Вопросы к зачёту по стилистике

1. Stylistics as a branch of linguistics, term’s origin, language functions

Stylistics, sometimes called linguo-stylistics, is a branch of general linguistics. It deals mainly with two interdependent tasks: a) the investigation of the inventory of special language media which by their ontological features secure the desirable effect of the utterance and b) certain types of texts (discourse) which due to the choice and arrangement of language means are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication.

The two objectives of stylistics are clearly discernible as two separate fields of investigation. The inventory of special language media can be analysed and their ontological features revealed if presented in a system in which the co-relation between the media becomes evident.

The types of texts can be analysed if their linguistic components are presented in their interaction, thus revealing the unbreakable unity and transparency of constructions of a given type. The types of texts that are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication are called functional styles of language (FS); the special media of language, which secure the desirable effect of the utterance, are called stylistic devices and expressive means.

2. The epithet

Epithet, an adjective or phrase that is used to express the characteristic of a person or thing, such as Ivan the Terrible. In literature, the term is considered an element of poetic diction, or something that distinguishes the language of poetry from ordinary language. Homer used certain epithets so regularly that they became a standard part of the name of the thing or person described, as in “rosy-fingered Dawn” and “gray-eyed Athena.” The device was used by many later poets, including John Keats in his sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

3. Decoding Stylistics and its principles

In terms of information theory the author's stylistics may be named the stylistics of the encoder: the language being viewed as the code to shape the information into the message, and the supplier of the information, respectively, as the encoder. The addressee in this case plays the part of the decoder of the information contained in the message; and the problems connected with adequate reception of the message without any informational losses or deformations, i.e., with adequate decoding, are the concern of decoding stylistics.

A comparatively new branch of stylistics is the decoding stylistics, which can be traced back to the works of L. V. Shcherba, В. А. Larin, М, Riffaterre, R. Jackobson and other scholars of the Prague linguistic circle. А serious contribution into this branch of stylistic study was also made bу Prof. I.У. Arnold.

Each act of speech has the performer, or sender of speech and the recipient. Тhе former does the act of еnсоding and the latter the act of decoding the information. If we analyze the text from the author's (encoding) point of view we should consider the epoch, the historical situation, the personal political, social and aesthetic views of the author.

But if we try to treat the same text from the reader's angle of view we shall have to disregard this, background knowledge and get the maximum information from the text itself (its vocabu1ary, соmроsition, sеntеnсе arrangement, еtс.) The first approach manifests the prevalence of the literary analysis. Тhе second is based almost exclusively оn the linguistic analysis. Decoding stylistics is an attempt to harmoniously соmbine the two methоds of stylistic research and еnаbе the scholar to interpret а work of art with а minimum loss of its purport and message.