Lecture 1. Stylistics as a Science.

1. The Concept of Style in Linguistics.

The word style is derived from the Latin word 'stylus' which meant a short
stick sharp at one end and flat at the other used by the Romans for writing on wax
tablets.
Now the word ‘style’ is used in so many senses that it has become a ground
for ambiguity. The word is applied to the teaching of how to write a composition;
it is also used to reveal the correspondence between thought and expression; it
frequently denotes an individual manner of making use of language, etc.
The academician V. V. Vinogradov (Виктор Владимирович Виноградов)
defined style as “socially recognized and functionally conditioned internally united
totality of the ways of using, selecting and combining the means of lingual
intercourse in the sphere of one national language or another ‹…›”. Prof. I. R.
Galperin (Илья Романович Гальперин) offered his definition of style as “a
system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in
communication.”
According to Prof. Y. M. Skrebnev (Юрий Максимович Скребнев), “style is
what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts (an individual text) from all
other groups (other texts) ‹…› Style can be roughly defined as the peculiarity, the
set of specific features of a text type or of a specific text.”
All these definitions point out the systematic and functionally determined
character of the notion of style.

2. The Object of Stylistics.

Units of language on different levels are studied by traditional branches of
linguistics such as phonetics that deals with speech sounds and intonation;
lexicology that treats words, their meaning and vocabulary structure, grammar that
analyses forms of words and their function in a sentence which is studied by
syntax. These areas of linguistic study are rather clearly defined and have a long-
term tradition of regarding language phenomena from a level-oriented point of
view. Thus the subject matter and the material under study of these linguistic
disciplines are more or less clear.
It gets more complicated when we talk about stylistics. Some scholars claim
that this is a comparatively new branch of linguistics, which has only a few
decades of intense linguistic interest behind it. The term stylistics really came into
existence not too long ago. In fact the scope of problems and the object of stylistic
study go as far back as ancient schools of rhetoric and poetics.
The problem that makes the definition of stylistics a curious one deals both
with the object and the material of studies. When we speak of the stylistic value of
a text we cannot proceed from the level-biased approach that is so logically
described through the hierarchical system of sounds, words and clauses. Not only
may each of these linguistic units be charged with a certain stylistic meaning but
the interaction of these elements, as well as the structure and composition of the
whole text are stylistically pertinent.
 Stylistics as a branch of general linguistics deals mainly with two
interdependent tasks: a) the investigation of the inventory of special language
media which by their characteristic features secure the desirable effect of the
utterance and b) certain types of texts (discourse) which due to the choice and
arrangement of language means are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the
communication. The two objectives of stylistics are clearly discernible as two
separate fields of investigation. The inventory of special language media can be
analyzed and their characteristic features revealed if presented in a system in which
the co-relation between the media becomes evident.
The types of texts can be analyzed if their linguistic components are presented
in their interaction, thus revealing the unbreakable unity and transparency of
constructions of a given type. The types of texts that are distinguished by the
pragmatic aspect of the communication are called functional styles of language
(FS); the special media of language which secure the desirable effect of the utte-
rance are called stylistic devices (SD) and expressive means (EM).

3. Stylistics of Language and Speech.

One of the fundamental concepts of linguistics is the dichotomy (division into
to parts) of “language and speech” (langue – parole) introduced by F. de Saussure.
According to it language is a system of elementary and complex signs: phonemes,
morphemes, words, word combinations, utterances and combinations of utterances.
Language as such a system exists in human minds only and linguistic forms or
units can be systematised into paradigms.
So language is a mentally organised system of linguistic units. An individual
speaker never uses it. When we use these units we mix them in acts of speech. As
distinct from language speech is not a purely mental phenomenon, not a system but
a process of combining these linguistic elements into linear linguistic units that are
called syntagmatic.
The result of this process is the linear or syntagmatic combination of vowels
and consonants into words, words into word-combinations and sentences and
combination of sentences into texts. The word “syntagmatic” is a purely linguistic
term meaning a coherent sequence of words (written, uttered or just remembered).
Stylistics is a branch of linguistics that deals with texts, not with the system of
signs or process of speech production as such. But within these texts elements
stylistically relevant are studied both syntagmatically and paradigmatically
(loosely classifying all stylistic means paradigmatically into tropes and
syntagmatically into figures of speech).
Eventually this brings us to the notions of stylistics of language and stylistics
of speech. Their difference lies in the material studied.
The stylistics of language analyses permanent or inherent (‘врожденный’)
stylistic properties of language elements while the stylistics of speech studies
stylistic properties, which appear in a context, and they are called adherent
(‘примыкающий’).
So stylistics of language describes and classifies the inherent stylistic
colouring of language units. Stylistics of speech studies the composition of the
utterance – the arrangement, selection and distribution of different words, and their
adherent qualities.

4. Branches of Stylistics.
Literary and linguistic stylistics
According to the type of stylistic research we can distinguish literary stylistics
(‘лингвистика художественного текста’) and lingua-stylistics
(‘лингвостилистика’). They have some meeting points or links in that they have
common objects of research. Consequently they have certain areas of cross-
reference. Both study the common ground of:
1) the literary language from the point of view of its variability;
2) the idiolect (individual speech) of a writer;
3) poetic speech that has its own specific laws;
4) functional styles (in their development and current state);
5) the linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language, their
systematic character and their functions.
Literary stylistics is focused on:
• the composition of a work of art.
• various literary genres.
• the writer’s outlook.

Lingua-stylistics is focused on:

• the characteristic feature of functional styles
• expressive means and stylistic devices

Comparative stylistics
Comparative stylistics is connected with the contrastive study of more than
one language.
It analyses the stylistic resources not inherent in a separate language but at the
crossroads of two languages, or two literatures and is obviously linked to the
theory of translation.

Decoding stylistics
The author’s stylistics may be named the stylistics of the encoder. The
language is viewed as the code. It shapes the information into the message.
The supplier of the information is the encoder. The addressee plays the part
of the decoder of the information contained in the message.
The problems connected with adequate decoding are the concern of
decoding stylistics: adequate decoding is adequate reception of the message
without any informational losses or deformations.

Functional stylistics
Special mention should be made of functional stylistics which is a branch of
lingua-stylistics that investigates functional styles, that is special sublanguages or
varieties of the national language such as scientific, colloquial, business, publicist
and so on.
However many types of stylistics may exist or spring into existence they will
all consider the same source material for stylistic analysis-sounds, words, phrases,
sentences, paragraphs and texts. That’s why any kind of stylistic research will be
based on the level-forming branches that include:

Stylistic lexicology studies the semantic structure of the word and the
interrelation (or interplay) of the connotative and denotative meanings of the word,
as well as the interrelation of the stylistic connotations of the word and the context.

Stylistic Phonetics (or Phonostylistics) is engaged in the study of style-

forming phonetic features of the text. It describes the prosodic features of prose
and poetry and variants of pronunciation in different types of speech (colloquial or
oratory or recital).

Stylistic grammar
Stylistic Morphology is interested in the stylistic potentials of specific
grammatical forms and categories, such as the number of the noun, or the peculiar
use of tense forms of the verb, etc.
Stylistic Syntax is one of the oldest branches of stylistic studies that grew out
of classical rhetoric. Stylistic syntax has to do with the expressive order of words,
types of syntactic links (asyndeton, polysyndeton), figures of speech (antithesis,
chiasmus, etc.). It also deals with bigger units from paragraph onwards.

5. Classification of Functional Styles

Any “idea” can be verbalized in several different ways:
“May I offer you a chair?”
“Take a seat, please.”
“Sit down.”
They differ in meaning of expression. The manner of expression, in its
turn, depends upon the situational conditions of the communication act.
Seventy % of our lifetime is spent in various forms of communication
activity. They are oral (speaking and listening) and written (reading and
writing).
The choice of language varieties depends on the situation in which it
functions adequately.
Thus, functional stylistics is an international and very important trend in
style study. It deals with sets, “paradigms” of language units of all levels of
language hierarchy. Paradigms serve to accommodate the needs of certain
typified communicative situations. Those paradigms are known as functional
styles of the language.
Academicians V.V. Vinogradov and I.R. Galperin formulated the
definition of the style of a language. I.R. Galperin says, that it is “a system of
coordinated, interrelated and interconditioned language means intended to
fulfill a specific function of communication and aiming at a definite effect”.
All scholars agree that a well-developed language, such as English,
Ukrainian, Russian, is streamed into several functional styles. Though their
classifications coincide only partially. Most style theoreticians consider the
number of functional styles to be five. But they disagree about their
nomenclature.
One of the widely accepted classifications singles out the following
functional styles:
1) official – it is represented in all kinds of official documents and
papers;
2) scientific – it is found in articles, brochures, monographs and other
scientific academic publications;
3) publicist – it covers such genres as essays, feature articles public
speeches etc.;
4) newspaper – it is observed in the majority of materials printed in
newspapers;
5) belles-lettres – it embraces numerous and different genres of creative
writing.
Only the first three are recognized in all stylistic treaties. The newspaper
style is often regarded as part of the publicist style.
The number of functional styles and the principles of their differentiation
change with time. They reflect the state of the functioning language at a
given period. Only recently most style classifications had included the so-
called poetic style. It dealt with verbal forms specific for poetry. But now we
do not distinguish an isolated linguistic position of poetry. Now it makes use
of all the vocabulary and grammar at large. So there is hardly sense in
singling out a special poetic style for the contemporary linguistic situation.
Though its relevance for the language of the 17 th, 18th, and even the 19th
centuries cannot be argued.
Something similar can be said about oratoric style. In ancient Greece it
was instrumental in creation of “Rhetoric”. Aristotel, its author, elaborated
the basics of style study. The oratoric skill has lost its position in social and
political life. Nowadays speeches are mostly written first, so they contain all
the characteristic features of publicist writing.
All the above mentioned styles are specified within the literary type of
the language. Their functioning is characterized by the intentional approach
of the speakers. They choose language means suitable for a particular
communicative situation. The nature of such a situation is official, formal,
preplanned.
The colloquial type of the language is characterized by the inofficiality,
informality of the communicative situation. Sometimes the colloquial type of
speech is called “the colloquial style”. In this case it is included into the
classification of functional styles of the language. But there is a great
difference between the literary and colloquial communication. The difference
is as situational as linguistic. A style speech manifests a conscious effort in
choosing and preferring certain means of expression. We choose them for the
given communicative circumstances. Colloquial speech is shaped by the
immediacy, it is not planned before. Alongside this consideration there is a
strong tendency to treat colloquial speech as an individual language system.
It includes its independent set of language units and rules of their connection.
Functional stylistics deals with all the subdivisions of the language, with
all its possible usages. It is the most all-embracing “global” trend in style
study. Specified stylistics, such as the scientific prose study, newspaper style
study etc., may be considered elaborations of certain fields of functional
stylistics.

REFERENCES
1. Znamenskaya Т.А. Stylistics of the English language. Moscow, 2004.
2. Galperin I.R. English Stylistics. Moscow, 2010.