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Stylistic analysis – how to do it

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Stylistic analysis – definition

Stylistic analysis in linguistics refers to the identification of patterns of usage in speech and writing.

Stylistic analysis in literary studies is usually made for the purpose of commenting on quality and meaning in a text.

Examples

A stylistic analysis of a roadsign which reads NO LEFT TURN might make the following observations.

The statement is a command.
It is cast in the imperative mode.
The statement lacks a subject and a verb.
These are implied [THERE IS].
The statement is unpunctuated.
Capitals have been used for emphasis.
Simple vocabulary to suit wide audience.
Extreme compression for rapid comprehension.
Form entirely suited to audience and function.

Use

In linguistics the purpose of close analysis is to identify and classify the elements of language being used.

In literary studies the purpose is usually an adjunct to understanding, exegesis, and interpretation.

In both cases, an extremely detailed and scrupulous attention is paid to the text.

This process may now be aided by computer programs which able to analyse texts.

NB! At this point, the study of language moves into either ‘stylistics’ or ‘literary studies’.

Stylistic analysis is a normal part of literary studies. It is practised as a part of understanding the possible meanings in a text.

It is also generally assumed that the process of analysis will reveal the good qualities of the writing.

Take for example the opening lines of Shakespeare’s Richard III:

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

A stylistic analysis might reveal the following points:

the play is written in poetic blank verse
that is — unrhymed, iambic pentameters
the stresses fall as follows
Now /i/s the w/i/nter /o/f our d/i/scont/e/nt
[notice that the stress falls on vowel sounds]
the first line is built on a metaphor
the condition of England is described in terms of the season ‘winter’
the term ‘our’ is a form of the royal ‘we’
the seasonal metaphor is extended into the second line …
… where better conditions become ‘summer’
the metaphor is extended even further by the term ‘sun’
it is the sun which appears, ‘causing’ the summer
but ‘sun’ is here also a pun – on the term ‘son’…
… which refers to the son of the King
‘York’ is a metonymic reference to the Duke of York

In a complete analysis, the significance of these sylistic details would be related to the events of the play itself, and to Shakespeare’s presentation of them.

In some forms of sylistic analysis, the numerical recurrence of certain stylistic features is used to make judgements about the nature and the quality of the writing.

However, it is important to recognise that the concept of style is much broader than just the ‘good style’ of literary prose.

For instance, even casual communication such as a manner of speaking or a personal letter might have an individual style.

However, to give a detailed account of this style requires the same degree of linguistic analysis as literary texts.

Stylistic analysis of a non-literary text for instance means studying in detail the features of a passage from such genres as:

Instruction	notes for programming your video-recorder
Information	a history text book
Persuasion	an advertisement or a holiday brochure

The method of analysis can be seen as looking at the text in great detail, observing what the parts are, and saying what function they perform in the context of the passage.

It is rather like taking a car-engine to pieces, looking at each component in detail, then observing its function as the whole engine starts working.

These are features which are likely to occur in a text whose function is to instruct:

imperative or command	‘remove the outer covering’

direct address	‘check voltage system before you install the unit’

numbered points	[because sequencing is important in carrying out a procedure]

technical terms or jargon	‘piston’, ‘carburettor’, ‘spark plug’

diagram with call-out labels	[an extra level of communication to aid understanding]

Features are dealt with in three stages, as follows:

identify — describe — explain

The features chosen from any text will be those which characterise the piece as to its function. They will be used by the analyst to prove the initial statement which is made about the linguistic nature of the text as a whole.

This method puports to be fairly scientific. A hypothesis is stated and then proved. It is a useful discipline which encourages logical thought and can be transferred to many other areas of academic study.

This is one reason why the discipline of stylistic analysis is so useful: it can be applied to a variety of subjects.

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Symbols – how to understand them

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Symbols – definition

A symbol is an object which stands for something else.

In language it is a reference in speech or in writing which is made to stand for ideas, feelings, events, or conditions.

A symbol is usually something tangible or concrete which evokes something abstract.

Examples

The following are standard symbols in the context of English culture.

The rose often stands for love.
The colour red stands for passion.
The dove stands for peace.
The ace of spades stands for death.
The cross stands for Christianity.

Use

All cultures use symbols which are actual, tangible objects — such as the cross in a Christian church, the Union Jack flag in the UK, or the Statue of Liberty in the USA.

These standard symbols and others more original are evoked by conscious and deliberate use of language by writers, advertisers and speakers.

NB! Symbols are evoked or depicted by language. The very language which evokes the symbol is itself a code or symbol!

Symbols in the context of language use are sometimes created by the use of words such as ‘cross’ or ‘rose’ or ‘blood’.

The rose has been used so often in connection with love that it has become a symbol of it.

But the human heart is also used as a symbol for love – so there can be more than one symbol for the same thing.

Fire is often used as a symbol, both for danger and for human passion — so a single word or object can sometimes symbolise more than one thing.

The moon is sometimes used as a symbol for the female — because both have a ‘monthly cycle’.

In literature, a writer such as D.H. Lawrence exploits this symbolic connction by using images of the moon to stand for female sexuality.

Even when the word ‘moon’ itself is not used explicitly in his work, any pale nocturnal light can have the same symbolic effect in suggesting the female and her sexual nature.

In a novel, poem, short story or play, symbols are often introduced at the beginning and then developed and sustained throughout the work by means of various literary techniques.

Sometimes a symbol is created only for the duration of the work in which it is used. This is called ‘context-bound’ — because it does not have symbolic value outside the work.

For instance, the handkerchief in Shakespeare’s Othello is used as the symbol of Othello’s mistrust of Desdemona, his wife. [This is because it has come into the possession of his ‘rival’, Iago.] The material, tangible object stands for the emotion jealousy, bringing it into dramatic relief for the audience.
A handkerchief could be used as a completely different symbol in another piece of work.

Symbols are used very commonly in daily life. Many road signs are symbols, as is the traditional red and white pole for a barber’s shop.

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Synecdoche – how to understand it

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Synecdoche – definition

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part of something is substituted for the whole thing.

The part chosen is usually important or essential, and thus the whole (although implied) is easily recognised or understood.

Examples

In the expression ‘United won the match’, the term ‘United’ stands for ‘Manchester United Football Club’ [or Leeds, or some other team].

In the expression ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ the term ‘bread’ stands for the meals eaten each day.

Use

Synecdoche [pronounced sin-eck-doh-key, by the way] is part of everyday speech. It is usually used quite unconsciously.

It is often used in imaginative writing such as fiction and poetry to clarify and enhance an image.

NB! If you can’t remember the difference between synecdoche and metonymy – don’t worry. You’re not alone.

In the expression ‘All hands on deck!’, the term ‘hands’ stands for ‘mariners’.

The term ‘hand’ has been chosen to represent the whole expression ‘able-bodied seaman’ [or in PC (politically correct) terms ‘sea-person’] because that is the most important feature required for work on deck.

In the expression ‘United won the match’, the term ‘United’ (in the case of Manchester United Football Club) might not appear to be the most important or essential item to represent the whole.

However, Manchester has two football teams — the other being Manchester City Football Club. A supporter of MUFC would therefore be selecting the one important lingustic feature which distinguished his team from the other fotball club.

The parts of the name ‘Manchester’ and ‘Football Club’ would be implied by the speaker, and understood by the listener.

Similarly, a supporter of Manchester City Football Club would say ‘City won the match’.

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Synonyms – how to understand them

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Synonyms – definition

In a very general sense, synonyms are different words which have the same meaning.

Examples

Word Synonym

kingly royal

pavement sidewalk

youth youngster

strong powerful

Word	Synonym
kingly	royal
pavement	sidewalk
youth	youngster
strong	powerful

Use

Strictly speaking, such words are rarely [if ever] quite identical to each other.

There are bound to be semantic, stylistic, regional, or other differences between them.

It is often said that if two words do have exactly the same meaning, one of them is likely to disappear.

Moreover, two words might be synonymous in one statement, and different in another.

NB! Synonyms offer us variety in our expression.

Synonyms are usually referred to by linguists as ‘near synonyms’, because they argue that no two words mean exactly the same. If they did, one would probably disappear from use.

English is a language which has ‘borrowed’ from many varied sources during the course of its history. This has created a wide and heterogeneous lexicon. For example, terms which were originally French currently coexist with their Anglo-saxon equivalents:

French Anglo-Saxon

petite small

tour trip

chauffeur driver

aperitif drink

promenade front (as in sea-front)

escritoire desk

French	Anglo-Saxon
petite	small
tour	trip
chauffeur	driver
aperitif	drink
promenade	front (as in sea-front)
escritoire	desk

The French term usually carries a prestige value over that of the English equivalent, which is often seen as basic and even crass. This is because of the history of French dominance over the English as a result of the Norman Conquest.

During the period of French rule after 1066, a state of diglossia existed throughout the south of England. Diglossia means that two languages are used by one society, but applied to two discrete functions. French was used for matters of church and state, whereas English was used by the common people for personal and family discourse.

The legacy of this diglossia is that we have a multitude of synonyms or near-synonyms at our disposal.

However, it is usually preferable to state the same idea in a variety of styles, rather than to repeat one definitive term for one specific phenomenon.

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the king confesses to being a ‘foolish fond old man’. The use of two near synonyms has a poetic and dramatic effect, as one adjective has the effect of intensifying the other.

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Syntax – how to understand it

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Syntax – definition

Syntax is the grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence.

It concerns both word order and agreement in the relationship between words.

Syntax is primarily concerned with structure of sentences.

Examples

The following statements follow normal English word order:

The cat sat on the mat.
My old brown leather suitcase.

The following statements do not follow normal English word order:

The cat on the mat sat.
My brown leather old suitcase.

Use

Word order is very important in English, because the language is no longer inflected. That is, individual words do not have endings to show which parts of speech they represent.

Changes to conventional synatx are often used to create dramatic, poetic, or comic effect.

For instance, poets and song lyricists often change syntactic order to create rhythmic effects:

“I’ll sing to him, each spring to him
And long for the day when I’ll cling to him,
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.”

[RICHARD ROGERS]

NB! “To boldly go …” is STAR TREK’s famous syntactic inversion [and split infinitive].

A normal sentence in English usually contains at least three elements: subject, verb, and object.

Subject Verb Object

The cat eats the goldfish

John likes football

Mary chose the wallpaper

Subject	Verb	Object
The cat	eats	the goldfish
John	likes	football
Mary	chose	the wallpaper

Every language has rules of syntax, and to the linguist the essential rules are descriptive. They are the rules which underpin the life of the language and which are extremely slow to change.

These are not to be confused with the presecriptive ‘rules’ of traditional grammar [For instance, ‘Never end a sentence with a preposition’].

An example of a descriptive rule of English syntax is that in the imperative in English, the verb takes the initial position in the sentence, usually directly before the noun which is the object.

Put those books on the table.
Take the lid off after half an hour.
Remove all packaging before heating the soup.
Isolate the switch in case of fault.

It is important to make a distinction between grammar and syntax, and to realise that syntax is a component of grammar.

The term ‘grammar’ refers to the whole structure of the language including the naming of its parts, its rules of tense, and its sound system. It is a comprehensive term.

Syntax only refers to the relationship between the grammatical components of language in use. In other words it is the nature, quality or type of relationship between terms in any given statement which is the province of syntax.

The construction of the passive voice is a syntactic issue, as it involves word order. The following statement is in the passive voice:

A woman was run over in central London today by a vehicle travelling at high speed.

If we transfer this to the active voice, we have:

A vehicle travelling at high speed ran over a woman in central London today.

The semantic content is similar in the two statements, but the emphasis is changed according to whether it is expressed as active or passive.

The difference between the two versions is dependent on the positioning of the subject and the object in the sentence. In the passive version, the object takes the initial position. This is a syntactic principle.

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Teacher’s Guide to Grammar

June 3, 2009 by Roy Johnson

teaching language and the national curriculum

The other day I overheard a young girl of around eight ask her mother “What’s a phoneme?” Not surprisingly, her mother didn’t even understand the question. And the girl added, “I think it’s part of a word” – which was not a bad shot. This made me realise just how firmly traditional English grammar was back in our national curriculum. And when I thought of the poor teachers having to implement this policy, my heart sank on their behalf. I think Deborah Cameron would understand and sympathise with this feeling, because this teacher’s guide to grammar is aimed specifically at existing and would-be classroom workers. They now have the unenviable task of introducing what is essentially the study of linguistics into the daily life of schoolchildren.

Cameron starts by dispelling some of the common misconceptions and myths about grammar, and making the important distinction between written and spoken English. Instead of looking at grammatical rules then giving examples, she works the other way round, examining the way language is actually used, then drawing some general lessons from it. First the way words are formed (morphology) then how sentences are built up via regular syntax and well organised phrases.

All the points she makes are illustrated by short modern examples drawn from the way people actually speak and write, and she offers some quite useful tables which I can easily imagine teachers using in their classes.

She delivers some interesting analyses of scientific writing, newspaper headlines, and children’s creative prose to illustrate the use of compression in writing by using noun phrases. The same is true of her treatment of verbs. Instead of dry grammatical definitions, we get a more useful account of the function of different verb forms and modality – making statements about different periods of time and various shades of possibility and probability.

She also offers careful analyses of real examples of student writing – not merely to point out grammatical errors, but to reveal the real structure of the language holding together the meaning underneath the surface. And many of these ‘mistakes’ are features of language which novelists and poets use deliberately for artistic effect.

The whole of the debate over Standard English and dialect/received pronunciation is put into refreshing historical context, as is the use of different registers (which interestingly enough are not a prescribed requirement of the national curriculum).

She demonstrates in a way which classroom teachers will find useful that non-standard speech can co-exist quite easily along with standard writing. And she concludes with an examination of the special circumstances surrounding English as an additional language (EAL).

Anyone faced with the need to understand grammar or explain it to others will find this book useful. It’s good that linguists of Deborah Cameron’s stature are putting their intellectual shoulder to the wheel in helping the classroom teacher.

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Deborah Cameron, The Teacher’s Guide to Grammar, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.163, ISBN: 0199214488

Tenses – how to understand them

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Tenses – definition

The term tenses refers to the temporal aspect of verbs in use.

There are many tenses in English to express past, present, and future.

Examples

PRESENT tense

The child brings joy into their lives.
Paris is the capital of France.
Paul is looking for the cat.

PAST tense

It was a wonderful day for all of us.
Judith had left the key on the table.
Fred had been about to leave when the telephone rang

FUTURE tense

The wedding will be a splendid affair.
I am going to stop smoking.
Stephen goes to college next week.

Use

All languages have tenses. It is interesting that English is the only modern European language which has no future tense as a designated term.

The future tense in English is expressed by using other tenses or by the semantic context.

In the example ‘Stephen goes to college next week’ the term ‘Stephen goes’ is present tense. It is the context in this case – created by the phrase ‘next week’ – which tells us that we are being informed about the future.

NB! Hold on to your hat! This topic can become quite complex.

There are many tenses in the English Language. They are all varieties of past, present, and future.

The following examples have all been placed in a context so that the complexity and the range of English tenses can be appreciated.

The names for tenses vary from one grammar text book to the next. Don’t worry about the exact name. It is more important to

assess whether the statement is in past, present, or future
look for any auxiliary verbs (‘to have’ and ‘to be’) used to construct the tense

Varieties of the past tense

I ran (so that I could be here at this moment)

I have run (all the way here)

I was running (when I fell over a few minutes ago)

I had run (so that I could arrive on time yesterday)

I have been running (and that’s why I’m out of breath now)

I had been running (and that’s why I fell over yesterday)

I used to run (but I have walked for some time now)

Varieties of the present tense

I run (to work every morining)

I am running (and that’s why I’m out of breath)

I have been running (for fifteen minutes, and I’m still running)

Varieties of the future tense

I shall run (so that I’ll arrive on time)

I will run (so don’t try to stop me)

I shall be running (to work for the foreeeable future to keep fit)

I shall have run (twelve miles by tomorrow morning)

I shall have been running (to work each morning for two weeks by next Friday)

I run (tomorrow because that’s the day of the race)

In some instances of these future varieties ‘shall’ and ‘will’ are auxiliaries deriving from the Old English ‘to wish’ or ‘to want’.

In order to assess whether an action or a state of existence is expressed in the past, present or future tense, it is important to have an idea of a fixed point in time from which the action or state is valued.

For example ‘I shall have been running’ implies a point in the future from which the past of that time is being viewed.

“I run into the house and there’s a masked gunman waiting to rob me!” looks like the simple present, but in fact it refers to an event in the past. Technicallly this is known as the vivid present and is mainly used in speech to add a sense of drama to an account of an exciting event.

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Text – how to understand it

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Text – definition

Text literally means ‘a piece of writing’.

It has now acquired the meaning ‘the object being studied’.

Examples

Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak House is a text.
A letter from the Gas Board is a text.
The caption to a picture is a text.
A painting by Picasso can be a text.

Use

The term is most used in literary studies, where it was originally used as a synonym for ‘book’.

But it could just as easily be a poem, a letter, or a diary.

It is now in general use in other branches of the humanities such as cultural studies and film studies – where its meaning becomes ‘the thing being studied’.

So — in these other fields it could also be a video film, an advertisement, a painting, or a music score.

It is used so as to concentrate attention on the object being studied, rather than its author.

The term ‘text’ is most likely to mean a piece of writing which is the subject of study.

It is important to remember those elements which are the substance of textual analysis.

These are all relevant to analysing a text or piece of writing.

audience form function genre

layout subject structure style

syntax tone vocabulary

The term ‘text’ is used in other areas of enquiry to mean ‘the item being studied’.

This contemporary usage reflects a concentration on the object of study, rather than on its author.

This is another point at which the study of language blends into literary studies or ‘critical theory’.

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The Fight for English

June 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how language pundits ate, shot, and left

David Crystal is a prolific writer on the subject of English language and the way it is used. His output ranges from scholarly works of reference such as The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, to popular studies of modern usage such as his recent Words, Words, Words which tries to keep track of concepts of language. This latest book The Fight for English is his defence of descriptive grammar. In a sense it’s his riposte to the very popular work by Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves which knocked Harry Potter off the best-seller lists two or three years ago.

She was arguing for an adherence to traditional notions of grammar and correctness. Crystal is here saying that language changes all the time and that there is nothing you can do about it. What he offers is a historical tour through what has been written about the English language. This tour takes him from AElfric in 1000 AD to the present. Our language started with a cultural mix of Latin, English, and French (with English very much at the bottom of the prestige table) but all the time it was absorbing an enormous number of loan words. (This is why the lexicon in English is bigger than other languages – and why there are so many irregularities of spelling and grammar.)

The advent of printing began the process of standardisation – though it was hampered at first by lots of regional variations. Then early attempts at spelling reform were thwarted by lack of agreement between competing suggestions.

The first textbooks on grammar began to appear in the late sixteenth century and were followed by attempts to ‘regulate’ language via institutions such as the Royal Society. These too were unsuccessful – just as those of the Academie Francaise continue to be today.

Crystal has a high regard for Dr Johnson, compiler of the first really authoritative dictionary in English – but as he points out, even Johnson realised, after his monumental efforts to pin down the spelling and meaning of words, that language changes:

This is a lesson everyone who studies language eventually learns. You cannot stop language change. You may not like it; you may regret the arrival of new forms and the passing of old ones; but there is not the slightest thing you can do about it.

He makes what can be a complex issue easy to understand by breaking his argument down into separate short chapters – Standards, Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling – and so on. And he presents the whole development of English as a constant flux, with tensions between linguistic pedants and actual popular usage. It’s a process which he sees as self-correcting:

Languages seem to operate with an unconsciously held system of checks and balances. If a group of people go wildly off in one linguistic direction, using a crate of new words, eventually—if they want to continue as part of society and be understood by its other members—they will be pulled back, and they will drop some of their neologisms. At the same time, a few of the new words will have been picked upon by the rest of the community. And so a language grows.

He mounts a vigorous attack on prescriptive grammarians, then the same on the pronunciation police – demolishing all their pontifications with the same argument – that the ‘standards’ which they claim to be absolute are often either recent innovations, or are already out of date.

The latter part of the book is an assessment of the current state of English language teaching in schools, and an explanation of why he finds hope in the National Curriculum, which he helped to frame. This is a user-friendly book, written in a plain-speaking style, and his arguments are ultimately convincing. But he’s not as funny as Lynne Truss.

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David Crystal, The Fight for English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.256, ISBN: 0199229694

The Handbook of Good English

June 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

guide to grammar, punctuation, usage, and style

Some writing guides are not much more than a list of grammatical rules, with illustrative examples and tips on what to avoid. Even though it uses grammatical elements as its structure, The Handbook of Good English is almost the opposite of that. Edward Johnson is an editor with a passion for language and the way it is used. What he seeks to explain is not just grammatical rules but the reasons why some forms of writing are more persuasive and elegant than others.

And he does this in a very leisurely manner, which is what makes this book so long – and comprehensive. He starts with sentences, then works his way to parts of speech and punctuation. At best, the examples and explanations he gives are good for being so succinct – as in his discussion of the gerund:

I dislike that man’s wearing a mask and I dislike that man wearing a mask are different statements. In the first, the wearing of the mask is disliked; in the second, the man is disliked. In the first statement, wearing is a gerund – that is, a special verb form that functions as a noun.

He covers every possible combination of circumstances which can arise to create problems: how to show quotations within quotations, dashes within parentheses, foreign words, and the titles of newspapers, plays, and the parts of a book. His thoroughness is almost exhausting. There are twenty-seven pages on the comma and thirty-four on the hyphen alone.

He’s what might be called a liberal or tolerant prescriptivist, because whilst permitting occasional exceptions, he does ultimately seek to establish rules:

the functionless comma does no harm, but nevertheless, commas that have no function should be omitted, just as words that have no function should be omitted (see Rule 1-4).

He takes full account of the differences between American and UK use of English, and it is interesting to note that (contrary to what UK traditionalists imagine) changes and influences operate in both directions.

Grammar issues apart, the chapter most readers will enjoy is his last – where he gives excellent advice on writing style. This covers subtle matters such as tone, diction, pace, attitude, and construction.

But at times, his approach is not so felicitous. I found it slightly annoying that a lot of his topics started off with bad examples. There are so many reasons why writing can be clumsy and ill-formed, this leads him into lengthy discussions of all the possible corrections and alternatives, after which he is forced to say:

It must be admitted that the correct versions of these sentences are much harder on the ear or eye than the incorrect versions, and that rewriting them would be advisable.

It’s a book which will probably be of most use to those people who already have a reasonable command of basic English, but who would like to know why some common grammatical problems are wrong or unacceptable – as well as how to put them right. In this sense it can be used as both a book of instruction or reference.

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Edward D. Johnson, The Handbook of Good English, New York: Washington Square Press, 1991, pp.426, ISBN: 0671707973

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Stylistic analysis – definition

Examples

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Symbols – definition

Examples

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Synecdoche – definition

Examples

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Synonyms – definition

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Syntax – definition

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teaching language and the national curriculum

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Tenses – definition

Examples

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Text – definition

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