Relative norms

It is time to return to the question of norm on which the notion of deviance depends. Given that the ideal of a completely
objective description of style is a myth, we can only aim at relatively reliable statements about what is frequent or
infrequent in a text.

Some kind of comparison outside the text or corpus is necessary, otherwise statements of frequency are vacuous. For
example, discovering that x per cent of Gibbons nouns are concrete, and only y per cent abstract, is of little use by itself.
This might be treated as evidence that Gibbon uses an abnormally large number of abstract nouns, but of course it
cannot, for we might then discover that a preponderance of abstract nouns is quite normal in the prose of Gibbons
contemporaries, and that Gibbons language in this respect is not exceptional. We might even discover that he uses a
lower number of abstract nouns than other writers of his time. Thus what at first appeared to be evidence in favour of
one hypothesis might turn out to be evidence against it. This example teaches us that a statement x is frequent in A is
only meaningful if it acts as a shorthand for x is more frequent in A than in B.

This object lesson leads to the use of a relative norm of comparison (B in the above formula). Where an absolute norm
for English cannot be relied on, the next best thing is to compare the corpus whose style is under scrutiny with one or
more comparable corpuses, thus establishing a relative norm. For example, Milic, in his study of Swifts prose style,
confirms Swifts predilection for clause connectives by comparing his results for a sample of Swift with those for
equivalent samples of Addison, Johnson and Macaulay:12

Swifts habit of reinforcing connections between clauses sometimes reaches the extreme of sequences such as and
therefore if notwithstanding . . . Milic sees this habit as having a role in Swifts persuasive rhetoric: as helping to create
an impression of consummate logical clarity. Table 2.1 is fairly convincing, 13 since there is a strong supposition that the
markedly lower figures for other writers come closer to an absolute norm than those for Swift. The more comparable
writers we study, the less likely it is that they are out of step with the norm of the language rather than Swift. The same
technique may be used within the canon of a single author. For instance, Corbett, in support of the observation that
Swift uses abnormally long sentences in A Modest Proposal, cites a much lower sentence length from a sample from A
Tale of a Tub. The long sentences in Swifts ironic essay in support of cannibalism are explicable as a stylistic expression
of the persona he adopts in order to intensify the impact of his outrageous proposal: in Corbetts words, we seem to be
listening to a man who is so filled with his subject, so careful about qualifying his statements and computations, so
infatuated with the sound of his own words, that he rambles on at inordinate length.14 The greater the range and size
of the corpus which acts as a relative norm, the more valid the statement of relative frequency. But a small sample for
comparison is better than nothing at all.

There are manifest dangers in the way a relative norm is chosen, but once it is accepted that relative validity is all we can
aim at these need not worry us unduly. It is obvious that a suitable norm of comparison should be what Enkvist calls a
contextually related norm.15 There would be little point in comparing Jane Austens style with that of contemporary legal
writs or twentieth-century parliamentary reports. What counts as the same category of writing, however, can be defined
to different degrees of narrowness. The books of Jane Austen could be compared (a) with other prose writings of the
period, (b) with other novels of the period, (c) with other novels with similar subject matter, and so on. The narrower the
range of comparison, the surer we are that the stylistic features we are attributing to Jane Austen are peculiar to her
style, rather than to the style of a larger category of writings which includes hers.

In adopting the necessary expedient of a relative norm, quantitative stylistics abandons the idea that there is a single
way of measuring deviance in a text. There are as many measures as there are relative norms. This conclusion is not a
bad thing, for it leads to a better match between deviance and prominence. What was overlooked in our discussion of
stylistic competence is that our intuitive placing of a text depends not on an undifferentiated capacity to compare a text
with the norm of the language, but rather on a responsiveness to a set of norms: a norm for spoken conversation,
a norm for news reporting, a norm for writing diaries, a norm for historical novels, etc. However inchoate the norms may
be, they collectively give us our bearings for responding to a style. They account for our general sense of the
appropriateness and inappropriateness of language as reflected in impromptu observations about style, varying from
Queen Victorias remark on Mr Gladstone that he speaks to Me as if I were a public meeting, to more everyday
comments like No one would ever speak like that, and to attributions like colloquial, journalistic, biblical, childlike,
pedantic. Thus prominence, like deviance, is best understood in terms of relative norms: the set of expectancies we have
acquired as speakers, hearers, readers and writers, varies from one kind of language situation to another. At the same
time it must be borne in mind that in literature, prominence and deviance frequently take a more extreme form (for
example in the Gormenghast passage on p. 112) which would show up against practically any norm we should choose;
this more general deviance can be demonstrated by taking ones relative norms from as broad a range as possible.

The concept of relative norm also explains a more wholesale kind of deviance: the adoption, in literature, of a style
borrowed from some foreign norm. This phenomenon of style borrowing has many manifestations in prose: the child
language at the beginning of Joyces Portrait is an example we have already noted; others are the style of private
correspondence used in epistolary novels such as Pamela; the racy colloquialism of first-person novels such as The
Catcher in the Rye; the use of stylistic parody and pastiche as exemplified in Ulysses. In such cases the recognition of
style involves awareness of deviation from one norm (the norm of a particular writer, genre, period, register to which the
text owes its provenance), and approximation to another contrasting norm. The adopted norm may of course (as in the
case of the epistolary novel) become a literary norm or a convention in itself. But the mimetic, borrowed origin of the
norm is still relevant.

2.5 Primary and secondary norms

Style borrowing is thus a telling illustration of a principle on which Halliday insists: that prominence is not only departure
from a norm but attainment of a norm.16 In one case attainment of a norm will mean style borrowing: the
approximation to some external norm as a disguise or at least as a point of reference. In another case it will mean that
the writer creates his own special kind of language, and it is in this sense that Halliday applies it to the Neanderthal
language of The Inheritors. In this novel, he argues, the particular pattern of frequencies sets up its own expectancies,
and the consequence is that we can generalise beyond the text, and judge whether a particular non-occurring sentence
would be appropriate to its language or not. He shows, for instance, that A branch curved downwards over the water
could have easily occurred in the language of Lok, while He had very quickly broken off the lowest branches would be
highly deviant.17

The norm which is attained by stylistic consistency in a text might be called a secondary norm, since it is established by
deviance from the primary (relative) norms which determine our more general expectations of language. Goldings novel
is to some degree experimental in style, and when we read it, we sense there is something odd about Loks language.
This we do by reference to primary norms. But when we consider what might be deviant in terms of Loks own dialect,
we refer to the secondary norm.

Style in Fiction leech short