Stylistic analysis of a literary text : Theory and practice. Стилистический анализ художественного текста: теория и практика

Н.В. Александрович

STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
OF A LITERARY TEXT

Theory and practice

СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ
ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОГО ТЕКСТА

Теория и практика

Учебное пособие

3-е издание, стереотипное

Москва
Издательство «ФЛИНТА»
2018

УДК 811.111’42(075.8)
ББК 81.432.1-5я73

А46

Ре це нзе нты:

д-р филол. наук, проф. М.Ю. Беляева

(Кубанский государственный университет);

канд. филол. наук, доцент Е.Н. Гвоздович

(Белорусский государственный университет)

Александрович Н.В.

А46 
Stylistic analysis of a literary text : Theory and practice. Стили
стический анализ художественного текста : Теория и практика 
[Электронный 
ресурс]: 
учеб. 
пособие 
/ 
Н.В. 
Александрович. — 3-е изд., стер. — М. : ФЛИНТА, 2018. — 
112 с.

ISBN 978-5-9765-1974-9

Художественный текст — это словесное воплощение авторского 
образа мира, который объективируется в форме и содержании произведения, т.е. системе ключевых образов, тем, наборе выразительных 
средств. Настоящее пособие состоит из двух разделов. В первом содержится теоретический материал, необходимый для комплексного 
стилистического анализа текста (кратко описаны аспекты современной стилистики и терминология), который подтверждается анализом 
конкретных примеров из книг английских и американских авторов. 
Произведения принадлежат разным эпохам и жанрам. Во втором 
раз-деле пособия дан пример стилистического анализа новеллы 
«Лицо ангела» современного английского писателя Б. Стэблфорда. 
Часть заданий выполнена как образец, часть оставлена для 
самостоятель-ной работы студентов. В стилистический разбор 
включены элемен-ты концептуального анализа, демонстрирующие, 
что 
выбор 
лингви-стических 
средств 
обусловлен 
авторским 
видением мира. В качестве примера дан также анализ концепта 
dream в романе Ф.С. Фицдже-ральда «Великий Гэтсби».
Для студентов, аспирантов, преподавателей филологических факультетов вузов, учителей-словесников.

УДК 811.111’42(075.8)
ББК 81.432.1-5я73

ISBN 978-5-9765-1974-9
© Александрович Н.В., 2014
© Издательство «ФЛИНТА», 2014

CONTENTS

Preface  ..............................................................................................................5

Part 1  ................................................................................................................8

Chapter 1. Stylistics and its object  ................................................................8
1.1. Stylistics as a linguistic discipline ..............................................................8
1.2. Stylistics of Decoding  ..............................................................................10
1.3. Text as a Stylistics object  .........................................................................12
1.4. Types of textual analysis. Meaning of context  .........................................14

Chapter 2. The norm of the language and departures from the norm  .......17
2.1. The problem of word choice  ....................................................................17
2.2. Dimensions of registers  ............................................................................19
2.3. Meaning of phrasal verbs  .........................................................................23
2.4. The problem of the norm and departure from the norm  ...........................25
2.5. Semi-marked structures  ............................................................................29

Chapter 3. Expressive means of the language  ............................................32
3.1. Stylistic devices  ........................................................................................32
3.2. Types of foregrounding  ............................................................................33
3.2.1. Convergence  ...................................................................................33
3.2.2. Coupling  .........................................................................................35
3.2.3. “The principle of defeated expectancy”  .........................................37
3.3. Tropes  .......................................................................................................40
3.4. Epithet  ......................................................................................................47

Chapter 4. Levels of stylistic analysis  ..........................................................54
4.1. Phonetic Stylistics  ....................................................................................54
4.2. Morphological aspect of Stylistics  ...........................................................60
4.3. Stylistic aspect of Syntax ..........................................................................65 
4.3.1. Inversion  .........................................................................................65
4.3.2. Reduplication ..................................................................................67
4.4. Expressiveness of negations  .....................................................................70
4.5. Textual implication  ...................................................................................71

Part 2. Interpretation of the text ..................................................................76
1. Interpretation: general  ..............................................................................76
2. Steps of interpretation  ..............................................................................78
3. Stylistic analysis of the novel “The Face of an Angel”
by Brian Stableford  ..................................................................................81
4. Sample of conceptual analysis. DREAM as a basic concept
in the novel “The Great Gatsby”  ..............................................................98

References  ....................................................................................................103

PREFACE

We live in the age of “screen culture”. People, especially young 
people, seldom take literary works into their hands. They prefer 
comic books, clips and pictures. Pictures give us ready images; they 
are gradually leveling our critical and creative thinking. Meanwhile, 
literary works give us much pleasure and make our image of the 
world many-sided and many-coloured.
Literary texts differ from any other texts in their creative 
nature; their imaginary world correlates with the real one in 
concordance with author’s intentions and attitudes. In modern 
philological practice there are many approaches (literary, semiotic, 
psycholinguistic, and others) to the text; each of them is based on 
the objectives of study — its multilevel structure, contents, typology, 
genre and style features, etc.
The structural organization of the text is due to complex factors, 
it is sent to the laws of semiosis and characteristics of the language, 
physiological and mental specifi cs of a person (his/her “body” and 
“soul”), the interaction of linguistic and encyclopedic knowledge, 
generally accepted in the culture standards and assessments. All 
these factors determine the construction and contents of the text.
The leading tendency in modern science is integration 
of scientifi c knowledge. Theoretical division of philological 
disciplines is nowadays doubtful. From Bakhtin’s idea that 
linguistics cannot fi nd approach to composition as the whole 
the Russian school came to the new conclusion. It is the linguist 
who must explain how an ordinary material becomes meaningful 
and what transformations occur in a literary structure. In private, 
stylistics and poetics are close in their interest to composition as 
the author’s self-expression.
Stylistics is traditionally considered to study the principles, effect 
of choice and usage of different language elements in rendering 
thought and emotion under different conditions of communication. 
However, Stylistics is not dealing with only “fi gurative meaning” or 
“expressive devices”. It is aiming at entry into the workshop of the 

writer, insight into his/her thoughts and feelings, reconstruction his/
her image of the world.
There are some branches of Stylistics differing in their objects. 
Stylistics of text analyses fi gurative, linguistic and compositional 
means and their role in creation of aesthetic effect. Stylistics of text is 
included into Stylistics of speech and based on Stylistics of language. 
Stylistics of text tends to defi ne and describe stylistic effects in speech 
which appeared owing to structural organization of the text and 
functioning of linguistic means within communication process.
Literary stylistics investigates distinctive features of different 
literary trends and genres, individual styles of different authors and 
extra-linguistic factors, which help to shape them, literary norms 
of a given period, as well as stylistic and aesthetic evaluation of the 
works of writers. Literary stylistics is not homogeneous either. If the 
aim of stylistic analysis is to bring out the writer’s intention, it is 
called stylistics by the author, or generic stylistics.
There are many books devoted to practical skills within stylistic 
analysis of literary texts. The present book is also designed to teach 
students to read and interpret literary texts. It focuses primarily on 
meaning, rather than discreet skills, in both reading and discussing. 
The methodology is a blend of both the process and product 
approaches to reading. The process approach encourages students 
to develop their analytical thinking about a literary work. The 
product approach, relying on gradual steps, helps students enjoy 
comprehending the author’s message.
The book consists of two parts. Part 1 contains the necessary 
theo retical material for a comprehensive stylistic analysis. All 
defi nitions and explanations are illustrated with the examples 
from classical literary works written by I. Asimov, C. Dickens, 
F.S. Fitzgerald, D. Lehane, E.A. Poe, B. Stableford, etc.
Part 2 contains some questions and assignments which students 
should do for themselves. The process stage is the expression of 
students’ own impressions, feelings and opinions as well as free 
discussions on the issues. The product stage suggests application of 
theoretical knowledge to practical material.

The novel “The Face of an Angel” by modern English science 
fi ction (SF) writer Brian Stableford1 has been selected as the material 
for analysis. There are some reasons, why. Firstly, the selection of a 
novel as both a rather short and rich in contents work is connected 
with the convenience of reading. Secondly, the author is one of 
the world’s most honored SF writers. Thirdly, fantasy is the oldest 
branch of imaginative literature, as old as the human imagination 
itself. It makes writers create new worlds and images and seek for 
new creative language means to depict them. And, fi nally, Brian 
Stableford is a lecturer in Creative Writing at King’s College, 
Westminster, where he teaches on an MA in “Writing for Children”. 
He knows how to write perfectly.

1 Stableford B. The Face of an Angel // Fantasy: The Best of 2002. — N.Y.: 
ibooks, inc., 2003.

PART 1

Chapter 1. Stylistics and its object

1.1. Stylistics as a linguistic discipline

Stylistics is one of the oldest linguistic disciplines. It is the study 

of style, especially in language and literature.

Style in modern dictionaries is explained as the individual way 

that someone behaves, writes and does things:

e.g. Rob has a very different style, relaxed and slow.

Stylistic — relating to ways of creating effects, especially in 

language and literature.

The first researches of styles are connected with the works of 

Aristotle about poetics or individual differences in creative poetic 
manner. In the Middle Ages rhetoric as the art of speech became 
very popular. Rhetoric included studies about word expression which 
regarded selection of words and their combinations as well as figures 
of speech. Rhetoric of 17—18th centuries focused on studies about 
styles (e.g. rhetoric of Lomonosov in Russia).

The term ’Stylistics’ appeared in early 19th century in works of 

German romanticists, brothers Von Schlegel in connection with new 
notions of the creative personality. In the middle of the 19th century 
Spencer and Steinthal tried to make scientific base for Stylistics. 
Historic Stylistics was founded by V. Veselovsky and A. Potebnya.

Linguistic Stylistics in the modern sense began with the works of C. 

Bally about French Stylistics (1909) and became independent linguistic 
branch in the works of The Prague Society. In Russian philology 
Stylistics is connected first of all with the studies of V. Vinogradov.

Modern Stylistics has various definitions in different linguistic 

trends and schools and this fact is connected with different 
understanding of style as a Stylistics object.

1. The narrowest (but not the fi rst) understanding of Stylistics 
was suggested by American descriptive linguistics in the 40—50s of 
the 20th century. The descriptivists (A. Hill and others) treated the 
language structure as an arrangement of its elements in speech from 
morphemes to sentences. In the light of this theory Stylistics should 
study the structure of elements which are more than a sentence, i.e. 
arrangements of sentences in paragraphs and further. This approach 
can be called Descriptive Stylistics.
2. From the previous conception there came wider understanding 
of Stylistics applied in modern English text linguistics. Text 
linguistics regards common principles of a text structure and 
accordingly it is identifi ed with a text grammar. In this sense it may 
be called Text Stylistics (Hendricks and others).
3. In the 30—40s of the 20th century the linguists of The Prague 
Society developed the conception of correlation between the text and 
other subsystems of the language. It was Stylistics beyond the text as 
it regarded the correlation between the text itself, linguistic “code” 
and other subsystems or styles. From this point of view the text as a 
speech act, oral or written, is the result of a speaker’s choice when 
the latter chooses phonetic, grammar, lexical, syntactical forms and 
their combinations for a speech act depending on its function. The 
basic notion of such understanding of Stylistics was a communicative 
or functional style, so it may be called functional Stylistics and 
regards the same object as Sociolinguistics and Pragmalinguistics.
The principle of functional choice rises to Charles Bally’s 
conception of synonymous rows which states that there are 
numerous synonymous forms and their rows. The last row forms 
“the neutral background” and the rows above it differ in additional 
stylistic colorings. Bally defi ned this coloring as expressive one — 
low or colloquial (familiar) and high, bookish. E.g. face — neutral, 
mug — low, image — high style.
Nowadays Stylistics is a branch of linguistics studying a style in 
all linguistic meanings of this term:

● as the individual manner to perform speech acts;

● as a functional style of speech;

● as a style of the language and so on.
But the aims (tasks) of Stylistics are wider than a style studying 
itself; it studies

● the evolution of styles in connection with the fi ction language 
history,

● the fi ction language in its evolution,

● universal devices of this language,

● speech genres.
The object of Stylistics is also expressive means of the language, 
fi gures of speech and tropes which are not connected with any 
defi nite style.
So the aims of Stylistics may be defi ned as the following:
a) studying different styles including the individual and genre 
styles;
b) studying the expressive and emotional properties of different 
linguistic means in the paradigm of a given language and in the 
syntagm of speech.
In the fi rst case it is Stylistics of language and in the second it is 
Stylistics of speech.

1.2. Stylistics of Decoding

French-born American literary theorist M. Riffaterre used 
the notions and terminology of modern information theory and 
formulated the general tasks of Stylistics. He defi ned it as a science 
studying those aspects of an utterance which regard a message of a 
person who codes it to a person who receives and decodes it. Thus, 
the term Stylistics of decoding appeared.
Nowadays the terms and notions of information theory are widely 
applied in Stylistics researches in Russia and abroad. The most 
known Russian names in this sphere are I. Galperin, V. Kukharenko, 
V. Komissarov, Y. Lotman, Y. Stepanov and others.
If we use the scheme of connection and apply it to texts we will 
get the following picture. The fi rst component of the scheme is a 

source of information that should be transmitted to the receiver. For 
a writer (the author of a message) it may be reality, problems and 
facts of life, his/her own experience. He/she selects those facts and 
events which are worth writing about. This information correlates 
with the text’s composition, system of images, plot, etc. and then it 
is coded with a help of linguistic means so that it gets some lexical 
and grammatical embodiment.
A code is a system of words, numbers, or signs used for sending 
secret messages. Professor I. Arnold states that the fi ctional language 
forms the whole system of codes. The most important among them is 
the national language a literary work is written in. A natural language 
is the main but not the only code of literature. There are also codes 
of customs, etiquette and symbols in this or that culture, codes of 
other arts.
A message is fi rst of all a piece of written or spoken information 
that is sent to someone, especially when the addresser cannot 
speak to them directly or the main idea that he/she wants people to 
remember from speech, advertisements, articles, etc. In Stylistics 
such message is the text of a given literary work or its extract which 
is enough for the analysis of its form and contents.
A period of time through which the message is worked on is 
called a signal. It works in the process of reading, understanding and 
feeling. Cybernetics showed that the effect of a signal is not equal to 
its own energy as it affects with its informational meaning. It is the 
same with literature. A short poem, e.g. a sonnet, may be richer in 
information and cause stronger reaction than a novel.
So literature is regarded as a channel for information 
transmitting. But there are ideal channels and noisy ones. Literature 
is the channel where interferences are unavoidable and the only 
decoding is impossible. Codes and memory of an addresser 
culturally, emotionally, intellectually, etc. differ from codes and 
memory of a reader (or a recipient).
We regard memory as all the information which a recipient has 
had before reading. These are personal feelings, social background, 
inherited features and education. So different readers will have 

different decoding systems. Stylistics of decoding researches 
the process of transmitting of a message from an addresser to a 
recipient. That is why Stylistics of decoding is also called Stylistics 
of perception.
In 1923 prominent Russian philologist B. Larin wrote that in 
Stylistics area one should mind cohesion of the literary work. He 
stressed that correct understanding is possible only proceeding from 
text as a whole. A literary work affects the reader with its characters, 
associations, contrasts and so on and it requires the reader to proceed 
from all, adding and restoring everything that is missing but inferred. 
Dozens of years ago Larin wrote about combined augment of the 
sense which may not arise from the neighbor linguistic means but 
from understated. Such augments are possible within a phrase, a 
paragraph, a chapter and the whole book.

1.3. Text as a Stylistics object

Each language is a system of meaningful elements which 
form some levels: phonetic, morphemic, lexical, and syntactical. 
Nowadays there are a lot of discussions whether it is reasonable to 
regard such linguistic level as textual. From the Stylistics point of 
view it would be reasonable to begin stylistic analysis with graphical 
level, continue with phonetic level, lexical level, syntactical level 
and then additionally — level of stylistic devices, level of images 
and symbolism, level of text.
American linguist M. Halliday considers that a text consists of 
sentences whose number (n) cannot be less than one. He regards the 
text as an operational unit of a language, it may be oral or written; 
it includes a literary text as its specifi c variety, should it be haiku or 
Homer’s poems. It is the text that is the object of stylistic research as 
it is a functional notion and is not limited with its size2.

2 Halliday M.A. Linguistic Function and Literary Style // Explorations in the 
Functions of Language. — L., 1974.