Stylistics as a Brunch of General Linguistics.
The Subject, Object & Tasks of Stylistics.
Units of language on different level are studied by traditional branches of linguistics. Nearly every traditional brunch of linguistics has definite objects & aims of research. For example, phonetics deals with speech sounds, lexicology treats words, their meanings & structure of the vocabulary. Grammar analyses forms of words (morphology) & forms of word-combinations & functions of words in a sentence(syntax). Thus, the subject matter & general aims of these linguistic disciplines are more or less clear. It becomes more complicated when we talk about stylistics. Some scholars state that it's comparatively new brunch of linguistics which has only a few decades of intense linguistic interest. The term "stylistics" came into existence not too long ago, however, the range of problems of stylistics, its objects & tasks go back to an ancient rhetoric & poetics. Stylistic deals with styles, so, the subject of stylistics is a style..
Different scholars have defined style differently at different times.
In 1955 academician Vinogradov defined style as socially recognized and functionally conditioned internally united totality of the ways of using, selecting and combining the means of language in the sphere of one national language or another.
In 1971 Pr. Galperin offered his definition of style. The style is a system interrelated languagemeans which serve a definite aim of communication.
In 1994 Pr. Skrebnev in his book of stylistics meant by style what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts from all other groups of texts. In other words, style is a set of specific features of a texttype or of a specific text.
Stylistics as a brunch of general linguistics which studies the principles the effect of choice and usage of different language element in rendering thoughts and emotions under different conditions of communication /Znamenskaya/.
According to Galperin, stylistics is a brunch of Linguistics which investigates the inventory of stylistic devices & expressive means and functional styles.
The object of stylistics according to Galperin. He identifies the following fields of investigation (objects):
Expressive means of a language
A system of special devices, which are called stylistic devices
The system of functional styles of a language
The aesthetic function of a language
Emotional coloring of a language
The individual manner of an author in making use of a language.
Skrebnev in his works treats the objects closely to determine what impact (effect) all of them have on the subject of stylistics. He comes to the conclusion that none of them separately is not entirely exceptable, because each of them contains only some information on style and stylistics. So, the object of stylistics is versatile and multidimensional. So, the tasks, the aims of stylistics are oriented at the study and investigation of the object of stylistics of its totality.
Brunches of Stylistics.
1. Linguastylistics. Literary stylistics. They have the common object of research, both study the common ground of the literary language from the point of view of its variability. The idiolect is an individual manner of a speaker or writer. There are some differences between Lingua stylistics and Literary stylistics in the following:
Lingua Stylistics studies functional styles, synchronically and diachronically.
Lingua Stylistics studies the linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language and stylistic devices their systematic character and functions.
Literary stylistics studies the composition of a word of art
Literary stylistics studies different literature genres.
Literary stylistics studies writers messages
2. Comparative Stylistics. It is concerned with a contrastive study of more than one language. It analyses the stylistyc rosources at the crossroads of two languages or literatures and it is connected with the theory of translation.
3. Decoding Stylistics. It is a comparatively new brunch of stylistics. traces of it we can find in the works of Sherba and Jacobson. A serious contribution was made by Arnold i.V. It's connected with the theory of information. In terms of theory of information the author's stylistics may be named "the stylistics of incoda". The language is viewed as a code to shape the information into the message. the supplier of this information is the incoder. The addressee is the decoder of the information contained in the message. Analyzing the text from the incoder's point of view we should consider the epoch, the historical situation, the personal, political, social and aesthetic views of the incoder. If we treat the information in the text from the decoder's point of view we should get the maximum information from the text itself. So, decoding stylistics deals with the problems connected with adequate reception of the message without any informational losses or deformation.
4. Functional Stylistics. It is a brunch of lingua stylistics and studies functional styles. It is the most global trend in style study. the attention of functional stylistics is focused on the message in its correlation with the communicative situation.
5. Stylistics Phonetics (Phonostylistics) It studies the style forming features of the text from the text from the phonological point of view.
6. Stylistic Lexicology. It studies the semantic structure of the word and the word and the interrelation of the connotative and denotative meanings of the word and the interrelation of the stylistic connotations of the word and the context.
7. Stylistic Grammar. Stylistic morphology investigates stylistic potential of cpecific grammatical forms and categories. Stylistic syntax deals with the expressive order of words, types of syntactic links and figures of speech.
8. Stylistic Semasiology. It is the study of the semantics of language units in different sub-languages preceding from form to meaning.
9. Stylistic Onomasiology (The Name Theory) It is the study of choice of words, phrases, sentences to be used to characterize a xertain object in the text preceding from context (meaning) to form.