Stylistics1文体学课件.ppt

Stylistics Chapter 1 Introduction Preliminaries What is style? What is stylistics? Language??? The language habits of one person (Shakespeare’s style) The language habits of a group of people at a given time (the eighteenth century style) The characteristics of language use in a particular genre (style of advertising discourse) The effectiveness of language use (lucid style, plain style, pompous style) 1. Definition of Stylistics The study of style (Wales, 1989: 437) The study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation. What distinguishes stylistics from literary criticism on the one hand and linguistics on the other is that it is essentially a means of linking the two (Widdowson, 1975: 3). Widdowson further explains the definition from the morphological make-up of the word stylistics, pointing out that the ‘styl’ component relates stylistics to literary criticism, and the ‘istics’ component to linguistics. Study of the use of language in literature, a meeting-ground of linguistics and literary study (Leech 1968: 2). Stylistics is an area of study which straddles two disciplines: literary criticism and linguistics. It takes literary discourse (text) as its object of study and uses linguistics as a means to that end. What is style? A person’s distinctive language habits, the set of individual characteristics of language use. Hemingway’s style, Shakespeare’s style. A set of collective characteristics of language use, i.e. language habits shared by a group of people at a given time (Elizabethan style/知青文学/伤痕文学/Beat generation), in a given place (Yankee humor/课桌文学), on a given occasion (the style of public speaking), for a literary genre (ballad style), or even a particular mode of writing (web/internet literature) The effectiveness of a mode of expression; saying the right thing in the most effective way; good manners. A clear or refined style. A characteristic of ‘good’ or ‘beautiful’ literary writings. Grand style, ornate style, lucid style, plain style.