Stylistics

Stylistics

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Stylistics is a form of language and means of establishing principles. These principles are capable of explaining particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language such as socialization, production and repetition. Defining stylistics F.L Lucas writes
‘’Style is a means by which a human being gains contact with others, it is personality clothed in words, character embodied in speech’’.

The word ‘stylistics’ has two interpretations. Narrowly it means the use of concepts and techniques of linguistics in studying the language of literary texts like poetry and novels. Broadly speaking it is the study of the aesthetic use of language in all circumstances not only in literature.

History of Stylistics= When we study the history of stylistics, we find that the term ‘stylistics’ is the product of early nineteenth century and it is first used in Grimm’s dictionary in German. In English the noun stylistic is found in 1864, while in French the first example of stylistics is from 1872, when Littre included the word in his dictionary. In our own century, Charles Bally regarding language as an intellectual, psychic and social system emphasized the expressive value of language and came to the conclusion that it was only the effective expression (stylistics) that constitutes the system of language.

Branches of Stylistics= Stylistics, like linguistics has two branches to deal with; sociostylistics and psychostylistics. Socio stylistics studies a literary text from the point of view of the varieties of language which is spoken by the various sections of society. While psycho stylistics deals with the temperament, creative ability and inner potential by which a literary critic expresses himself. So we can say that an author’s psyche can be seen through his imagery with the help of psychostylistics.

Register= In linguistic analysis, different styles of language are technically called ’’Register’’. Register is a style of speech which is suitable for certain professions or occupations. It has typical vocabulary and grammar and used by speakers in a particular context. It is one of the many forms of language and it grows in special circumstances. According to Halliday,
‘’Register is determined by what is taking place, who is taking part and what part the language is playing’’.
Halliday places great emphasis on the social context of register and distinguishes register from dialect. Dialecct is a regional, temporal or social variety within a single language while register is the variety of language that grows when language is used in a particular profession.
Approaches to Style= Enkvist in his essay ‘ On Defining Style’ mentions some approaches to style. They treat style as an embellishment, a set of individual and collective characteristics and as a set of relations among linguistic entities etc.
Style as an Embellishment= Every writer embellishes his writings by using different devices and characteristics of language and this embellishment is called writer’s style. As George Puttenham writes
‘’ Style is a constant and continual phrase and tenor of speaking and writing …..a certain contrived form and quality.’’
Style as a Set of individual or collective characteristics= The mind, person, characteristics, thought and feelings of the writer are called his style. The original thought of a writer cannot be separated from the way of presentation, style. According to Gibbon, ‘’Style is the image of character’’ while Buffon says that ‘’Style is the man himself’’. Thus we can say that style is the set of the characteristics of the writer.
Relationship between Stylistics and Literature= There is deep relationship between stylistics and literature because between true litterateur and linguistics there is no conflict. The real linguist is at least half a litterateur and real litterateur is half a linguist. Stylistics is an attempt to make literary criticism more scientific, methodical, objective and precise and it stresses the need to form a literary grammar of language. Moreover stylistics is the study of the linguistic features of a literary text. In “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language”, Crystel observes that stylistics analysis has attempted to deal with the complex and valued language within literature and he names it ‘Literary Stylistics’.
To cap up our discussion we can say that stylistics is a distinctive term that may be used to determine the connections between the form and effects within a particular variety of language. Therefore, stylistics looks at what is going on within the language; what the linguistic association are that the style of language reveals. Stylistics is the subject which helps to solve the complexity and mystery of style and its importance in linguistics cannot be denied.