholars arriving at the lan-

guage/literature crossroads from different directions, this dictionary of stylis-

tics is wide-ranging in its entries, including material from stylistics, literary

theory, traditional rhetoric, and linguistics (including discourse analysis and

pragm atics). Such volumes can always be criticized for leaving something or

other out, or giving too much or too little space to particular terms, but this

dictionary constitutes a mine of information with extremely full and often

entertaining entries including, where appropriate, discussions of textual

examples of the concepts discussed.

UN NNOT TED BIBLIOGR PHY

Alderson, J. C. and M . Short. 1989. Reading literature. In M. Short (ed.)

Reading,

analysing and teaching literature.

London: Longman. 72-119.

Austin, T. R. 1989. Narrative discourses and discoursing in narratives: Analysing a

poem from a sociolinguistic perspective.

Poetics today.

10.4.703-720.

Beaugrande, R. de. 198 7. Schem as for literary interpretation. In L. Halasz (ed.)

Literary discourse: Aspects of cognitive and social psychological approaches.

Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 49-99.

Birch, D. 1989.

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