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.

The objective of comparative stylistics is to study the stylistic characteristics of one language in comparison with those of another one. This systematic study offers a better and deeper knowledge of the features that distinguish one language from another.

There are several basic means of lingual comparison - transposition, modulation and equivalence — in addition to four others, which are borrowing, tracing (“calque”), literal translation and adaptation, constitute the seven techniques of translation.

Since the comparison of two languages requires primarily the performance of translation, we can assert that comparative stylistics is subsequent to translation and not prior to it. Therefore, the seven techniques are no more than means of comparison.

It appears that, to translate some expression into another language, one would immediately look for its functional equivalent rather than think of the “technique” to be used, whether it is transposition, modulation or equivalence. As a matter of fact, if the translator fails to find the appropriate equivalent, it will be useless to know that this kind of transfer is called “modulation” from a comparative viewpoint. The same thing applies, of course, to the other techniques offered by comparative stylistics.

Moreover, comparative stylistics usually suggests only one equivalent among several possible equivalents of a lexical unit or expression.

Finally, it appears that comparative stylistics, which is mainly interested in establishing correspondences and equivalences in two languages, does not go beyond the limit of language as a whole to reach the mobility of speech and usage.

Hence, it can neither foretell the most appropriate equivalents for expressions in context nor embrace all potential cases of translation within the ever-renewable act of communication. The field of translation is indeed far from being limited or confined to linguistic facts, idiomatic expressions or correspondences that may constitute the subject of a comparative study.

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