1 Conceptualizing Style Dualism Monism Pluralism 2 Types of Style Authorial Style Text Style Genre Style Epoch Style Conceptualizing Style Conventionally style refers to the way in which language is used in a ID: 935154
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Slide1
The concept of Style
Slide2Overview
1. Conceptualizing Style
Dualism
Monism
Pluralism
2. Types of Style
Authorial Style
Text Style
Genre Style
Epoch Style
Slide3Conceptualizing Style
Conventionally, style
refers to
the
way in which language is used in a
given context
, by a given person, for a given purpose
(Leech and Short, 2007: 9).
Style is the sum of linguistic features that are characteristic of a person, text or genre (
Nørgaard
, 2010: 156).
Short (2013: 81) associates style with the concept of language varieties across dialects, media/modes, tenors and domains.
Is style related to the choice of form or function?
Slide4Dualism
Style can
be envisaged as the dress of thought.
Such Dualist view is premised on the assumption that the
aesthetics of
form, rather than the content, tends
to attract the
reader’s attention (Leech and Short, 2007: 14).
Style can also be thought of as a manner of expressions.
Such
a dualist view holds that there can be different ways of conveying the same content
.
Consider the cases of passivation and colloquialism.
Slide5Dualism
Dualism is based on
the commonsensical meaning of the word style.
Leech and Short (2007: 20) point out that ”the
dualist’s notion of
paraphrasing rests
on the assumption that there
is some
basic sense that can be preserved in different
renderings”.
Two problems arise with this view:
This view is untenable and easily challenged when paraphrasing literary & religious texts and when translating texts across languages, modes & domains.
It assumes the existence of a type of style that
can be neutral aesthetically, morally and
ideologically (the absence
of
style).
Slide6Monism
Monism rejects
the form-content dichotomy.
Consider this
line
by Yeats
:
Tread
softly because you tread on my
dreams
.
According monism, the choices
that are clearly dictated
by subject
matter are part of
style.
For monists, from and content are inseparable as they both contribute to style.
Slide7Monism
Monism underscores the difficulty of rendering texts across languages and modes.
Such a view is
counterintuitive, because the general meaning of the a text can be transferred across languages, modes & domains.
What type of meaning that can be transferred across languages and modes?
Slide8Pluralism
Pluralists analyze style in terms of functions.
Language
performs a
number of
different functions, and
style is the
result
of choices
made on different functional
levels.
Jakobson
‘s
Functions of
Language (
Jakobson
‘, 1961)
Halliday’s
Functions of Language (
Halliday
, 1973)
Slide9Pluralism
Pluralists
rule out the from-content dichotomy as too simplistic.
Stylistic significance is not only associated with the from of the linguistic choice but
also to its content, i.e. its referential function (
a’la
Jakobson
) or ideational function (
a’la
Halliday
).
Pluralism can then be regarded as a more sophisticated version of monism, but unlike monism,
it does not view a
text as an undifferentiated
whole hard to scrutinize linguistically.
Thus, Leech
and Short (2007) argues that pluralism is more eliminating than both monism and dualism
.
Slide10Style
‘Style’
is a
motivated linguistic choice
made out
of a linguistic repertoire (Leech and Short, 2007; Simpson, 2004: 22).
Stylistic choices
have a profound impact on the way texts are structured and
interpreted
(Simpson
, 2004: 22).
To what or whom do we attribute
these motivated linguistic choices?
Slide11Types of Style
According to
Leech and Short (2007) and
Jeffries and
McIntyre (2010),
style can be conceptualized in terms of:
Authorial Style: the linguistic choices made by th
e author, which eventually give rise to the singularity
of individual
style
.
Text Style:
the distinctive linguistic patterns that are characteristic
of
a text.
Genre
Style: the common linguistic features found in texts belonging to a given genre.
Epoch
Style: the common linguistic features associated with a particular period of time.
Slide12Types of Style
Two important questions:
From a methodological perspective, which conceptualization of style is more adequate and
operationalizable
? And why?
From
an
aesthetic
perspective
, which conceptualization of style is more adequate and
operationalizable
? And Why?
Slide13Types of Style
The distinctiveness of personal style can be overemphasized (Leech and Short, 2007: 10). It is conditioned by personal preferences & habits, context, genre, etc.
The commonality of the style associated with particular genre or epoch can only be measured by analyzing related texts
conventionally attributed to a particular genres or epoch.
The
concept text is the natural starting place for the study of
style. It can be done systematically with focus on why certain
structure are chosen over others (Leech and Short, 2007: 10
).
Slide14References
Holliday, M.A.K. (1973).
Explorations in the Functions of Language .
London: Edward Arnold.
Jeffries, L. and McIntyre, D. (2010)
Stylistics
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leech G. and Short, M. (2007)
Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose
. (2nd Edition. London: Longman.
Nørgaard
, N.;
Busse
, B. &
Montoro
, R. (2010).
Key Terms in Stylistics
. London & New York: Continuum.
Short, M. (2013).
Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose
. (2
nd Edition). London : Routledge. Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics: A resource book for students. London: Routledge.jakobson, r. (1961) ‘Closing statement: linguistics and poetics’. Style in Language, 350 (377) 570-579.