Stylistics and social categories

Submitted to: Mr. Waheed

Submitted by:Iqra Tehseen (939)

Hira Tallat (949)

Maryam yasir

• Style

A manner of doing something• Stylistic

Related to style

Literary style

• Stylistics• The study of the literary styles of particular genres or writers

Stylistics

• linguistics: academic discipline • Stylistics: part of this discipline, A branch of applied

linguistics

literary style of particular genres or writers.

• Manner of expression in writing• The aesthetic function of language• Expressive means in language

• Synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea

• Emotional coloring of language• A system of special devices , called stylistics devices

The Need for the Study of Stylistics

• Integral part of meaning.• A sense of appropriateness.• Literary Stylistics• It aims to account for how texts project meaning

• How readers construct meaning • Why readers respond to texts in the way that they do

• To show why and how the text means what it means (linguistically).

• How the text is unique in itself.

Informal Writing Style Formal Writing Style

• Colloquial

• Simple

• Contractions

• , I’m, doesn’t, couldn’t, it’s

• Abbreviations• TV, PTCL

• Empathy and Emotion

• Complex

• Objective

• Full Words

Stylistic devices

• The splitting of the literary language into separate subsystems called stylistic devices

Stylistics devices examples

• Rhetoric

• Romanticism

• Satire

• Semantics• Subtext• Syntax

• Soliloquy

• Tragedy

• Simile• Personification• Monology• Ballad• Diction

Rhetoric

• This is a literary device used to indicate a question to which no answer is expected: the answer is implied in the question.

• It is an art of discourse.• It studies and employs various methods to convince,

influence the readers.

Common Examples of Usage of Rhetoric• How this idiot does get elected?.

• “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

Romanticism

• Great emphasis on the subjective or personal experience of the individual.

• Nature was also a major theme.• According to: Pater

“The addition of strangeness to beauty”• Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats

Satire

• The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices.

• To ridicule folly or vice.• Its purpose is constructive.

• Social and political criticism.• Amendment of vices by correction.

Semantics

• The study of the meaning of language as opposed to its form

• The hidden meaning lying behind the overt.

• Subtext is the unspoken thoughts• the underlying or implicit meaning

• a message which is not stated directly but can be inferred• metaphorical meaning

Subtext

Example of subtext

• Richard: Here we go, some nice peanut butter sandwiches.

• Son: I am allergic to peanut butter.

Richard: surprised, continues to spread the butter.

• Richard: Since when?Son: Birth

Text: Son is allergic to peanut butter.Subtext: Richard is a terrible father.

Syntax

• The way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure.

Soliloquy

• A dramatic or literary form of discourse

• In which a character talks to himself or herself • Reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener.

Tragedy

• A drama or literary work

• The main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow.

• Inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances.

Simile

• It makes a comparison, showing similarities between two different things.

Common Examples of Simile• Our soldiers are as brave as a lion.

• Her cheeks are red like a rose.• He is as funny as a monkey.

• The water well was dry as a bone.• He is as cunning as a fox.

Personification

• A device whereby an inanimate object is given a human quality.

Example• A talking rock.

Ballad

• A narrative poem

• Written in four-line stanzas, • The Anonymous medieval ballad, "Barbara Allan,"

exemplifies the genre.

Monology

• Thoughts of a single person directed outward.

Diction

• Diction is the choice of specific words

• To communicate meaning, emotion.

Stylistics analysis should be….

• Rigorous

• Retrievable

Subdisciplines of stylistics

• Literary stylistics

Literary terms

poetic speech that has its own specific laws.

• Interpretive stylistics

Perception, central meaning

• Linguistics stylistics

Syntax, semantics

• Discourse stylistics

Spoken or written conversation

Dialogues

• Comparative stylistics

The crossroads of two languages, or two literаturеs• Stylistic lexicology

Vocabulary

Comparative stylistics (Rickett)

Addison Style

• A wide experience of life

• Generous sympathies

• Slight humour

• Realistic

Steel Style

• A wide experience of literature

• A polished style

• Acidity in humour

• Imaginative

Stylistics studies…..

• Phonological level: the study of the sound system of the language

• Graphological language: the writing system of a language• Morphological language: it relates to the study of the

formation of the words

• Syntectical /grammatical: rules for ordering and connecting words into sentences

• Semantic level: it studies the overall meaning of a text

• Pragmatic level: is concerned with our undestanding of language in context.

• Pragmatics is the study of how we don’t say what we mean.• Lexical level: choice of specific lexical items in a text , their

meaning

Examples of pragmatics

When a diplomat says yes, he means “perhaps”

When he says perhaps, he means “no”

When he says no, he is not a diplomat

When a lady says no, she means “perhaps”

When she says perhaps, she means “yes”

When she says yes, she is not a lady

Function of stylistic devices

Stylistic devices make your speeches

• Aesthetic • More interesting

• Lively • Help you to get and keep your reader’s / listener’s attention.

• To explore creativity in language

Stylistic Accuracy

The careful use of language to express meaning

Ernest Hemingway writing style

• Distinctive style

• Simple• Direct

• Unadorned• Emphasis on nouns

• A master of dialog

Henry James writing style

• At first, James' style was straightforward and realistic.• Melodramatic, • The illusion • Long passages of description • Relying heavily on extremely long sentences and excessively

Latinate language.• James claimed that a text must first and foremost be realistic

and contain a representation of life.• Emotive, forceful, factual, descriptive, graphic

Chaucer writing style

• Humour, irony, satire

• Vigour, clarity, concreteness, • Chaucer is a matchless narrator in verse

• His method of narration is dramatic action• Action , dialogue, gestures and costume are all there as in

real life

• Vigorous , easy, lucid, direct

Writing style in the age of Pop

• Town poetry

• Artificial and conventional style• Narrative forms

• Plain and direct expression were avoided• Bombastic and artificial phraseology

• Dominance of the heroic couplet

Defoe’s style

• Unpolished

• Vigorous• Colloquial vocabulary

• Unadorned• Sentences are loosely constructed

• Showed great attention to the minutest details

Swift writing style

• Terse

• Lucid• Simple

• Direct• Vigorous

Social Categories

• Social dialects are varieties distinguished according to the social groups who use them.

• Two people growing up in the same geographical area, at the same time, may speak differently due to social factors

• These social dialects are called sociolects

Factors of social variation

• Social dialect differences tend to be reflected more often in phonology and grammar than in the lexicon

• People's actual usage might lie below the level of conscious awareness

Distribution of social dialects

• Social class• Ethnicity

• Age• Gender

• Network

Social Class

• It is decided according to their occupations, their educational backgrounds, their incomes, their residence types and/or their lifestyles

• On these basis they are given social status e.g.

Upper class

Middle class

Lower class

Social class

• Every social class has a particular way of speaking

• E.g. In British language postvocalic r is not pronounced after a vowel whereas in North America people will pronounce it

• In New York not all speakers eliminate r as it is related to social class

Ethnicity

• Language variation also takes place when the ethnicity or race varies among speakers

• One common source of distinctiveness in ethnic dialects is the influence of foreign languages spoken as a first language by an individual or by his or her parents and grandparents

• E.g. English spoken by African American English speakers. The variety spoken by them is African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

Ethnicity

• AAVE differs from standard English in terms of pronunciation (lef han) vocabulary and grammatical structures ( No “s” for third person singular: she love him)

• absence of the copula, e.g. You crazy

• �The use of a double negative construction e.g. He don’t know nothing

Age

• Within the same social class, differences may correlate with the age of the speakers

• Age-related variation in language may reflect either age-grading or change in progress

• Age-grading in different age groups:

Children/Adolescents

Adults

Elderly/Older adults

Children/Adolescents

• When children first learn their language, they learn language in the way of their mother and/or primary caretakers

• Adolescence is the period when children move away from their family and to express themselves as individuals

• Adolescents tend to lead with an increased use of vernacular and linguistic variables to differentiate themselves from the adult population

Adults

• Adults have been shown to be more conservative in their use of linguistic variables

• This has been attributed to the desired use of standard language which is used in the workplace

• Adolescents tend to use more slang and swear words, but these features recede as they become adults.

Elderly/Older adults

• Although middle-aged adults have conservative speech as mentioned above, older adults tend to have less formal speech

• Older women who have passed the years of childbearing shed some of the conservatism in their speech

• Similarly, older men who are past the age of retirement and no longer in the workforce also have less formal speech because of reduced social pressure to conform

Gender

• Language tends to change with gender as well. It is generally shown by researchers that females use less swearing words or taboos as compared to men. E.g. women in Norwich, England use non-standard [Èn] as the suffix in walking

• Additionally the speech of females tend to be more formal as compared to male speakers. They select formal variety and some researchers have suggested that it is because they want to upgrade their social status

Gender

• But this is not always the case. The lower class female speakers will use more taboo and swearing words as compared to the high class female speakers

• Another factor which influences male/female is mixed or male/female-only gatherings.

Network

• Another aspect of social differentiation which can affect language use even when class, ethnicity, age and gender are held constant is social network

• A measure of association patterns within a community

Relatives

Neighbors

Friends

Family

Coworkers