STYLISTICS TOPIC 3

A LECTURE PRESENTATION FOR THE

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN ENGLISH
MAJOR 118 – INTRODUCTION TO
STYLISTICS

ERIBERTO CUIZON RIVERA

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR III
AURORA STATE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY
BALER, AURORA
TOPIC 3
FOREGROUNDING
DEVIATION
PARALLELISM
How writers highlight
(foreground) parts of texts which
are especially important
interpretatively by breaking the
rules of language or using
particular linguistic
structures more often than we
FOREGROUNDING
FOREGROUND or FOREGROUNDING
stand out perceptually as a
consequence of the fact that they
DEVIATE graphologically from the
text which surrounds them in a
number of ways. The other words are
in lower case, but they are
capitalised. The other words are
black but they are multicoloured.
The other words are visually stable
but they are iRreGuLar.
FOREGROUNDING
One way to produce
foregrounding in a text, then, is
through linguistic deviation.
Another way is to introduce
extra linguistic patterning
into a text.
The most common way of
introducing this extra patterning
is by repeating linguistic
structures more often than we
would normally expect to make
FOREGROUNDING
Having the same overall
grammatical structure (grammatical
parallelism) and some of the words
are repeated in identical syntactic
locations. (refer to the slide before
the preceding one)
To sum up, LINGUISTIC
DEVIATION + LINGUISTIC
PARALLELISM PRODUCE THE
EFFECT OF FOREGROUNDING.
FOREGROUNDING
The term 'FOREGROUNDING' is
borrowed by stylisticians from art
criticism, which distinguishes
between the foreground and the
background of a painting.
We normally expect what a
painting is about to be
represented in the foreground,
and for less central aspects of the
painting to be in the background.
FOREGROUNDING – TASK
A
FOREGROUNDING – TASK
A
Which is foreground and which is
background?
What is the most appropriate title
for the picture?
Invent your own.
Depend your own title.
DEVIATION FOR
FOREGROUNDING PURPOSES
Deviation occurs when we have a
set of rules or expectations which
are broken in some way. Like the
way this font has just changed.
This deviation from expectation
produces the effect of
foregrounding, which attracts
attention and aids memorability
(retention). Deviation is by no
means restricted just to
language.
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION FOR
FOREGROUNDING PURPOSES
What is your islestyle?
Band Againts Drugs
Rewor(l)dings: Contestations and
Reconfigurations
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION FOR
FOREGROUNDING PURPOSES
Deviation is all around us
linguistically, as well as in terms
of social and other forms of
human behavior.
But foregrounding is a
psychological phenomenon, not a
linguistic one. This is why the
linguistic structure of texts can
affect meaning and effect.
Linguistic phenomena can have
related psychological effects for
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION FOR
FOREGROUNDING PURPOSES
Take a look at the names of pop
groups:
“INXS”
“VELVET
UNDERGROUND”
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION – TASK A
Deviation within the
popgroup name "INXS"
It consists of four capital
letters which do not spell an
English word, but which, if
read out in the right way,
create the prepositional
phrase 'in excess'.
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION – TASK A
This is achieved by 'seeing'
the first two letters as
spelling the preposition 'in'
and pronouncing the names
of the letters 'X' and 'S' so
that they combine to
resemble the pronunciation of
the noun 'excess'.
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION – TASK A
The first consequence of this
name, then, is that we have to
work at it when we first see it,
rather like a piece of elementary
code of the sort seen in children's
comics.
What we wrote then was a less
technical way of saying that the
name is graphologically deviant in
various ways.
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION – TASK A
Notice, also, that foregrounding
may occur at more than one
linguistic level at the same time.
In addition to the graphological
deviation just mentioned, this
pop group name is grammatically
deviant because, unlike most
such names, which are usually
noun phrases, it is a prepositional
phrase.
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION – TASK B
Deviation within the popgroup name
"Velvet Underground“
This pop group name is semantically
deviant.
The noun phrase has 'velvet' as a
modifier to the headword
'underground'.
But 'velvet' can only literally be used
to modify nouns referring to items
made of velvet (e.g. 'velvet dress').
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY
Consider the following example
with an invented word. What sort
of meaning do you think 'lupped'
has? How do you come to this
conclusion? After you have
worked out your answer, click on
the word to see our commentary.
The angry boy lupped, kicked
and scratched the children
making fun of him.
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION – TASK B
You could use it metaphorically in
an appropriate way if it is used to
refer to some domain we could
think of as being reasonably
analogical. So, for example, the
singer Nat King Cole was often
described as having a velvet
voice. But 'underground' does not
connect to an appropriate
analogical domain in any of its
meanings.
LINGUISTIC DEVIATION – TASK C
(LITERARY EXAMPLE)
Below is a line from a poem by a
famous American poet, Wallace
Stevens . The poem is called 'Of Mere
Being' and begins by referring to a
palm tree. The line has a head noun
missing from a noun phrase.
The palm at the end of _____________.
Fill in what you think would count as
normal nouns to fill this slot and
compare what you thought of with what
Stevens actually wrote.
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY,
TASK A
Invented word
Consider the following example
with an invented word. What sort
of meaning do you think 'lupped'
has? How do you come to this
conclusion?
The angry boy lupped, kicked
and scratched the children
making fun of him.
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY
You will probably have thought
that 'lupped' referred to an
abrupt physical action (like 'bit' or
'kneed') which the boy performed
on his tormentors.
This is because, although
'lupped' doesn't exist in English,
it is parallel here to 'kicked' and
'scratched'.
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY
It is part of a list of main verbs in
the past tense, all of which have
'the angry boy' as the subject
and 'the children making fun of
him' as the object.
The parallel grammatical
structuring makes us look for a
meaning connection, and in this
case quasi-synonymy (or 'roughly
the same meaning') seems to fit
the bill.
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY
Persil washes whiter

Unilever,the makers of the

washing powder Persil, ran
the above advertising slogan
for a number of years.
The slogan was effective for
2 reasons.
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY
Firstly,it is grammatically deviant. It is a
comparative structure which has no
object of comparison. This enabled
those reading the slogan to compare
Persil mentally with whatever washing
powder they used, and so go away with
the message that Persil washed whiter
than their particular washing powder.
This use of the uncompared comparative
is quite common in advertising slogans,
for obvious reasons!
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY
Secondly,the slogan exhibits
some parallelism.

Identify the parallelism (at what

linguistic level does it operate
and what kind of parallelism is
it?) and say what kind of effect it
has.
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY
The parallelism is at the phonological
level of language and has two
dimensions.
Firstly, there is rhythmic parallelism:
each of the words consists of two
syllables, with, in each word, the first
syllable carrying a major stress and the
second syllable carrying a very low
degree of stress (these sorts of syllables
are often called 'unstressed' but they
must carry some stress in order to be
heard, of course).
PARALLELISM – NON-LITERARY
Secondly, the initial consonant sounds of
'washes' and 'whiter' are the same phoneme,
/w/. In other words, they alliterate.
Overall, the parallelism foregrounds the
advertising slogan and also helps to make it
memorable (cf. how rhyme and metre - also
examples of phonological parallelism - make
poetry easier to learn by heart than prose).
In addition, washing with Persil (via the
'parallelism processing rule') becomes more
closely associated with 'whiter' than would
be the case without the parallelism.
FINAL TASK
Look for any Literary and Non-
Literary Examples showing
Foregrounding by deviation and
parallelism.
Analyze the deviation and
parallelism in line with stylistics
analysis and practices.
Focus on the effect and meaning
of foregrounding using deviation
and parallelism.
 REFERENCES
 Bradford, Richard. (1997). Stylistics: the new critical idiom.
New York: Routledge

 Carter, Ronald. (ed.) (1984). Language and Literature: an

Introductory reader in Stylistics. UK: George Allen & Unwin
(Publishers) Ltd.

 Fish, Stanley E. (1979). What is Stylstics and why they are

saying such terrible things about it. USA: Duke University
Press

 Fowler, Roger (ed.) (1966) Essays on Style in Language.

London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

 Freeman, Donald C. (ed.) (1971) Linguistics and Literary Style.

New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.