The subject of stylistics

Nearly every traditional brunch of ling has definitely outlined objects. This is not the keys with stylistics. Its object and tasks are open to discussion up to the present day, regardless of the fact that it goes back to ancient rhetoric and poetics. So the subject of stylistics is controversial. Arnold considers that the subject of general stylistics is to study different kinds of style, peculiarities and the relationship in which these kinds of style stand to each other. She also thinks that the subject of stylistics is to study those expressive capacities which enable people to convey the finest shades of meaning and thoughts. According to prof Galperin the term style is presumed to apply the following fields of investigation:

1. Aesthetic function of language

2. Expressive means in language

3. Synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea

4. Emotional coloring in language

5. A system of special devices called stylistic devices

6. The splitting of the literary language into separate systems called styles

7. The interrelation btw language and thought

8. The individual manner of the writer in making use of language

Stylistics is closely connected with lexicology, grammar, phonetics, the history of language. The ancient philosophers treated stylistics together with the oratorical speech. Though stylistics is closely connected with the history of literature, the aim of it is not studying the history of the genre, but it studies the individual style and points out different lexical and grammatical phenomena. Thus we may speak about the preference which a certain writer gives to a certain layer of the vocabulary. We may also speak about the preference of certain sources of imagery. Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish stylistics from lexicology. The material is the same, but the approach is different. Stylistics deals with words when they already become a part of the sentence.

General phonetics investigates the whole articulatory audial system of language. Stylistic phonetics pays attention only to style forming phonetic features. It describes variations of pronunciation occurring in different types of speech.

General morphology treats morphemes and grammatical meanings without regard to their stylistic value. Stylistic morphology is interested in grammatical forms and meanings that are peculiar to particular sublanguages, comparing them with the neutral ones.

General syntax treats words combinations and sentences, analyzing their structures. Stylistic syntax shows what particular constructions are met within various types of speech. Besides, stylistic syntax very often operates on longer units from the paragraph upwards.

Thus stylistics is a branch of philology, which studies, analyzes, and examines different phenomena of the language from the point of their function in human intercourse.

Both lexicology and stylistics are interested in synonyms. The basis in synonymic variations is the existence of the common object of the objective reality, but the properties of linguistic units are not limited only by the denotative meaning.

Ассоциативный, реанимация, аграрный.

These words are different, but identified from the point of view of stylistics they all are bookish. In stylistics there is a notion of the stylistically neutral units, because anything may be considered stylistically colored only if there is a corresponding stylistically neutral unit.

Let’s compare several groups of isolated words:

1. Water, at, go, very, how

2. Chap, daddy, Nick

3. Hereof, whereupon

4. Sawbones, grub, oof, corking

5. Morn, sylvan, ne’er

6. Commencement, proverbialism

7. Protoplasm, introvert, phonemic

The first group comprises words that can be used anywhere in any sphere.

Second group consists of colloquial words, that is words which can be used in informal speech, but never in formal communication.

The third group is made up of words, employed in documents.

Group four demonstrates slangish words, that is words of still low rank than colloquialisms.

Group five demonstrates high-flown words rarely used outside poetic diction.

Sixth group’s words are generally called bookish or “learned”. They are used in books in cultivated speech.

Group seven is made up of special scientific terms used only in biology, psychology, phonology, etc.

Thus it shows the heterogeneous character of the vocabulary. Thus bookish and poetic words that could be found in the same text practically don’t co-occur with colloquial or slangish words, although words from every group from 2 to 7 easily combine with neutral words. It follows that the system of language reveals a picture of intersecting subsystems. Moreover, we can consider the existence of very specific languages, or sublanguages within the general system of a national language.

Besides stylistically neutral and colored units, stylistics has its own categories. The most important are expressive means. They are usually of the following types: syntactical (inversion), phonetic (alliteration, rhythm), lexical (metaphor, metonymy), grammatical (use of present instead of past).

By the expressive means we understand such arrangement of sentences, words and combination of sounds, which not only conveys their denotative meaning, that is the thought itself, but which signals at the same time an additional information. In other words, expressive means are language units specifically used. The classification and analysis of expressive means of the language is one of the most important tasks of stylistics.