flâneur

Ling 131 - A brief History of Stylistics

lancaster.ac.uk · 252 words · saved by 1 readers

The term 'Stylistics' became associated with detailed linguistic criticism because, at the time it developed, the study of authorial style was a major critical concern, and linguistic analysis, allied to statistics, was popular with the more linguistically inclined critics. To some degree, it is a less happy name now, as stylisticians have, by and large, moved away from the study of style and towards the study of how meanings and effects are produced by literary texts. There have been a few attempts to change the name of the enterprise: for example to 'literary linguistics' or 'critical linguistics'. But none of the labels so far proposed covers all the aspects of field adequately (for example the two just mentioned can just as easily apply to areas not covered by Stylistics and do not adequately represent the psychological aspects of the approach), and so 'Stylistics' has survived as the most popular label, despite its shortcomings. As we can't find a better label for Stylistics, we t

Why "Stylistics" ? The term 'Stylistics' became associated with detailed linguistic criticism because, at the time it developed, the study of authorial style was a major critical concern, and linguistic analysis, allied to statistics, was popular with the more linguistically inclined critics. To some degree, it is a less happy name now, as stylisticians have, by and large, moved away from the study of style and towards the study of how meanings and effects are produced by literary texts. There have been a few attempts to change the name of the enterprise: for example to 'literary…

saved by

related reading