英语文体学Chapter-2-Three-Views-on-Style.doc

。Chapter 2 Three Views on Style The question of what style is an issue that has caused heated dispute among stylistic theorists. 1) “Take an egg, and make a perforation in the base and a corresponding one on the apex. And then, apply the lips to the aperture, and by forcibly inhale the breath, the shell is entirely discharged of its contents.”2) “When I was a gal, I made a hole in each end and suck.”1) When his father died, Peter had to get another job.2) After his fathers death, Peter had to change his job.3) On the decease of his father, Mr brown was obliged to seek alternative employment. Hemingway/Mark Twains style Elizabethan style,Definition of style: prominent linguistic features, devices or patterns, most (or least) frequently occurred in a particular text of a particular variety of language. II. Three views on style 2.1 Style as DevianceDeviance: the breaking of normal rules of linguistic structures./language use that departs in some way from everyday usage. (Mukarovsky)- he speaks of style as foregrounding, the violation of the norm of standard, its systematic violation is what makes possible the poetic utilization of language; without this possibility there would be no poetry (1970: 42).-Example: fill in the blank: ? ago (CN + time)a grief ago ( from a poem of that name by Dylan Thomas in 2003). The phrase violates two rules of English:-Example: part of the poem (E. E. Cummings) (1) anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didnt he danced his did Women and men (both little and small) cared for anyone not at all they sowed their isnt they reaped their same sun moon stars rain2.2 Style as Choice - style as choice means that style results from a tendency of a speaker or writer to consistently choose certain structures over others available in the language (Traugott and Pratt, 1980: 29).-not necessarily a conscious choice. - can be purely intuitive or even habitual choice.Example: Dear Sir,I must apologize for the delay in repying to your letter of the 30th of DecemberDear Jane,Im terribly sorry not to have got round to writing before now.- Style as choice is a matter of form or expression, i. e. as choice among different ways of expressing a predetermined content. However, it only takes a moment or two to reflect that writers also choose content. -Hemingway selects to write about men of action - bull fighters, deep-sea fishermen, soldiers, big-game hunters - is as much a stylistic fact as his habit of writing in short, simple sentences, preferring the dramatic to the interior monologue point of view in narration, etc. (Chatman, 1971: 64). -The evidence of choice-making can be found in authors manuscripts. Example:The Eve of St. Agnes by KeatsCompare: As though a rose should close and be a bud again (first version). As though a rose should shut and be a bud again. (revised version)2.3 Style as Foregrounding-In literature first by the pre-war Prague School linguists such as Mukarovsky-Def: unexpected departures from the accepted norms. Foregrounding includes both the deviant features and those linguistic phenomena which are not deviant, but nevertheless striking. (1) When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets. (W. H. Auden, Epitaph on a Tyrant)- -The view of style as foregrounding is explained in ShortsA. When a writer writes he is constantly involved in making linguistic choices - choices between one word and another, one structure and another, and so on. B. Examination of the choices that he makes (as opposed to the ones that he rejects) can help us to understand more fully the meaning he is trying to create and the effects he is striving to achieve. C. He can make choices both inside and outside the language system. Choices outside the language system are deviant and thus produce foregrounding. D. Overregularity of a particular choice within the system (e.g. parallelism) also produces foregrounding. (Short, 1984: 21)-foregrounding is achieved either through deviation or through overregularity in language use. Deviation can be investigated and classified according to its linguistic level. - In A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry, Leech (1969) identifies surface-structure deviation: phonological, grap