Style In Fiction

Style in fiction A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose GEOFFREY N.LEECH MICHAEL H.SHORT

‘ I would maintain that a formulate observation by means of words is not to cause the artistic beauty to evaporate in vain intellectualities; rather, it makes for a widening and deepening of the aesthetic taste. It is only a frivolous love that cannot survive intellectual definition; great love prospers with understanding’. Spitzer

THE SCOPE OF THE BOOK • The book concentrates on fictional prose, but much of what is said can be also adapted to non-fictional prose. • Illustrations are taken from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, to cover the period of the rise and development of the novel as a major literary form • It focuses on the most tangible domain of style, where the reader’s response is most immediate, and where the techniques of stylistics can be most demonstrably applied.

THE DESIGN OF THE BOOK • Part 1: ‘Approaches and methods’ • Part 2: ‘Aspects of style’

Part 1 ‘Approaches and methods’ • Chs 1 and 2: examine differing views of what style means and how it should be studied. • Ch 3: presents an informal technique of stylistic analysis, which is illustrated by a comparison of three passages. • Ch 4: shows how style can be studied in terms of forms which are linguistically equivalent at some level (stylistic variants), and the literary or communicative function associated with the choice of one variant or another (stylistic values).

Part 2 ‘Aspects of style’ • This part investigates different kinds of stylistic values more closely. • Ch 6: shows the way in which language conceptualizes the fiction • Ch 7: considers the way in which language presents the fiction in linear, textual form. • Chs 8 to 10: present the ways in which language represents the fiction through the social dimension language use: Through the relation between author and reader Through the participation in literary discourse of fictional speakers and hearers

THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK • Leading students to towards a more active engagement with the study of prose style • After working through these passages they can go on to apply similar methods to passages and works of their choice.

STYLE IN FICTION

‘Approaches and methods’

It examines differing views of what style means and how it should be studied

Chapter one ‘Style and choice’

Chapter two ‘Style, text, and frequency’

Chapter three ‘A method of analysis and some examples’

Chapter four ‘Level of style’

CHAPTER ONE ‘STYLE

AND CHOICE’

The task of this chapter is to: Investigate the phenomenon of style in general terms Take account of the various ways in which the word ‘style’ has been used in the past  Work through definitions towards a richer appreciation of what literary style is and how it can be analysed.

STYLE AND CHOICE CHAPTER STRUCTURE 1.The domain of style 2.Stylistics 3.Style and content 3.1 Style as the ‘dress of thought’: one kind of dualism 3.2 Style as manner of expression: another kind of dualism 3.3 The inseparability of style and content: monism

4.Comparing dualism and monism 5.Pluralism: analysing style in terms of functions 6.Multilevel approach to style 7.Conclusion: meanings of style

1.THE DOMAIN OF STYLE • Swiss linguist Saussure’s distinction between: • Langue: the code of or system of rules common to speakers of a language (such as English) • Parole: the particular uses of this system, or selections from this system, which speakers or writers make on this occasion.

Style • Pertains to parole: it is selection from a total linguistic repertoire that constitutes a style.

Style • Can be applied to both spoken and written, both literary and non-literary varieties of language • But by tradition, it is associated with written literary texts: The term has been applied to the linguistic habits of a particular writer To the way language is used in a particular genre, period, school of writing.

Style is a relational term • We talk about the ‘the style of x’, referring through ‘style’ to characteristics of language use, and correlating these to with some extralinguistic x, which we may call the stylistic DOMAIN • The x (writer, period) defines some corpus of writings in which the characteristics of language use are to be found. • But the more extensive and varied the corpus of writings, the more difficult it is to identify a common set of linguistic habits( even to the authorial style)

STYLE AND AUTHOR’S PERSONALITY • Lat.’Stylus virum arguit’ ( eng.’The style proclaims the man’) Sometimes the author’s identity is given away by some small detail reflecting a habit of expression or thought. But we are mostly considering:

Style of text Style comprehends the linguistic characteristics of a particular text so through texts : It is easier to consider what words or structures are chosen in preference to others. Examine the interrelations between one choice of language and other.

1.2 STYLISTICS Texts are the natural focus for our study also because: • Within a text it is possible to be more specific about how language serves a particular artistic function.

Literary stylistics • Has the goal of explaining the relation between language and artistic function. • Their goal is to relate the critic’s concern of aesthetic appreciation ( comprehends both critical evaluation and interpretation) with the linguist’s concern of linguistic description.

1.2 STYLISTICS Literary stylistics has the goal: • Of explaining the relation between language and artistic function: • Linguistic angle: “Why does the author here choose to express himself in this particular way?” • Critics: “How is such-and-such an aesthetic effect achieved through language?” • To relate the critic’s concern of aesthetic appreciation (comprehends both critical evaluation and interpretation) with the linguist’s concern of linguistic description.

But: at which end do we start, the aesthetic or the linguistic? • Spitzer: the ‘Philological Circle’: The task of linguistic-literary explanation proceeded by the movement to and fro from linguistic details to the literary ‘centre’ of a work or a writer’s art. There is a cyclic motion: – Whereby linguistic observation stimulates or modifies literary insight – Whereby literary insight stimulates further linguistic observation

There is no logical starting point since we bring to a literary text simultaneously two faculties: Our ability to respond to it as a literary work Our ability to observe its language

Difference between style and literary stylistics • In studying style: Try to identify features of text which remain constant whatever the artistic motivations of the writer

• In studying literary stylistics: Features determined by artistic motivations are of primary interest.

1.3 STYLE AND CONTENT Since the aim of the book is studying language as used in literary texts and relating it to its artistic functions, it is useful to consider other definitions of style.

Conflicting views of the use of language in licterature • Dualist approach: • Assumes the dualism between form and meaning • Considers style as a ‘way of writing’ or ‘a mode of experience’

• Monist view: • In Flaubert’s words ‘it is like body and soul, form and content for me are one’

Dualism and ‘style as the dress of thought’ • Distinguishes between what a writer has to say and how it is presented to the reader. • Renaissance and rationalist and mannerist approaches. • French stylisticians: Wesley Bally and Riffaterre Roland Barthes

During the Renaissance • Pope defined wit as: ‘nature to advantage dressed what oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed’. • Sidney and Lyly spoke about ‘artificial style’: Its schematism of form cannot be divorced from the schematic relation between the ideas being presented.

French Stylisticians • Wesley: ‘Style is the dress of thought; a modern dress, neat, but not gaudy, will true critics please’. • It is possible to have a manner of writing in which there is no style, in which content is presented in its nakedness.

•

Bally and Riffaterre: • Style is that expressive or emotive element of language which is added to the neutral presentation of the message itself. – Es)’Not bloody likely’(has a style) – Es)’No’does not.

• Roland Barthes: mode of ‘writing at degree zero’ which achieves a style of assence which is ideal.

But: how can we judge when the factor of style is absent? • Every word has some associations: Emotive Moral Ideological

in addition to its brute sense. • Style is a property of all texts and the idea of style as an ‘optional extra’ must be rejected.

Dualism and style as manner of expression

Every writer makes choices of expression, and it is in his ‘way of putting things’, that style resides.

The contrast between dualism and monism from an author’s point of view.

(A)DUALISM

(B)MONISM

Choices of content

CONTENT Choices of expression FORM

Choices of expression =choices of content

Dualists and Monists • Monist: any alteration of form entails a change of content. • Dualist: there can be different ways of conveying the same content. – Richard Ohmann ( a modern apostle of dualism): • Considers ‘style’ as ‘a manner of bring something’ – As applied to other art forms (e.g. music) and to varied activities (e.g. playing the piano)

In the style therefore, there are assumed to be some – INVARIANT elements which have to be performed, but also – VARIANT ways in which the individual may perform them.

Richard Ohmann • He concentrates on the grammatical aspect of style. • He appeals to Tranformational Grammar which postulates two main kind of rules: Phrase Structure Rules Transformational Rules • which determine style because they change the form of a basic sentence type. – Change an active construction to a passive – Combine two or more simple sentence structures into a single more complex unit – Delete elements from the structure.

Richar Ohmann • He wants to see what happen if he applies this rules to a text, and in particular to ‘The Bear’, by Faulkner. • The resulting ‘Ohmannized’ Faulkner consists of a sequence of short, atomic sentences: He has nullified the effect of only a few transformations So his point is: • The elimination of these transformations also eliminates the author’s quality of the passage • The author’s style is distinguished by a heavy use, in this case, of these transformations. – Which in general terms happen to be rules which introduce and condense syntactic complexity.

Ohmann and modern linguistics • The assumption that transformations represent paraphrase relations has been undermined Cases in which the passive and deletion transformations which occur in some sentences, do not preserve the same ‘logical content’

• It is widely held that the basic logical content of a sentence can be represented as a set of elementary prepositions, which, together with their iterrelations, constitute its ‘deep structure’ or ‘semantic representation’ • Replaced some terms in his paraphrase: SENSE: the basic, logical, conceptual, paraphrasable meaning SIGNIFICANCE: the total of what is communicated to the world by a given sentence or text.

Stylistic value which an enlightened dualist has searched • In a writer’s choice to express his sense in this rather that that way. SENSE +STYLISTIC = (total) SIGNIFICANCE

*Ohmann’s detransforming technique seems to provide some linguistic basis for the idea of linguistic ‘neutrality’. this is limited to the grammatical aspect of style Nevertheless the degree to which a writer complicates his style by applying syntactic transformations might be one linguistic measure of markedness.

Monism and the inseparability of style and content • Dualist’s notion of paraphrase rests on the assumption that there is some basic sense that can be preserved in different renderings. In poetry paraphrase becomes problematic • Terence Hawkes: ‘Metaphor…is not fanciful embroidery of the facts. It is a way of experiencing the facts’. – It denies us a literal sense and induces us to make sense e.g. to find the interpretations beyond the truthfunctional meaning captured by parafrase.

Stylistic Monism • Finds its strongest ground in poetry Through metaphor, irony and ambiguity, meaning becomes multivalued and sense looses its primacy.

• Its manifestations A tenet of the New Critics Rejected that a poem conveys a message, preferring to see it as an autonomous verbal artefact.

Stylistic Monism and its exponents • Philosophy of Croce • One-form-one-meaning of pretransformation linguistic • In some authors: – Tolstoy ( a prose writer) said that the content of a work of art in its entirety can be expressed only by itself.

Lodge in ‘Language of fiction’ • A novel is a verbal artifact, so there can be no separation of the author’s creation of a fiction of plot, character, social and moral life, from the language in which it is portrayed. • He sees no difference between the kind of choice a writer makes in deciding to call a character dark or fair, and the choice between dark and swarthy. All the choices he makes are equally matters of language.

1.4 Comparing Dualism and Monism • Anthony Burgess in ‘Joysprik’ divided novelists into Class I and Class II: II – Class I: I is one in whose work language is a zero quality, transparent and unseductive, the overtones of connotation and ambiguity totally damped. – Class II : is one for whom ‘ambiguities’, puns and centrifugal connotation are to be enjoyed rather than regretted, and whose books lose a great deal when adopted to a visual medium.

Prose varies in the amount of aesthetic interest which attaches to a linguistic form

In a work it is possible to envisage a spectrum extending : • Between two extremes of : ‘Language use’ and ‘Language exploitation’

• Between – Prose, which conforms to the code (Saussure langue) and normal expectations of communication and – Prose which deviates from the code in exploring new frontiers of communication

Prague school of poetics • Has distinguished th ‘poetic function’ of language by its FOREGROUNDING or DEAUTOMATIZATION of the linguistic code: – The aesthetic exploitation of language takes the form of surprising a reader into a fresh awareness of the linguistic medium which is usually considered an automatized background of communication – This foregrounding may deny the normally expected clues of context and coherence.

Transparent and Opaque qualities of prose syle • Burgess’s Class I is transparent: The reader need not become consciously aware of the medium through which sense is conveyed to him

• Class II prose is opaque: The medium attracts attention in its own right; and interpretation of sense may be obstructed by abnormalities in lexis and in grammatical features of medium.

Paradox in language To be truly creative, an artist must be destructive: destructive of rules, conventions and expectations. And the reader must fill in the gaps of sense.

1.5 Pluralism: analysing style in terms of functions • Language performs a number of different functions • Any piece of language is the result of choices made on different functional levels • It wants to distinguish various strands of meaning according to the various functions (vs dualist’s division between ‘expression’ and ‘content’

Language is intrinsically multifunctional so even the simplest utterance conveys more than one kind of meaning. *(vs dualism: there is some unitary conceptual content in every piece of writing).

Functional classifications of language in literary studies • A. Richards in ‘Practical Criticism’ (1929), distinguishes 4 types of function and 4 of meaning: – Sense – Feeling – Tone – Intention

• Jakobson (1906) distinguishes 6 functions: – – – – – –

Referential Emotive Conative Phatic Poetic Metalinguistic

Each corresponding to one essential aspect of the discourse situation.

• Halliday distinguishes 3 functions: – Ideational – Interpersonal – Textual

They disagree on how functions are manifested in literary language: • Richards: in poetry the function of ‘feeling’ tends to dominate that of ‘sense’. • Jakobson: ‘poetic’ function which dominates in poetry. • Halliday: different kinds of literary writing may foreground different functions.

Dualism and Pluralism Ohmann (1964) • (A) ‘content’( phrase structure)

Halliday (1970) • (A) Ideational function

• (B) ‘expression’ ( optional transformations)

• (B) Textual funcion

• (C)

• (C) Interpersonal function

Pluralism and Monism • Similarity: Pluralism and Monism both state that all linguistic choices are both meaningful and stylistic • Differences: Pluralists can show how choices of language are interrelated to one another within a network of functional choices: – What choices a writer makes can be seen against the background of relations of contrast and dependence between one choice and another.

1.6 Multilevel approach to style • Pros and cons of Dualism – Can say nothing about how language creates a particular cognitive view of things, what Fowler calls MINDSTYLE. – It captures the insight that two pieces of language can be seen as alternative ways of saying the same thing • There can be stylistic variants with different style values (what the writer might have said but didn’t)

Pros and cons of Halliday’s approach •

Even choices which are clearly dictated by subject matter are part of style – e.g. butter, flour are parts of the style a cookery book. – But applied to non-fictional language it fails • e.g. if the author replace clavicle by thighbone is no longer a matter of stylistic variation but of fact (disaster for the patient)

– The referential, truth-functional nature of language is present in fiction and is creates a mock –reality. – Language is used in fiction to project a world ‘beyond language’, in that we use also our knowledge of the real world • e.g. ‘The stick began to grow shorter at both ends’ • ‘Then it shot out to full length again’ • Lok saw the man draw the bow and realized it

Therefore, some aspects of language have to do do with the referential function and these must be distinguished from those which have to do with stylistic variation. variation

The dualist’s notion of invariant content and variable style • ‘content’ fails to discriminate between the philosopher’s concepts of SENSE and REFERENCE: – what a linguistic form means and what it refers to.

• There can be therefore : alternative CONCEPTUALIZATIONS of the same event Alternative syntactic expressions of the same sense

The dualist’s diagram (A) Variant conceptualizations

Sense The fiction

and

(B) Variant expressions

( Surface Syntax Sense )

• The fiction remains the invariant element: – from the point of view of linguistic variation, must be taken for granted. – But the author is free to order his universe as he wants, but for the purposes of stylistic variation we are only interested in those choices of language which do not involve change in the fictional universe.

As a work of fiction, a novel has a more abstract level of existence: • Which is partly independent of the language through which it is represented In fact two distinct kinds of descriptive statement can be made about a verbal work of art: It can be described as a linguistic text – Contains simple words, more abstract than concrete nouns, etc. – Is written in ordinate/lucid/vigorous/colloquial language, etc.

It can be described as we might describe other fictional forms: Contains several Neanderthal characters Is about a woman who kills her husband Is about events which take place in nineteenth century Africa.

The way we acquire ‘knowledge’ of a fictional world has much in common with the way we acquire indirect knowledge, through language, of the real world. A novel therefore exists : • As a fiction and as a text • Lodge: ‘it is a text-maker that the novelist works in language, and it is a fiction-maker that he works through language.

• This is a multilevel view of style, which is composed of elements of dualism and pluralism. pluralism • We have distinguished two levels of stylistic variation: – That of sense reference – That of syntax sense

1.7 Conclusion: meanings of style • What does ‘style’ style mean? – (i) is a way in which language is used: ie it belongs to parole rather than to langue. – (ii) therefore style consists in choices made from the repertoire of the language. – (iii) A style is defined in terms of a domain of language use (eg what choices are made by a particular genre, or in a particular text) – (iv) Stylistics (or the study of style) has typically been concentrated with literary language. – (v) Literary stylistics is typically concentrated with explaining the relation between style and literary or aesthetic function. – (vi) Style is relatively transparent or opaque: transparency implies paraphrasability; opacity implies that a text cannot be adequately paraphrased, and that interpretation of the text depends greatly on the creative imagination of the reader.

(vii)Stylistic choice is limited to those aspects of linguistic choice which concern alternative ways of rendering the same subject matter. – This is STYLE2 , different from ‘style’ as a linguistic choice in general. – It is possible to distinguish between what the writer chooses to talk about and how he chooses to do it So the study of the literary function of language can be directed – towards the stylistic values associated with stylistic variants alias with forms of language which can be seen as equivalent in terms of the ‘referential reality’ they describe

This does not work when it comes to opaque literary language The writer tends towards the innovative techniques of poetry Where the study of foregrounding is a better guide to the aesthetic function of language than the study of stylistic variants

There is no one model of prose style which is applicable to all texts. • Style2 is the concept used in exploringthe nature of stylistic value As a basis for understanding the detailed workings of stylistic effect. – Style1is the more general concept – It is used when we try to give a stylistic characterization of a whole text.