NG Reviewer
NG Reviewer
NG Reviewer
TO STYLISTICS
Erly S. Parungao
Faculty of Arts and Languages
Philippine Normal University
Why bother?
“STYLE”
“STYLE”
Competencies:
Apply the basic stylistic principles to arrive
at meaning of literary texts
Demonstrate skills in a principled analysis
of literary texts to produce less
impressionistic or subjective interpretation
Grasp the ‘grammar of literature’ through
various linguistic tools
Stylistics
Stylistics is the application of concepts from linguistics and
allied disciplines in the analysis and interpretation of
samples of communication through language. (Otanes, ms)
The linguistic study of different styles is called stylistics
(Chapman, 1973:11)
Stylistics is the study of literary discourse from a linguistics
orientation. What distinguishes it from literary criticism.. Is
that it is a means of linking the two. (Widdowson, 1975)
Practical stylistics is the process of literary text analysis which
starts from a basic assumption that the previous interpretative
procedures used in the reading of a literary text are linguistic
procedures (Carter, 1991:4)
Three basic principles of a linguistic approach
to literary study and criticism (Carter):
Literary
Linguistics
Disciplines Criticism
Stylistics
Subjects
Language Literature
1. Natasha came late because
________.
a. She was conscious of her clothes.
b. She was uncomfortable with the
guests.
c. The group was highly
sophisticated.
d. She hated attending birthday
parties.
2. The host and the guest appear to
have violated the maxim of
________ in their dialogue.
a. Maxim of quantity
b. Maxim of quality
c. Maxim of relation
d. Maxim of manner
Co-operative Principle
According to Grice, people can engage in
meaningful conversation because, under
normal conditions, the interlocutors observe
certain principles, which he calls the four
conversational maxims. The maxim of Quality
upholds the value of truth/sincerity ; the
maxim of manner refers to the avoidance of
obscurity of expression and ambiguity, and to
be orderly (Pratt, 1977, pp. 129-130 in Weber, 1996)
Four convention maxims in carrying out a
conversation
(The co-operative principle and its regulative conversation)
Foregrounding- emphasis on a
textual feature may be achieved
through unusual or strange
collocations, meaningful repetitions,
contrast, deliberate deviation from
the norms/ rules/ conventions
1. Sillitoe’s text
Now you’d think, and I’d think, and
everybody with a bit of imagination
Foregrounding in Sillitoe’s text
would think, that we’d done as clean a
(α1) Now you’d think, and I’d think,
job as could ever be done, that with
and everybody with a bit of
the baker’s shop being at least a mile
imagination would think, that we’d
from where we lived, and with not a
done as clean a job as could ever be
soul having seen us, and what with
done, that (β1) with the baker’s shop
the fog and the fact that we weren’t
being at least a mile from where
more than five
we lived, (β2) and with not a soul
minutes in the place, that the coppers
having seen us, (β3) and what with
should never have been able to trace
the fog and the fact that we weren’t
us. But then, you’d be wrong, I’d be
more than five minutes in the place,
wrong and everybody else would be
that the coppers should never have
wrong, no matter how much
been able to trace us. (α2) But then,
imagination was diced out between
you’d be wrong, (α3) I’d be wrong
us.
(α4) and everybody else would be
wrong, (β4) no matter how much
imagination was diced out between
us.
a.)The recursion of clauses, mainly through co-ordination,
with similar or identical structure;
b) The distribution of clauses in groups of threes, producing a
striking pattern of parallelisms:
Three elements:
(a) the process represented by the verb.
Ex. Alex watered the plants
(b) the participants- the roles of persons and objects.
*in the above sentence*
Ex. Alex is the actor, the plants object/goal
(c) circumstantial function – in English typically
the adverbials of time , place and manner.
Roles come in form of the
following:
(a) Actor
(b) Goal or object of result
(c) Beneficiary or recipient
Ex. Rykel gave his brother Shen some cookies.
(d) Instrument of forces
Ex. “The tree was hit by a lightning.”
Dealing with Clauses
-Halliday
Three types:
(a)Action
(b)Mental process
(c) Relation
(b) Mental process
-further divided into verbs of perception,
reaction, cognition and verbalization, all
having a processor and phenomenon,
rather then having actor and goal as
participant roles.
Ex. Shen heard his younger brother
(person)
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
a. Haiku-like
b. Imagistic
c. Philosophical
d. Terza rima
8. Words like ‘alone’ and ‘pierced’ help
convey a ____ tone of the poem.
a. Happy
b. Doubtful
c. Grieving
d. hopeful
9. The critical approach or literary theory
that best fits the poem is ______.
a. Deconstruction
b. Formalism
c. Marxism
d. structuralism
10. The temporal phrase, ‘and suddenly’,
suggests _____.
a. Ambiguity
b. Shift in time
c. Recurrence of pain
d. Temporary respite
11. The version of the rewritten text of “The
Wolf and the Seven Kids” that is likely
to appeal more to children is _____.
12. Pedagogically, the most sensibly, fittingly
prepared cloze test for the selection
below is _____.
a. Delete the 5th or 6th word in every
sentence.
b. Give enough practice before giving the
students this test.
c. Consider the students’ linguistic
competence.
d. Have them choose from a list of words
that resonate in the story.
Pedagogical Stylistics
Carter (in Weber, 1996) bats for a
more extensive and integrated study of
language and literature which are better
given as pre-literary linguistic activities.
1. Predicting how the narrative will develop
after omitting the title, or rather reading the
first paragraph, what the story is all about.
Those can be done by paired group
1.1 Lyric poems or texts which evoke descriptive states do
not benefit from this activity
1.2 Texts with a strong plot component do
1.3 Even best narrative could make students read back
and project forward
2. Use of close procedure
2.1 Focus on individual words/sequence of words, rather
than on stretches of texts
2.2 Do some lexical prediction during the act of reading/
after a story is read.
2.3 Ask students to show careful/close reading.
2.4 Let them do reasonable and supportable predictions
to make them alert to over-all pattern of the story.
3. Summarizing Strategies
3.1 Impose a word limit for a summary, from 25-40
words to: (a) make them re-structure, delete, re-shape to
meet the word limit, (b) stress question on structure and
shape of the narrative.
3.2 Make them compare and criticize alternative
summaries.
4. Forum: Debating opposing viewpoints.
4.1 Literature can mobilize student discussion and
debate.
4.2 It lends itself to small-group activity.
4.3 Provide counter –examples from other groups who
listen
4.4 Let them use their prior knowledge and the text in
question.
5. Guided re-writing
5.1 It helps students recognize the broader discourse
patterns of texts and styles appropriate to them.
5.2 It involves them in re-writing stretches of discourse
to change its communicative value.
5.3 Let them rewrite a set of instructions, as a
description, or turning a lecture transcript into academic
discourse
5.4 Specify clearly information about audiences/purpose
5.5 Rewrite one style into another to explore connections
between styles and meaning, particularly juxtaposing
literary and non-literary texts.
a. Means of livelihood
b. Life and death
c. Fatalism
d. stoicism
Nothing Gold Can Stay
21. A paradox is a statement that contradicts
itself, but seems to be true. The
paradoxical statements in the poem are
in ____.
a. Lines 1 and 3
b. Lines 6 and 8
c. Lines 2 and 4
d. Lines 5 and7
22. The poem above achieves wholeness and
effectiveness because of the presence of
______.
a. Alliteration and assonance
b. Consonance and rhyme
c. Repetition and symbolism
d. All of the above
23. The main symbol used in the poem is
____.
a. Nature
b. Gold
c. Eden
d. Leaf
24. In the final line, gold may stand for
_____.
a. Treasure
b. Wealth
c. Measure of happiness
d. Standard of permanence
25. The repeated word so in the 6th and 7th
lines functions as _____
a. Adverb of time
b. Adjective to mean factual
c. Conjunction to mean with result
d. Interjection used to express surprise
That’s a wrap!