Republic of the Philippines

PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY

Camarines Sur

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Module 7
LITERARY THEORIES

Name: PRINCESS P. PORTEZA Week/Period: Week 10-11 , Oct.11-22, 2021

Course Code: ENGE1 Name of Faculty: Dr. Gemmah T. Barcillano
Course Title: Stylistics and Discourse Analysis Semester/AY: 1nd Semester, 2021-2022

A. INTRODUCTION
This module will extensively explain the different literary theories. This will
highlight the methods related to the literary theories. The module will help you to
understand fully the different theories.

Included also are the activity in which you will be required to view a video in
youtube and assessment you need to accomplish at the end of the module.

B. OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Explain the types of stylistics;

b. Write a reaction paper;
c. Describe the method/s.

C. CONTENT

The Reader-Response Stylistics

Reader-response suggests that the role of the reader is essential to the meaning of a text, for only in the
reading experience does the literary work come alive. For example, in Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley’s  Frankenstein (1818), the monster doesn’t exist, so to speak, until the reader
reads Frankenstein and reanimates it to life, becoming a co-creator of the text.
Thus, the purpose of a reading response is examining, explaining, and defending your personal reaction
to a text.
Your critical reading of a text asks you to explore:
 why you like or dislike the text;
 explain whether you agree or disagree with the author;
 identify the text’s purpose; and
 critique the text.
There is no right or wrong answer to a reading response. Nonetheless, it is important that you
demonstrate an understanding of the reading and clearly explain and support your reactions. Do not use
the standard approach of just writing: “I liked this text because it is so cool and the ending made me feel
happy,” or “I hated it because it was stupid, and had nothing at all to do with my life, and was too
negative and boring.”  In writing a response you may assume the reader has already read the text.
Thus, do not summarize the contents of the text at length.  Instead, take a systematic, analytical
approach to the text.

If you did not like a text, that is fine, but criticize it either from:
 principle, for example:
o Is the text racist?

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 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

o Does the text unreasonably puts down things, such as religion, or groups of
people, such as women or adolescents, conservatives or democrats, etc?
o Does the text include factual errors or outright lies? It is too dark and despairing? Is it
falsely positive?
 form, for example:
o Is the text poorly written?
o Does it contain too much verbal “fat”?
o Is it too emotional or too childish?
o Does it have too many facts and figures?
o Are there typos or other errors in the text?
o Do the ideas wander around without making a point?

In each of these cases, do not simply criticize, but give examples. As a beginning scholar, be cautious of
criticizing any text as “confusing” or “crazy,” since readers might simply conclude that you  are too
ignorant or slow to understand and appreciate it.

 Reader response research in stylistics is characterized by a commitment to rigorous and evidence-based

approaches to the study of readers’ interactions with and around texts, and the application of such
datasets in the service of stylistic concerns, to contribute to stylistic textual analysis and/or wider
discussion of stylistic theory and methods. The influence of reader response criticism and reception
theory on stylistics and discuss the productive dialogues which exist between stylistics and the related
fields of the empirical study of literature and naturalistic study of reading. After offering an overview of
methods available to reader response researchers and a contextualizing survey of existing work, it can
be argued that both experimental and naturalistic methods should be regarded as ‘empirical’, and that
stylistics is uniquely positioned to embrace diverse approaches to readers and reading. It can be
summarized that the contributions to the special issue and the valuable insights they offer into the
historical context of reader response research and the way readers perceive and evaluate texts (either
poetry or narrative prose). Stylistic reader response research enables both the testing and development
of stylistic methods, in accordance with the progressive spirit of the discipline, and also the
establishment of new and renewed connections between stylistic research and work in other fields.

Affective Stylistics

Affective stylistics is derived from analyzing further the notion that a literary text is an event that occurs
in time—that comes into being as it is read—rather than an object that exists in space. The text is
examined closely, often line by line or even word by word, in order to understand how (stylistics) it
affects (affective) the reader in the process of reading. Although there is thus a great deal of focus on
the text, which is why some theorists consider this approach transactional in nature, many practitioners
of affective stylistics do not consider the text an objective, autonomous entity—it does not have a fixed
meaning independent of readers—because the text consists of the results it produces, and those results
occur within the reader. For example, when Stanley Fish describes how a text is structured, the structure
he describes is the structure of the reader’s response as it occurs from moment to moment, not the
structure of the text as we might assemble it—like puzzle pieces all spread out at once before us—after
we’ve finished reading. Nevertheless, affective stylistics is not a description of the reader’s
impressionistic responses but a cognitive analysis of the mental processes produced by specific elements
in the text. Indeed, it is the “slow-motion,” phrase-by-phrase analysis of how the text structures the
reader’s response for which affective stylistics is perhaps best known.

Some of the finest examples of this procedure have been produced by Fish. To see how this approach
works, let’s take a look at his analysis of the following sentence.

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 2 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

That Judas perished by hanging himself, there is no certainty in Scripture: though in one place it seems
to affirm it, and by a doubtful word hath given occasion to translate it; yet in another place, in a more
punctual description, it maketh it improbable, and seems to overthrow it. (“Literature” 71)

According to Fish, the question “What does this sentence mean?” or “What does this sentence say?”
yields little because the sentence provides us with no facts with which we could answer the question.
Even if we notice that the sentence does say something—it says that Scripture gives us no clear
indication of whether or not Judas hanged himself—his point is that the sentence tells us only that it is
unable to tell us anything. In contrast, he notes, the question  “What does the sentence do to the
reader?” or “How does the reader of this sentence make meaning?” yields something quite useful.

What this passage about Judas does, Fish notes, is move the reader from certainty to uncertainty. The
first clause, “that Judas perished by hanging himself” (which, as most of us know, is a kind of shorthand
for “the fact that Judas perished by hanging himself”), is an assertion we accept as a statement of fact.
We thus begin with a feeling of certainty that leads us, without our being quite conscious of it, to
anticipate a number of possible ways the sentence might end, all of which would confirm our certainty
that Judas hanged himself. Fish offers these three examples of the kinds of endings the first clause leads
us to expect.

1. That Judas perished by hanging himself is (an example for us all).

2. That Judas perished by hanging himself shows (how conscious he was of the enormity of his sin).
3. That Judas perished by hanging himself should (give us pause). (“Literature” 71)

These expectations narrow the possible meanings of the next three words in the passage: “there is no.”
At this point, the reader expects to see “there is no doubt,” but is given instead “there is no certainty.”
Now the fact of Judas’ hanging himself, upon which our understanding of the sentence has rested,
becomes uncertain. Now the reader is involved in a completely different kind of activity. As Fish puts it,
“Rather than following an argument along a well-lighted path (a light, after all, has gone out), [the
reader] is now looking for one” (“Literature” 71). In such a situation, the reader will tend to read on in
hopes of finding clarification. But as we continue to read the passage, our uncertainty only increases as
we move back and forth between words that seem to promise clarity—“place,” “affirm,” “place,”
“punctual,” “overthrow”—and words that seem to withdraw that promise: “though,” “doubtful,” “yet,”
“improbable,” “seems.” Uncertainty is further increased by the excessive use of the pronoun it because,
as the sentence progresses, the reader has more and more difficulty figuring out what it refers to.

Pragmatic Stylistics

Most discussions of pragmatics place the emphasis on the fact that pragmatics allows humanity into
interpretation and analysis of communication-the speaker’s meaning, his or her intentions, play a crucial
role. In this sense, more is communicated than is said. In the study of pragmatics, more than one
tradition has developed. The most influential are probably the linguistic and philosophical traditions
associated with the work of Paul Grice (1975); another tradition brings about a broader and more
sociological approach to pragmatic concepts. Attempts to define pragmatics as the cognitive, social and
cultural study of language and communication have also been recognized (cf. Mey 1998, Verschueren,
Ostman and Blommaert 1995). Given that pragmatics covers such a wide range of phenomena, and
given the assumption that pragmatic stylistics applies ideas from pragmatics, then the term pragmatic
stylistics must cover a similarly wide range.

As illustrated in the previous section, pragmatics, stylistics and pragmatic stylistics can be understood in
different ways. In this study, I will focus on the application of pragmatic principles in the study of literary
discourse. In my view, the process of stylistic analysis interfaces with discourse analysis and the literary
text can be seen and analysed as literary discourse. By focusing on discourse aspects of literary text, I
intend to demonstrate that the principles of cooperation and politeness, as well as the Irony principle
and other aspects of interpersonal rhetoric, can be equally applied to the spoken as well as written
communication. My assumption is that the author of a literary text provides readers with all the clues
which are necessary to decipher discourse messages. The novelist creates particular settings, contexts

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 3 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

and situations, which substitute for a real life environment. My aim is to consider the ways texts give
rise to particular effects (pragmatic approach focusing on Cooperative and Politeness principles applied
to a stylistic approach). Exploring cooperation between characters in the analysed literary text, the
conception of interpersonal rhetoric introduced by Leech will be implemented and his hierarchy of
pragmatic principles studied and discussed (Leech 1983). Prior attention is devoted to the principles of
Cooperation and Politeness as first-order principles, the Irony and Banter principles as higher-order
principles, and the Interest and Pollyanna principles (applied in the study of humour, which often
develops to or overlaps with irony). Understanding literary discourse often involves interpreting indirect,
more or less unpredictable messages. Here, the role of shared background knowledge, schemata,
frames and scenarios (work in pragmatic stylistics has also largely focused on psychological processes
involved in the understanding of texts) is crucial.

Pedagogical Stylistics

Pedagogical Stylistics offers a global exploration of current theory and practice in the teaching of stylistics
and the implementation of stylistic techniques in teaching other subjects. The book discusses a broad
range of interrelated topics including hypertext, English as a foreign language, English as a second
language, poetry, creative writing, and metaphor. Leading experts offer focused, empirical studies on
specific developments, providing in-depth examinations of both theoretical and practical teaching
methods. This interdisciplinary approach covers linguistics and literature from the perspective of current
pedagogical methodology, moving from general tertiary education to more specific EFL and ESL teaching.
The role of stylistics in language acquisition is currently underexplored. This contemporary collection
provides academics and practitioners with the most up to date trends in pedagogical stylistics and
delivers analyses of a diverse range of teaching methods.

Stylistics has always claimed a

close and privileged relation to
pedagogy. Indeed stylistics
has at times been regarded by
some outsiders as only or
primarily a pedagogical activity
rather than a field for research.
Language and Literature, the
leading international journal

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 4 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

for stylistics, has had two

special issues with pedagogical
themes in recent years for
example
(Burke ed., 2010; Knights and
Steadman-Jones eds., 2011).
Many of the names appearing in
the survey that follows, not
coincidentally, are themselves
acknowledged as unusually
good
teachers. Pedagogy has
historically and conceptually
always been close to the core of
what
stylistics is all about because it
is an empirical discipline testing
ideas against texts and even
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 5 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

generating ideas through textual

interrogation. Such activities
require students, classrooms
and seminar rooms to engage in
stylistic activity to keep
advancing our understanding of
how texts work, particularly as
earlier more formalist stylistics
moved to greater recognition
of the role of readers in making
meaning from texts. Thus,
stylistics research will often
come
out of classroom activity, or it
will be immediately clear how
an analysis or approach can
offer productive affordances to
teachers and learners.
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 6 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

Stylistics in a broad sense -

careful linguistically-informed
attention to language use in
texts
– may also be opposed to
stylistics in more technical or
specialist academic senses. But
there is arguably more of a
continuum. Language study and
language awareness at the
lower end of a generously
defined ‘stylistics’ is of more
immediate interest to
pedagogical
stylistics than (say) some of
today’s more leading edge
stylistics research into cognitive

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 7 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

processes of reading or more

rarefied reaches of speech and
thought representation.
To begin this survey of
pedagogical stylistics then our
area of concern can be indicated
as
the use of stylistics in
pedagogy. I will examine
xamples and concerns of this
broadly defined
stylistics (close and systematic,
linguistically informed study of
language use and language
choice) rather than what can be
termed the narrower ‘pedagogy
of stylistics’ (cf. Jeffries and

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 8 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

McIntyre, 2010; 2011), how

better to teach stylistics as a
pedagogical end in itself.
Stylistics
claims to have wider-ranging
applied utility and relevance
beyond the sphere of stylistics
itself as applications,
technologies and even an
attitude to the gaining of
knowledge and
understanding.
The pedagogical value of
stylistics.
Practitioners have claimed that
the study of style can be of
value to a wide range of
learning
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 9 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

situations. Some key

overlapping areas in which the
value of stylistics to learning is
claimed
may be catalogued here:
-Stylistics can be used to teach
literature or at least facilitate the
study of literature, or the
study of linguistic creativity
more broadly understood
- stylistics can support the study
of texts in contexts and
discourse more widely, as of
genre,
register, and sociolinguistics,
variation, as well as of the
grammar of standard spoken
and
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 10 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

written language through its

fundamentally comparative
method
-stylistics is of value for foreign
language or second language
learning programmes where
attention to language use should
facilitate language acquisition
or where study of language
use is valued
-stylistics can be used to teach
language use, language
awareness and language arts as
a
resource for language users
- stylistics is claimed to be of
value in creative writing

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 11 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

programmes, as well as in
professional,
academic or technical writing
development
- stylistics can be used to teach
linguistics, an inductive way
into a sometimes demanding
subject area (‘bottom up’ rather
than ‘top down’ investigation)
that teaches as much (or
prompts as many questions)
about ‘language’ as it does
about ‘literature’
-Stylistics may be used to teach
empirical research skills, but
also transferable intellectual
and social skills and rhetoric
(evidence-based argument,
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 12 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

careful and systematic

description
and presentation;
argumentation)
- stylistics has recently been
used in the study of readers and
reading, to investigate
questions of social and
cognitive psychology, and
topics in psycholinguistics,
particularly the
study of cognition in reading,
including topics such as
‘noticing’, attention, value,
affect
(Emmott, 1997; Miall, 2007;
Stockwell, 2002)

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 13 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

- stylistics can be used to

introduce and learn corpus
stylistics and ICT skills,
quantitative and
qualitative learning and
understanding
- in more recent multimodal
stylistics, it is argued that film,
cultural studies, the internet and
complex multimodal texts more
generally, can be explored more
precisely and
systematically with the aid of
stylistics (e.g. van Leeuwen,
1999)
In short, then, stylistics is
claimed to be of value wherever
precise and articulated
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 14 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

description and analysis of

language and communication is
felt to be of value in pedagogy.
Stylistics offers both methods
and a vocabulary for such
analysis and is claimed to be
eminently teachable, and to act
as empirical groundwork and a
training for more advanced
analysis and argumentation.
Stylistics is claimed to be of
value at various levels of
education
and in varying contexts,
whether L1 (‘mother tongue’
education) or L2 (foreign or
second
language education).
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 15 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

Stylistics has always claimed a

close and privileged relation to
pedagogy. Indeed stylistics
has at times been regarded by
some outsiders as only or
primarily a pedagogical activity
rather than a field for research.
Language and Literature, the
leading international journal
for stylistics, has had two
special issues with pedagogical
themes in recent years for
example
(Burke ed., 2010; Knights and
Steadman-Jones eds., 2011).
Many of the names appearing in
the survey that follows, not
coincidentally, are themselves
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 16 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

acknowledged as unusually
good
teachers. Pedagogy has
historically and conceptually
always been close to the core of
what
stylistics is all about because it
is an empirical discipline testing
ideas against texts and even
generating ideas through textual
interrogation. Such activities
require students, classrooms
and seminar rooms to engage in
stylistic activity to keep
advancing our understanding of
how texts work, particularly as
earlier more formalist stylistics
moved to greater recognition
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 17 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

of the role of readers in making

meaning from texts. Thus,
stylistics research will often
come
out of classroom activity, or it
will be immediately clear how
an analysis or approach can
offer productive affordances to
teachers and learners.
Stylistics in a broad sense -
careful linguistically-informed
attention to language use in
texts
– may also be opposed to
stylistics in more technical or
specialist academic senses. But

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 18 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

there is arguably more of a

continuum. Language study and
language awareness at the
lower end of a generously
defined ‘stylistics’ is of more
immediate interest to
pedagogical
stylistics than (say) some of
today’s more leading edge
stylistics research into cognitive
processes of reading or more
rarefied reaches of speech and
thought representation.
To begin this survey of
pedagogical stylistics then our
area of concern can be indicated
as

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 19 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

the use of stylistics in

pedagogy. I will examine
xamples and concerns of this
broadly defined
stylistics (close and systematic,
linguistically informed study of
language use and language
choice) rather than what can be
termed the narrower ‘pedagogy
of stylistics’ (cf. Jeffries and
McIntyre, 2010; 2011), how
better to teach stylistics as a
pedagogical end in itself.
Stylistics
claims to have wider-ranging
applied utility and relevance
beyond the sphere of stylistics

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 20 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

itself as applications,
technologies and even an
attitude to the gaining of
knowledge and
understanding.
The pedagogical value of
stylistics.
Practitioners have claimed that
the study of style can be of
value to a wide range of
learning
situations. Some key
overlapping areas in which the
value of stylistics to learning is
claimed
may be catalogued here:

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 21 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

-Stylistics can be used to teach

literature or at least facilitate the
study of literature, or the
study of linguistic creativity
more broadly understood
- stylistics can support the study
of texts in contexts and
discourse more widely, as of
genre,
register, and sociolinguistics,
variation, as well as of the
grammar of standard spoken
and
written language through its
fundamentally comparative
method

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 22 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

-stylistics is of value for foreign

language or second language
learning programmes where
attention to language use should
facilitate language acquisition
or where study of language
use is valued
-stylistics can be used to teach
language use, language
awareness and language arts as
a
resource for language users
- stylistics is claimed to be of
value in creative writing
programmes, as well as in
professional,
academic or technical writing
development
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 23 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

- stylistics can be used to teach

linguistics, an inductive way
into a sometimes demanding
subject area (‘bottom up’ rather
than ‘top down’ investigation)
that teaches as much (or
prompts as many questions)
about ‘language’ as it does
about ‘literature’
-Stylistics may be used to teach
empirical research skills, but
also transferable intellectual
and social skills and rhetoric
(evidence-based argument,
careful and systematic
description
and presentation;
argumentation)
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 24 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

- stylistics has recently been

used in the study of readers and
reading, to investigate
questions of social and
cognitive psychology, and
topics in psycholinguistics,
particularly the
study of cognition in reading,
including topics such as
‘noticing’, attention, value,
affect
(Emmott, 1997; Miall, 2007;
Stockwell, 2002)
- stylistics can be used to
introduce and learn corpus
stylistics and ICT skills,
quantitative and

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 25 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

qualitative learning and

understanding
- in more recent multimodal
stylistics, it is argued that film,
cultural studies, the internet and
complex multimodal texts more
generally, can be explored more
precisely and
systematically with the aid of
stylistics (e.g. van Leeuwen,
1999)
In short, then, stylistics is
claimed to be of value wherever
precise and articulated
description and analysis of
language and communication is
felt to be of value in pedagogy.

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 26 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

Stylistics offers both methods

and a vocabulary for such
analysis and is claimed to be
eminently teachable, and to act
as empirical groundwork and a
training for more advanced
analysis and argumentation.
Stylistics is claimed to be of
value at various levels of
education
and in varying contexts,
whether L1 (‘mother tongue’
education) or L2 (foreign or
second
language education).
Stylistics has always claimed a
close and privileged relation to
pedagogy. Indeed stylistics
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 27 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

has at times been regarded by

some outsiders as only or
primarily a pedagogical activity
rather than a field for research.
Language and Literature, the
leading international journal
for stylistics, has had two
special issues with pedagogical
themes in recent years for
example
(Burke ed., 2010; Knights and
Steadman-Jones eds., 2011).
Many of the names appearing in
the survey that follows, not
coincidentally, are themselves
acknowledged as unusually
good

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 28 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

teachers. Pedagogy has

historically and conceptually
always been close to the core of
what
stylistics is all about because it
is an empirical discipline testing
ideas against texts and even
generating ideas through textual
interrogation. Such activities
require students, classrooms
and seminar rooms to engage in
stylistic activity to keep
advancing our understanding of
how texts work, particularly as
earlier more formalist stylistics
moved to greater recognition
of the role of readers in making
meaning from texts. Thus,
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 29 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

stylistics research will often

come
out of classroom activity, or it
will be immediately clear how
an analysis or approach can
offer productive affordances to
teachers and learners.
Stylistics in a broad sense -
careful linguistically-informed
attention to language use in
texts
– may also be opposed to
stylistics in more technical or
specialist academic senses. But
there is arguably more of a
continuum. Language study and
language awareness at the

Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 30 of 41

 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

lower end of a generously

defined ‘stylistics’ is of more
immediate interest to
pedagogical
stylistics than (say) some of
today’s more leading edge
stylistics research into cognitive
processes of reading or more
rarefied reaches of speech and
thought representation.
To begin this survey of
pedagogical stylistics then our
area of concern can be indicated
as
the use of stylistics in
pedagogy. I will examine
xamples and concerns of this
broadly defined
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 31 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

stylistics (close and systematic,

linguistically informed study of
language use and language
choice) rather than what can be
termed the narrower ‘pedagogy
of stylistics’ (cf. Jeffries and
McIntyre, 2010; 2011), how
better to teach stylistics as a
pedagogical end in itself.
Stylistics
claims to have wider-ranging
applied utility and relevance
beyond the sphere of stylistics
itself as applications,
technologies and even an
attitude to the gaining of
knowledge and
understanding.
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 32 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

The pedagogical value of

stylistics.
Practitioners have claimed that
the study of style can be of
value to a wide range of
learning
situations. Some key
overlapping areas in which the
value of stylistics to learning is
claimed
may be catalogued here:
-Stylistics can be used to teach
literature or at least facilitate the
study of literature, or the
study of linguistic creativity
more broadly understood
- stylistics can support the study
of texts in contexts and
Module 7 Literary Theories I Page 33 of 41
 Republic of the Philippines
PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

discourse more widely, as of

genre,
register, and sociolinguistics,
variation, as well as of the
grammar of standard spoken
and
written language through its
fundamentally comparative
method
-stylistics is of value for foreign
language or second language
learning programmes where
attention to language use should
facilitate language acquisition
or where study of language
use is valued
-stylistics can be used to teach
language use, language
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awareness and language arts as

a
resource for language users
- stylistics is claimed to be of
value in creative writing
programmes, as well as in
professional,
academic or technical writing
development
- stylistics can be used to teach
linguistics, an inductive way
into a sometimes demanding
subject area (‘bottom up’ rather
than ‘top down’ investigation)
that teaches as much (or
prompts as many questions)
about ‘language’ as it does
about ‘literature’
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-Stylistics may be used to teach

empirical research skills, but
also transferable intellectual
and social skills and rhetoric
(evidence-based argument,
careful and systematic
description
and presentation;
argumentation)
- stylistics has recently been
used in the study of readers and
reading, to investigate
questions of social and
cognitive psychology, and
topics in psycholinguistics,
particularly the
study of cognition in reading,
including topics such as
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‘noticing’, attention, value,

affect
(Emmott, 1997; Miall, 2007;
Stockwell, 2002)
- stylistics can be used to
introduce and learn corpus
stylistics and ICT skills,
quantitative and
qualitative learning and
understanding
- in more recent multimodal
stylistics, it is argued that film,
cultural studies, the internet and
complex multimodal texts more
generally, can be explored more
precisely and

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PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
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systematically with the aid of

stylistics (e.g. van Leeuwen,
1999)
In short, then, stylistics is
claimed to be of value wherever
precise and articulated
description and analysis of
language and communication is
felt to be of value in pedagogy.
Stylistics offers both methods
and a vocabulary for such
analysis and is claimed to be
eminently teachable, and to act
as empirical groundwork and a
training for more advanced
analysis and argumentation.
Stylistics is claimed to be of

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PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
Camarines Sur

value at various levels of

education
and in varying contexts,
whether L1 (‘mother tongue’
education) or L2 (foreign or
second
language education).
Forensic Stylistics

Frauds related to documents have always been a curse to the society. Whether it is case of a simple
handwritten application or more heinous crime like blackmailing, kidnapping, extortion etc, the
document expert should remain competent enough to handle all such challenges related to the written
materials [1]. Sometime, the situation becomes worst when the deterioration in handwriting appears so
prominently that identification of writer turn out to be a problem. In these cases the style of writing or a
person’s writing habit plays a very important role in personal identification [2]. Stylistics is a word
derived from style; it is a discipline which studies different styles. It can refer to the study of proper use
of words or language in proper places. Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic
perspective [3,4]. As a discipline it links and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own. The
preferred object of stylistic studies is literature, but not exclusively “high literature” but also other forms
of written texts such as text from the domains of advertising, pop culture, politics or religion [5].
Stylistics also attempts to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by
individuals and social groups in their use of language, such as socialization, the production and reception
of meaning, critical discourse analysis and literary criticism [6,7]. Stylistics is also defined as a study of
the different styles that are present in either a given utterance or a written text or document. The
consistent appearance of certain structures, items and elements in a speech, an utterance or in a given
text is one of the major concerns of Stylistics [8]. Stylistics requires the use of traditional levels of
linguistic description such as sounds, form, structure and meaning [7]. It then follows that the consistent
appearance of certain structures, items and elements in speech utterances or in a given text is one of
the major concerns of stylistics. Linguistic Stylistic studies are concerned with the varieties of language
and the exploration of some of the formal linguistic features which characterize them [9]. The essence
and the usefulness of stylistics is that it enables the immediate understanding of utterances and texts,
thereby maximizing our enjoyment of the texts.

The concepts of style and stylistic variation in language are based on the general notion that within the
language system, the content can be encoded in more than one linguistic form [10]. Thus, it is possible
for it to operate at all linguistic levels such as phonological, lexical and syntactic. Therefore, style may be
regarded as a choice of linguistic means, as deviation from the norms of language use, as recurrent
features of linguistic forms and as comparisons [11]. Stylistics deals with a wide range of language
varieties and styles that that are possible in creating different texts, whether spoken or written,
monologue or dialogue, formal or informal, scientific or religious etc. Again, stylistics is concerned with

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PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
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the study of the language of literature Abstract Style is variable element of human behavior. It is simply
a habit of a person which never dies. Stylistics has always proved its importance in establishing the
identity of an individual whether there is a case of handwriting or vocal conversations. In cases involving
ransom notes, anonymous letters or threatening letters, the offender usually modify his/her handwriting
to conceal their identity to minimize the chances of being caught. Attempted disguise may sometime
leads to a deteriorated piece of handwriting and changes its overall pictorial effect. Also the general and
individual characteristics of handwriting lose their competency in pin pointing the perpetrator. In such
special cases the style features in a person’s handwriting plays a vital role in fixing the authorship of the
writer. The main focus of this paper is to list out some writer specific stylistics features from their
handwriting which will aid the examiners in framing accurate and reliable opinion on handwriting.
Keywords: Forensic; Stylistics; Linguistics; Authorship; Handwriting; Identification Journal of Forensic
Sciences & Criminal Investigation How to cite this article: Sumit Kumar Choudhary, Surbhi Mathur.
Significance of Forensic Stylistics in Fixing Authorship of Handwriting. J Forensic Sci & Criminal Invest.
2018; 7(4): 555718. DOI: 10.19080/JFSCI.2018.07.555718 002 or the study of the language habits of
particular authors and their writing patterns [3,12]. From the foregoing, stylistics can be said to be the
techniques of explication which allows us to define objectively what an author has done, (linguistic or
nonlinguistic), in his use of language. The main aim of stylistics is to enable us understand the intent of
the author in the manner the information has been passed across by the author or writer. Therefore,
stylistics is concerned with the Examination of grammar, lexis, semantics as well as phonological
properties and discursive devices [7,13]. Stylistics is more interested in the significance of function that
the chosen style fulfils. Stylistics is adaptive in nature such that its framework, as a veritable linguistic
analytical approach, deals with a whole range of human discourses: medical, religious, political, legal,
social, interpersonal, group communication, and so on. The practice of stylistics is targeted at achieving
certain goals: to establish discourse peculiarities [14-16], induce appreciation of discourses, to ascertain
linguistic habits, and to make critical judgments.

D. Activity

Click the link, Geoff Hall. (2014, February 18). Pedagogical stylistics. ResearchGate; unknown.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303487214_Pedagogical_stylistics

‌Make a reaction paper about it.

E. Assessment
1. Explain the different stylistics theories.
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PARTIDO STATE UNIVERSITY
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2. Describe the different methods employ in each literary theories.

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F. References

Reader-Response Criticism | Introduction to Literature. (2021). Lumenlearning.com.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introliterature/chapter/reader-response-criticism/

‌Whiteley, S., & Canning, P. (2017). Reader response research in stylistics. Language and

Literature: International Journal of Stylistics, 26(2), 71–87.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947017704724

‌Chapman, S., & Clark, B. (2014). Introduction: Pragmatic Literary Stylistics. Pragmatic

Literary Stylistics, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137023278_1

Pragmatics. (2014). Ebrary. https://ebrary.net/54520/sociology/pragmatics

‌Burke, M. (2013). Pedagogical stylistics : current trends in language, literature and ELT.

Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pedagogical-stylistics-

9781441140104/

Choudhary, S. K. (2018). Significance of Forensic Stylistics in Fixing Authorship of

Handwriting. Journal of Forensic Sciences & Criminal Investigation, 7(4).

https://doi.org/10.19080/jfsci.2018.07.555718

Prepared by: Reviewed by: Approved by:

GEMMAH T. BARCILLANO, Ph. D. JOAN A. MONFORTE, Ph. D. MARITA S. MAGAT, Ph. D.

Faculty Program Director Dean

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