FUNDAMENTALS OF

STYLISTICS

Lecture 1
 COURSE PLAN
8 lectures
12 seminars – 5 points
a test – 10 points
an exam – 30 points
 A TEST
Give the definition and supply one example of:

1. metaphor
2. metonymy
3. onomatopoeia
4. word
5. sentence
6. construction
7. barbarism
8. deictic units
9. discourse
10. lexicology
 PLAN
1. Stylistics: its origin and development.
2. Basic principles of rhetoric.
3. Modes of persuasion.
4. Stylistic devices and expressive means.
5. Foregrounding, norm, context.
6. Modern stylistics.
7. The subject of stylistics.
1. She felt the light on her eyelids, and knew that if
she opened her eyes they would sting, and she
would have to shade them with her palm and let the
light bleed through a crack
(Will McIntosh ‘Bridesicle’)
2. Donald J. Trump
For those few people knocking me for tweeting at
three o'clock in the morning, at least you know I will
be there, awake, to answer the call!

3. I found a love for me

Darling just dive right in
And follow my lead
Well I found a girl beautiful and sweet
(Ed Sheeran ‘Perfect’)
 stylus

not only an instrument for writing but a

manner of writing
ORIGIN OF STYLISTICS
Rhetoric
Ancient Greece – art of
composition and
delivery of speeches.
Ancient Rome – art of
good speaking.
Medieval Europe – art
of decorating speech.

Stylistics borrowed
from rhetoric
1. technical equipment
2. traditional object
(style)
 FIVE CANONS – basic principles
• Coming up with materials for
Invention arguments

• Linear arrangement of selected

Disposition arguments into an effective speech

• Verbalization of ideas with the help of

Elocution linguistic units

Memory • Strategic remembering of the speech

• Presenting your ideas

Delivery
 INVENTION
lays the basis for all the other phases;
the goal is to brainstorm ideas on what to say
in order to maximize persuasion;
the speaker should systematize his/her own
knowledge about the objects s/he selected, to
compare it with the knowledge of other
people;
the stage of gathering, discovering or
generating arguments for the speech.
 MODES OF PERSUASION
also referred to as ethical strategies or
rhetorical appeals, are rhetorical devices that
determine the speaker’s appeal to the
audience.
• rational
logos appeal
• emotional
pathos appeal
• ethical
ethos appeal
 LOGOS
is connected with producing arguments in
support of rhetor’s main statement that are
solid, honest, vivid and valid.
The main means of argumentation in
logos are realised by use of rhetorical
examples and logical reasoning.
 PATHOS
focuses on how emotions are triggered by
language and performance and then
channeled within the minds of the people
in an audience.
often depends on telling a story or
evoking a picture or experience that the
audience can identify with.
Pathos covers all sorts of emotions: jokes,
scorn, anger, sorrow, mysteries, and
soothing words.
 ETHOS
 It concerns the esteem in which the speaker or
writer is held.
 A rhetor should be a person of good character,
appear honest, competent, intelligent and
interested in what is best for the audience.
Ways of establishing ethos:
1. Begin the speech by referring to knowledge of
the subject (how long the question has been studied,
published articles, awards and recognition).
2. Modesty can evoke trust and desire to help.
3. Find common ground with the audience by
acknowledging shared values, beliefs or history.
 DISPOSITION
Aristotle claimed there were only two parts to
a speech: first state the case, and then prove it.
A simple model - a four-part system that
included: (1) an introduction, (2) some
background information, (3) the arguments,
and (4) a conclusion.
A six-part system:
◦ introduction
◦ narration (background)
◦ division
◦ proof
◦ refutation
◦ peroration (conclusion).
 ELOCUTION
the third task is to decide "how" to say the
arguments, that is how to embody it in words
and sentences.
It deals with style that should fit the audience,
occasion, subject matter and so on.
There can be changes in
 syntactic structure: word order, ‘omission’,
repetition;
 deviation in semantics: metaphor, similes,
hyperboles, puns or word-plays.
 general groupings, such as ‘brevity’,
‘description’, ‘emotional appeals’ and so on.
 MEMORY and DELIVERY
The fourth and fifth canons set out the
performative aspects of rhetoric and concern
mainly oral rather than written production.

Delivery places a focus on intonation,

prosody, voice, rhythm and gesture.
The visual persuasive tools include fonts,
layout, typography, graphology and so on.
 STYLISTIC DEVICES AND
EXPRESSIVE MEANS
A.M. Trybukhanchyk ‘A Course In English
Stylistics’, 2006.
pp. 7-9
for the next lecture summarize in ten
sentences
 WHAT IS STYLE?
a specific mode of expression, the proper
adornment of thought (ancient times)
a product of individual choice among
alternative forms of expression (Charles Bally
and Leo Spitzer)
the means by which the encoder ensures that
his message is decoded in such a way that the
reader not only understands the information
conveyed, but shares the writer attitude
towards it (Michael Riffaterre)
a peculiarity, the set of specific features of a
text type or a concrete text (Yury Skrebnev).
 WHAT IS STYLE?
a form of any work determined by its
function;
expression of individual speaker’s
experience;
the ability of a means or manner of activity
determined by its purpose.

So, style is, on the one hand, a set of linguistic

units and ways of organizing them and, on the
other hand, a certain ability of a product of this
activity, e.g. a poem, a short story, a public
 FOREGROUNDING
Generally, ‘foregrounding’ refers to the
property of perceptual prominence that
certain things have against the backdrop of
other, less noticeable things.

Foregrounding can work at any level of

language. It usually involves a stylistic
distortion (change), when some element in
the text is different from a typical usage, or
where an aspect of the text repeated.
 BASIC TERMS
 Foregrounding brings some meanings or themes to the
fore and shifts others to the background:
defeated expectancy – the appearance of any stylistic
device in an unexpected position, helping to prolong
reader’s aesthic perception and causing an effect of
“emotional stress”.
strong position – when a linguistic unit is placed in the
location which attracts the addressee’s attention (the
beginning/end of the text or its structural part).

 Norm – the style of speech activity which in a certain

period in a certain society is considered correct.

 Context – the surrounding of a language unit in which its

qualities are realized.
 MODERN STYLISTICS
 As a separate linguistic discipline stylistics began to
form only in the 20-30s of the XXth century.
 Linguistic stylistics deals with functional styles of a
language and the elements of language from the point
of view of their ability to express and cause emotions,
associations, etc.
 Literary stylistics deals with expressive means and
stylistic devices characteristic for a definite work of art,
man of letters, literary movement, trend or epoch, and
factors influencing the expressiveness of language.
 Functional stylistics – the focus is on the correlation
between the message and the communicative situation.
 MODERN STYLISTICS
1. Come in, will you?
Please, come in
Come in.
Get the hell in here.

2. The old man is dead.

The old bean has kicked the bucket.
The gentlemen well advanced in years has attained determination of
his terrestrial existence.

The same proposition (subject matter) but different manner of

expression (depends upon the situational conditions of the
communicative act).
Stylistics investigates synonymous means for the purpose of
finding out their spheres of applicability.
 WHAT IS STYLISTICS?
sometimes called linguo-stylistics, is a branch
of linguistics which studies communicative
and nominative resources of a language
system and the principles of choice and usage
of linguistic units to express certain thoughts
and feelings in order to achieve certain
pragmatic results under different conditions
of communication.
 THE SUBJECT OF STYLISTICS
The concept of style and stylistic variation
in language are based on the general notion
that within the language system the content
can be encoded in more than one linguistic
form. Thus, it is possible for it to operate at
all linguistic levels such as phonological,
morphological, lexical, syntactic and textual.
Stylistics is connected with all language
levels and investigates language units from a
functional point of view.
 THE SUBJECT OF STYLISTICS
Stylistic phonetics studies the style-forming
phonetic features of sounds, peculiarities of
their organization in speech, prosodic
features of prose and poetry, e.g. alliteration
 Stylistic morphology is interested in stylistic
potential of grammatical forms and grammatical
meanings peculiar to particular types of speech.
 Stylistic lexicology considers expressive,
evaluative and emotive potential of words
belonging to different layers of vocabulary.
 Stylistic syntax investigates the style-forming
potential of particular syntactic constructions.

 The stylistic value of the text is manifested through

the interrelation and interaction of these elements
as well as through the structure and composition of
the whole text.