The Structure of Stylistics

Stylistics is a branch of linguistics, which embraces also such disciplines as phonetics, morphology, lexicology, and syntax. The smallest unit of language is a phoneme. Several phonemes constitute a unit of a higher level, a morpheme. One or more morphemes make a word, or a ‘lexeme’, i.e. the lexical level. One or more word makes an utterance, or a sentence. Hence, the sentence level. We can also single out the paragraph level and even the text level. In other words, we discover that language presents a hierarchy of levels, from the lowest up to the highest.

Each level is described by a ‘level discipline’: phonetics, morphology, lexicology, syntax. Of course, stylistics does not fit in here. For stylistics is not a level discipline (just as history of language is), because stylistics pertains to all the levels, to every level. Stylistics must be subdivided into separate, quite independent branches, treating one level each: stylistic phonetics, stylistic morphology, stylistic lexicology, stylistic syntax.

Stylistic phonetics pays attention to a style-forming phonetic features, it describes variants of pronunciation occurring in different types of speech. Special attention is paid to prosodic features of prose and poetry.

Stylistic morphology is interested in grammatical forms and grammatical meanings that are peculiar to particular sublanguage.

Stylistic lexicology is closely connected with lexicology, since there are many overlapping aspects.

Stylistic syntax shows that particular constructions are met with in various types of speech, what syntactical structures are style-forming in the sublanguage in question.

5. Branches of stylistics:

Lexical stylistics studies functions of direct and figurative meanings, also the way contextual meaning of a word is realized in the text. L.S. deals with various types of connotations – expressive, evaluative, emotive; neologisms, dialectal words and their behavior in the text.

Grammatical stylistics is subdivided into morphological and syntactical

Morphological stylistics views stylistic potential of grammatical categories of different parts of speech. Potential of the number, pronouns…

Syntactical stylistics studies syntactic, expressive means, word order and word combinations, different types of sentences and types of syntactic connections. Also deals with origin of the text, its division on the paragraphs, dialogs, direct and indirect speech, the connection of the sentences, types of sentences.

Phonostylistics studies phonetical organization of prose and poetic texts. Here are included rhythm, rhythmical structure, rhyme, alliteration, assonance and correlation of the sound form and meaning. Also studies deviation in normative pronunciation.

Functional stylistics (decoding) deals with all subdivisions of the language and its possible use (newspaper, colloquial style). Its object is correlation of the message and communicative situation.

Individual style study studies the style of the author. It looks for correlations between the creative concepts of the author and the language of his work.

Descriptive stylistics is the study of units larger than a sentence, i.e. the arrangement of sentences, their grouping in paragraphs;

Ideostylistics (stylistics of individual speech) is investigation of the author’s style or the style of a literary work.

Linguostylistics is the comparison of the national standard and the system of the language with functional styles and dialects, investigation of the elements of language into their potential to express and provoke emotions, additional associations and evaluation. Problems of Linguostylistics: 1) definition of style and functional style; 2) ascertaining functional regularities for the units of different language levels, their stylistic meanings and connotations.

Text Stylistics is a field (aspect) of linguostylistic research of the structural-semantic organization of the text (a group of texts); its compositional-stylistic types and forms, constructive and stylistic devices, functions of textual and before-textual systems of units, their role in the construction and expression of contents of the text, its stylistic peculiarities, i.e. the study of the functions, style peculiarities of types and units of the text. Peculiarities of Text Stylistics: research of textual units; study of the virtual texts; analysis of the contents of the text. Peculiarities of Functional Stylistics: research of before-textual units; study of text typology; no emphasis on the contents in the analysis of speech typology.

Stylistics of language is the research of language subsystems with their specific word-stock, phraseology and syntax, analysis of expressive, emotional and evaluative potential of various language means.

Stylistics of speech is the research of texts, ways and forms of expressing some contents in them according to grammatical and stylistic norms and on the basis of meaningful deviations.

Literary stylistics is a branch of literary criticism, studying language potential in imaginative reflection of reality in fiction.

Theoretical stylistics is the research of the speech act and text, built up of three parts, correlated with the speech act components:

Author’s Stylistics \ genetic stylistics” \ is the research of the author's choice of speech forms, the author’s message and its realization.

Immanent stylistics is the research of the inner construction of the text, realization of the laws of the given speech genre.

Stylistics of the addressee (stylistics of perception) is the investigation of the addressee’s interpretation of the author’s message, as well as the “image of the addressee” or “the addressee factor” itself.

Practical stylistics is the basis of teaching the norms of a native or foreign language. Tasks of practical stylistics: development of style perception, introduction into the norms of functional styles, the formation of the skill of designing a coherent text according to its functional and language peculiarities.

General stylistics is a discipline, investigating universal laws: stylistic resources and universal laws of language functioning as a whole. Stylistics of particular languages as a research of regularities characteristic of English, German, Russian, etc or a group of related languages (Germanic languages, Slavic languages, Turkic languages and etc.).

Comparative stylistics is the study of stylistic resources and functional regularities of the language on the basis of comparison of related languages.

Synchronic and diachronic stylistics. Synchronic and diachronic principles of the stylistic description. Historical or diachronic stylistics is the investigation into the processes of functional styles formation and other speech forms in connection with the social order and changing extra-linguistic factors of style formation, historic development of stylistic language systems.

Linguistic stylistics studies functional styles of a language and the elements of language from the point of view of their ability to express and cause emotions, associations, etc. Linguistic stylistic must be subdivided due to the fact that language presents a hierarchy of levels, from the lowest up to the highest and each level is described by what we call a "level discipline": stylistic phonetics, stylistic morphology, stylistic syntax, stylistic lexicology. This branch studies the expressive possibilities of a language.

Literary stylistics studies expressive means and stylistic devices characteristic for a definite work of art, man of letter, literary movement, trend or epoch, and factors influencing the expressiveness of language. Literary stylistics is closely connected with poetics and theory of literature. Poetics is the science studying the structure of works of literature and the system of aesthetic means used in them. This branch studies the way language is used by a definite person or literary movement.

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