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Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies
2017-2018
Introduction to Stylistics
WEEK 1 - LECTURE 1Dr. Margherita Dore
Important Information
• Calendar: 30 hrs (15 lectures, 7 weeks and a half PLUS a series of practical sessions, TBC, please note NO Lectures on 27/10 and 17/11)
• Start date: Friday 20 Oct., 11.00-13.00 AULA 203
• Timetable: Monday, 13.00-15.00 AULA MAGNA• Friday, 11.00-13.00 AULA 203Office hour: Mondays, 15.00-16.00 or by appointmentBlog SEAI: http://www.lettere.uniroma1.it/users/margherita-dore
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Who is the Course for?ü First Year Students (Channel E-O)
ü Those students who enrolled n 2016-2017 and stillneed to pass English 1 (Channel P-Z), but please cometo see me
• The attendance of both the lettorato and thiscourse is not compulsory but highlyrecommended….
Exam Information The exam is in ENGLISH and normally WRITTEN, but it canalso be ORAL if students enrolled are less than 10.WRITTEN EXAM:• It lasts no more than 2 hours, it is divided into 2 parts• Part 1: Task 1: Grammatical Analysis; Lexical Analysis;
Foregrounding Features; Context and Cohesion• Part 2: Question on theoryORAL EXAM:• All the above discussed orally with your Lecturer.
During the exam, students are allowed to take an Englishmonolingual dictionary and/or thesaurus
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FINAL MARK REGISTRATIONLingua e Traduzione Inglese 1 is ONE exam comprising TWO parts:
• Lettorato (annual course)
• Introduction to Stylistics (this module)
You MUST pass both parts in order to register your final MARK withthe lecturer.Please be aware that your lecturer’s MODULE is introducing you tonew and more challenging topics that are part of your HIGHEREDUCATION learning path. Therefore, your lecturer will assess and markyour work, which will reflect your newly acquired competences.Your lecturer decides on the mark you are awarded by also taking intoaccount your lettorato results (giudizio).
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Study Books• Leech, G. N. and Short, M. H. (2007)
Style In Fiction, 2nd edition. London: Longman.
• L. Wright, J. Hope, Stylistics, 1996.• C. Gregoriou, English Literary Stylistics, 2009.• Simpson, P. (2004) Stylistics: A Resource Book
for Students. London: Routledge.• McIntyre, D. and Busse, B. (eds) (2010)
Language and Style. Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmillan. (Selected chapters only).
Reference only (if you need to improve your background knowledge inlinguistics): Pinnavaia, L. (2009), Introduzione alla linguistica inglese, Roma:Carocci.
All textbooks are avaialble at the Copy Centre Mirafiori, Main Building ofthe Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia
Some Reading Suggestions 1/3Considering that you will be asked to read a book in English for yourLETTORATO, I thought I would suggest some books I read you may like tochoose from. They can be a good reading and analytical exercise during the courseand our practical activities. (a causa dell’eccessivo peso del file, le altre immaginisaranno caricate durante le due settimane successive)
Course IntroductionThis Introduction to Stylistics Course focuses on thelinguistic analysis of texts, dealing particularly with therelationship between linguistic choice and the reader’sinterpretation(s).
The analysis will concentrate primarily on literary texts butother text types (e.g. newspaper articles, advertisementsand political speeches) will be also considered.
The course aims to provide Ss with a set of analyticalTOOLS that they can use to examine texts (for example,their words, sounds, structures, or interactive aspects) andreflect on them in relation to the context within which theyare created.
Course Outline• Style and Stylistics. What is this all about?• Brief History of Stylistics and Literary Style • Mainly POETRY• Linguistic choice, style and meaning• Creativity: words and phrases • Foregrounding, patterns, deviations• Stylistics Devices: Rhetorical Devices, Figures of Speech• The grammar of simple sentences• Mainly PROSE• Style and style variation• Complex sentences and grammar• Discourse structure and point of view • Speech presentation • Mind Style and Prose analysis • Mainly DRAMA• Conversational structure and character(s)• Reading between the lines: meaning • Shared knowledge• Other Text Types• Advertisements, newspapers and political speeches
Style & StylisticsHere we will be considering the STYLE OF TEXTS with asystematic attention to what words or structures are chosen inpreference to others.
Style is here thought as “the way in which language is usedin a given context, by a given person, for a given purpose,and so on” (Leech & Short 2007: 9) and as ‘the linguisticcharacteristics of a particular text’ (Leech & Short 2007: 11)
Stylistics (or the study of style) investigates how readersinteract with the language of (mainly literary) texts inorder to explain how we understand and are affectedby texts when we read them.
Brief History of stylisticsStylistics explores how readers interact with the language of (mainly literary) texts in order to explain how we understand and are affected by texts when we read them. Stylistics draws from Linguistics and Psychology as developed in the second half of the twentieth century.
The following books represent its beginnings: • Fowler, Roger (ed.) (1966) Essays on Style in Language. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.• Freeman, Donald C. (ed.) (1971) Linguistics and Literary Style. New York:
Holt, Rinehart & Winston.• Leech, Geoffrey N, (1969) A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London:
Longman.• Sebeok, Thomas A. (1960) Style in Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press. Most importantly:Roman Jakobson 'Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics' (in Sebeok 1960: 350-77),https://monoskop.org/images/8/84/Jakobson_Roman_1960_Closing_statement_Linguistics_and_Poetics.pdf
Brief History of StylisticsLiterary Criticism in Britain: Practical Criticism: moving from studying authors (19th
Century) to studying texts (20th Century) and how readers were effected by those texts; in the USA New Criticism. They shared two important features: (i) an emphasis on the language of the text rather than its
author; (ii) Paying very close attention to the language of the texts
when reading them, describing how readers understood them, were affected by them and then quoted them (Claim and Quote)
Brief History of stylisticsIn the early years of the 20th century, the members of the Formalist Linguistic Circle in Moscow (usually called the Russian Formalists), like I. A. Richards, also favoured the analysis of the language of the text in relation to psychological effects of that linguistic structure.
Roman Jakobson left Moscow at the time of the Russian Revolution and moved to Prague, where he became a member of the Prague Structuralist circle. when Czechoslovakia also became communist, he moved to the USA.
Both circles contributed to develop the so called foregrounding theory. This view suggested that some parts of texts had more effect on readers than others in terms of interpretation, because the textual parts were linguistically deviant or specially patterned in some way, thus making them psychologically salient (or 'foregrounded') for readers.
Literary Style• (i) Style is a way in which language is used• (ii) Therefore style consists in choices made from the repertoire of the
language.• (iii) A style is defined in terms of a domain of language use (e.g., what
choices are made by a particular author, in a particular genre, or in a particular text).
• (iv) Style is relatively transparent or opaque: transparency implies paraphrasability; opacity implies that a text cannot be adequately paraphrased and that interpretation of the text depends greatly on the creative imagination of the reader.
• (v) Stylistic choice is limited to those aspects of linguistic choice which concern alternative ways of rendering the same subject matter.
• (vi) Stylistics (or the study of style) has typically been concerned with literary language.
• (vii) Literary stylistics is typically concerned with explaining the relation between style and literary or aesthetic function
(Leech and Short 2007: 31)
Linguistic choice, style and meaningHow great writing happens - Genius, or the careful choice of language?
I wander’d lonely as a Cloud That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden Daffodils . . .
(Wordsworth 1804)I was strolling along When all of a sudden I saw a bunch of lovely Daffodils
(maybe you and I)
Linguistic choice, style and meaning
John Keats worked on various versions of this poem. Oneword in particular changed in the first and the final version ofthe poem. Which one do you think is Keats's final choice?
Try to work out why the choice you prefer is best:
closeAs though a rose should and be a bud again
shut
(John Keats, 'The Eve of St Agnes, stanza 27, line 9)
Linguistic choice, style and meaningAs though a rose should shut and be a bud again
So Keats rejects his first choice, ‘close’ for its synonym, ‘shut’. A firstreaction might be that it doesn’t really matter which word he chose. Afterall, synonyms have the same meaning.
However, for most people the verb ‘shut’ is a faster action than ‘close’(quiet). Hence, poetry should better fit the calmness of ‘close’…
Why, then, did Keats cross out ‘close’ and write ‘shut’?
‘Close’ rhymes with ‘rose’; ‘shut’ rhymes with ‘bud’
Levels of Language
Sounds/WritingShapes
i.e. Phonology (speech) i.e. Graphology (writing)
Grammar i.e. Syntax and Morphology
Meaning e.g. Lexis ('word meaning') e.g. Semantics ('sentence meaning')
The Sounds/Letters LevelSpoken language physically consists of distinctive speech sounds (phonemes) which make up words
Phonemes are sounds which distinguish one word from another (e.g. /bet/ vs. /pet/ or /bit/)
The written equivalent to the phonemic or phonological level in speech is usually called graphology.
1. Girls like cats. (/kats/)2. Girls like hats. (/hats/)
The Grammatical LevelGrammar is the form by which we position and group the elements that go to make up sentences:
Syntax is the order in which words and phrases come in the sentence. Sentence (1) below uses exactly the same words as sentence (2) but the different syntax results in radically different meanings:
1. Girls like cats. S V O
1. Cats like girls.S V O
Morphology accounts for the building blocks ofmeaning inside words.
The Meaning Level: Semantics
Different meaning 1. cats. (/kats/)2. hats. (/hats/)
Different meaning (connotations and associations)1. Girls like cats2. Girls like feline quadrupeds
When we changed the syntax in sentence (1) to producesentence (2) we also changed the meaning of thesentence in dramatic fashion. This sort of sentencemeaning is included in the aspect of meaning usuallycalled semantics
The Meaning Level: PragmaticsPragmatics is the study of meaning in context.
[Assume that the context is an article about the similarities anddifferences between boys and girls.] The favourite animal for boys is the dog. Girls like cats. Here the meaning of the second sentence is the same as in (1), butadditionally it also has to be interpreted as an example of adifference between boys and girls.
Now, imagine a conversation between two teenage boys: A. Cats are stupid. What use is a cat?B. Girls like cats.
Probable additional meaning: 'you could increase your chancesof getting a girl to like you by saying that you like cats'.
Textual analysis 1 - InstructionsIn the next slide, I report a poem by Stephen Crane, but witha choice of three possible alternatives in four places in the poem. Preferably working with some other students, your task is:
üto work out, in each of the four places, which choice that you think Crane actually made, and üto work out why you think your choice is preferable, taking into account the effects at different linguistic levels that one choice or another has in relation to the rest of the poem.
It is important that you work carefully at what you think the best choices are, and why, as you will then get more out of comparing your views, and so learn more.
Textual analysis 1on place
I stood upon a high mountainin hill
And saw, below, many devils Running, leaping
livingAnd indulging in sin.
carousing
One looked up, grinning,
"Comrade! Brother!"And said "Join us!"
"Help me!" Stephen Crane
Peer, W (1988) 'How to do things with texts: Towards a pragmatic foundation for the teaching oftexts', in Short, M (ed) Reading, Analysing and Teaching Literature, 267-297.
Textual analysis 2 -KEY
I stood upon a high place,And saw, below, many devils
Running, leapingAnd carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,And said 'Comrade! Brother!’
You can hear it on YouTube at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5c3Ey0dT4
Textual analysis 3 - DISCUSSION We can see from this exercise that style and meaning come about in large part because of the linguistic choices that writers (and speakers) make. By paying close attention to what words, grammatical constructions, phonetic patterns and so on that a writer makes in a text, and comparing those choices with other choices which could have been made in the same context, we are able to detect important aspects of meaning and effect that particular texts have. The clearest example in this poem are those where Crane chose an alternative which most people would not choose. Choosing the unusual in a way which coheres with the rest of the text is a large part of what makes effective writing effective (and separates the truly creative writers from the rest of us). Being able to chart choices and compare them in detail with other conceivable choices helps us to ‘unlock’ meanings embedded in texts which we may otherwise be able to feel in a rather vague way but not be able to articulate clearly.
Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies
2017-2018
Introduction to Stylistics
WEEK 1 - LECTURE 2Dr. Margherita Dore
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Overview• Creativity: Word classes• Open Class Words• Defining Open Class Words• Closed Class Words• Manipulating nouns• Manipulating verbs• Manipulating adverbs
Creativity: Word classes
Words and phrases in English are the basic building blocks of English grammar.
We will see how writers can manipulate these language levels in order to create special meanings and effects.
Word ClassesTest your intuitions on the following words. What is the most basic word class for each of the following words?
Noun Verb Adjective Adverb
Run
chair
yellow
near
Word Classes
Noun Verb Adjective Adverb
Run X
chair X
yellow X
near X
Word ClassesWe can make a basic distinction between open class (lexical) andclosed class words:
Open Class Words
Open class words are extremely large in number and about90% of the words in our personal vocabularies belong to thisclass. It is possible to coin new words in this Class:
black + box - blackbox (N/V) – blackboxed (V)
And we can combine meaningful parts of words(morphemes) to generate new words:
micro à microscope - microchip
Defining Open Class Words
Defining Open Class WordsThe meaning of nouns is that they refer to concrete objects in the outside world. Internal form: sing/plur. Function: it is the head of a noun phrase The boy
The meaning of adjectives is that they ‘refer’ to the properties of nouns. Internal form: basic, comparative, superlative form. Function: They act as pre-modifiers to the head nouns of noun phrases: a big car
The meaning of verbs is that they ‘refer’ to actions. Internal form: present I go , he goes. Verbs always function inside verb phrases, either as the main (head) verb, or as an auxiliary to it, as in: has been drinking
The meaning of an adverb is that they ‘modify’ or specify a verb. Internal form: basic, comparative, superlative form: quickly, more quickly, most quickly. Function: the head of an adverb phrase: very quickly, unbelievably slowly
Closed Class WordsClosed class words are referred to as grammatical or function words, andthey serve to link up open class words in longer meaningful structures:
Types of Closed Class Words Symbol Examples
Determiner/ article (d) the, a, this, that, some, any, allPronoun (pn) you, me, she, them, some, it, us Preposition (p) in, of, on, at, to, under, fromConjunction (cj) and, but, or, if...then, althoughAuxiliary Verb (aux) can, will, may, is, has, does, shallEnumerator (e) one, three, first, second, eighteenthInterjection (ij) oh, ah, ugh, hey, oops, gadzooks,
****!
ExampleNow look at this sentence. Try and classify its composing elements:
The horses ran near their stable.
Three questions to help identify what class a wordbelongs to:• What kind of MEANING does it have? - What does it
refer to or express? • What is its FUNCTION? - its purpose or role relative to
other words within a phrase, clause or sentence? • What is its FORM? - its morphological structure (‘root’
and suffix, inflections etc.)
Exercise 1- KEY
The horses ran near their stable.Art N V ADV Pos.ADJ N
‘Horses’, ‘ran’, ‘near’ and ‘stable’ are open-classwords.
‘The’ and ‘their’ are closed-class words.
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Inflectional vs Derivational Morphemes• Derivational Morphemes are used to createnew words from old ones (they change themeaning or part of speech)e.g. to buy -> buyer; to sell -> seller;
quick -> quickly
• Inflectional Morphemes mark grammaticalcategories (do not change the meaning or part ofspeech)e.g. tall -> taller; work -> worked
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DerivationYou take an old world and make a new one
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Compounding
Avocado Pig
You take an old world and make a new one
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ClippingCan you reconstruct the longer word?
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Acronyms
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Blends
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BackformationA word that is formed from an existing word which looks as though it is a derivative, typically by removal of a suffix
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Invention
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Borrowing and calque
Manipulating Nouns. . . and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasonsunknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice ofsports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flyingfloating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of allkinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winterwinter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin andsuccedanea in a word I resume and concurrently simultaneouslyfor reasons unknown to shrink and dwindle in spite of the tennis Iresume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis ofall sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham PeckhamFulham Clapham . . .
(Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, pp. 43-4)
Manipulating Verbs[Context: The extract below is from near the beginning of a novel about a man who is drowning. He has apparently managed to cling to a piece of rock and is struggling not to be swept off it by the sea.]
His legs kicked and swung sideways. His head ground againstrock and turned. He scrabbled in the white water with both handsand heaved himself up. He spat and snarled. He glimpsed thetrenches with their thick layers of dirty white, a gull slipping awayover a green sea. Then he was forcing himself forward. He fell intothe next trench, saw a jumble of broken rock, slid and stumbled.He was going down hill and he fell part of the way.
(William Golding , Pincher Martin, p. 42)
Manipulating Adjectives[Below is a passage from Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner.Consider the effects of the adjectives in the extract , which I have highlighted for you]
The Hotel du Lac (Famille Huber) was a stolid anddignified building, a house of repute, a traditionalestablishment, used to welcoming the prudent, the well-to-do, the retired, the self-effacing, the respected patrons ofan earlier era of tourism. It had made little effort to smartenitself up for the passing trade which it had always despised.Its furnishings, although austere, were of excellent quality,its linen spotless, its service impeccable.
(Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac, p 13)
Manipulating Adverbs
Now the party was noisily in full swing. Many students were singing raucously. Others lurched drunkenly here and there. Then, suddenly, there was a horrifyingly loud noise outside.
It is quite difficult to find a text with a large amount ofadverbs in it. The adverb is the least frequent and mostoptional, grammatically speaking, of the four major wordclasses.
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What we covered so far• Leech, G. N. and Short, M. H. (2007) Style In Fiction, 2nd
edition. London: Longman (Study Ch. 1)• L. Wright, J. Hope, Stylistics, 1996 (Study Ch. 1)• C. Gregoriou, English Literary Stylistics, 2009 (Study Ch.
1)• Simpson, P. (2004) Stylistics: A Resource Book for
Students. London: Routledge. (Study Sections A1-A2)
