- •1. Stylistics as a branch of general linguistics. The subject, object and tasks of stylistics
- •The individual manner of an author in making use of a language.
- •2. Branches of stylistics
- •3. Basic notions of stylistics (the notion of context, the concept of the norm)
- •4. The notion and types of foregrounding
- •5. Meaning from a stylistic point of view (lexical meaning, grammatical meaning)
- •6. Denotative and connotative meanings from a stylistic point of view
- •7. The notion of the stylistic opposition in the English vocabulary
- •9. Words of non-literary stylistic layer
- •10. The notion of stylistic devices and expressive means Grammatical Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices
- •11. Different classifications of stylistic devices and expressive means
- •12. Phonetic stylistic devices and expressive means
- •13. Stylistic use of graphical means. Graphon
- •14. Lexical stylistic devices and expressive means. Metaphor, metonymy, irony
- •15. Simile. Epithet
- •16. Hyperbole. Oxymoron. Allusion
- •17. Zeugma and the pun. Periphrasis
- •18. Syntactical stylistic devices and expressive means. Inversion. Detached constructions Syntactical Stylistic Devices
- •19. Climax. Anticlimax. Suspense
- •20. Antithesis. Rhetorical question. Litotes
- •21. Parallel constructions. Chiasmus. Types of repetition
- •22. Asyndeton. Polysyndeton. Ellipsis. Break-in-the-narration
- •23. Represented speech
- •24. Parts of speech and their stylistic potential Parts of Speech and Their Stylistic Potential
- •25. Functional styles systems
- •26. Characteristic linguistic features of major functional styles
- •27. Stylistics of the author and the reader. Types of narration
- •28. Stylistics and discourse
- •29. Set expressions. Proverbs and sayings Peculiar Use of Set Expressions
- •30. Stylistics and dictemic analysis
1. Stylistics as a branch of general linguistics. The subject, object and tasks of stylistics
As for stylistics, it is rather complicated to find out its subject. Stylistics has been studied as a branch of linguistics for only a few decades. The term stylistics has come into existence not so long ago. However, the problems of stylistics go back to ancient rhetoric and poetics.
First of all, stylistics deals with style. Scholars have different approaches to the definition of style. Victor Vinogradov (Виктор Владимирович Виноградов; 31 декабря 1894 (12 января 1895), Зарайск — 4 октября 1969, Москва) defines style as socially recognized and functionally conditioned internally united totality of the way of using, selecting and combining the means of lingual intercourse in the sphere of one language or another.
Another definition offered by Ilya Galperin (Илья Романович Гальперин; 1905, Симферополь — 1984) in one of his textbooks describes style as a system of interrelated language means which serve a definite aim of communication.
Another definition was suggested by Yuri Skrebnev (Юрий Максимович Скребнев; 8 июля 1922, Ишим, Тюменская область – 1993). In his book he states that style is what (different language means) differentiates a group of homogenous texts from all other groups of texts.
Thus, style is the subject-matter of stylistics, and it may be defined as a set of specific features which differentiate one text type from another.
Stylistics studies the principals, the effect of choice and usage of different language elements in rendering thoughts and emotions under different conditions of communication.
According to Galperin, stylistics deals with a lot of issues (fields of investigation, objects). He emphasizes that one of them can’t be singled out. They are:
The esthetic function of language. By this we mean an inherent part of works of art (for example, poetry). But the esthetic function of language leaves out works of science, diplomatic and commercial correspondence, technical instructions and many other types of text.
Expressive means of language. They are employed in spheres of speech aimed to express. There are also fiction, oratory and, to some extent, newspaper style.
Stylistic devices. They can be found in any style, forming a combination of features peculiar to it.
Stylistic devices are abstract patterns, but expressive means are concrete facts that exist in the language. Stylistic devices exist only in speech. The result can be seen in a text.