Style and Choice

1.1 The Domain of Style:

Style can be defined as the way by which language is used for a special purpose by a particular person
in a given context. To explain this concept, we can use Saussure's distinction between 'langue' and
'parole':
- Langue: the rules that are common to speakers of a particular language (e.g. English).
- Parole: the uses of these rules by speakers and writers in different occasions.
Style is a relational term. It has been applied to the linguistic habits of a particular writer, to the way
language is used in a particular genre, period, or school of writing. Furthermore, the term 'style' can be
applied to both spoken and written, both literary and non-literary varieties of language. But, usually, it is
associated with literary written texts. Thus, we can think of style as "the linguistic characteristics of a
particular text," and this is the domain of style.

1.2 Stylistics:
Stylistics is simply defined as "the linguistic study of style." Style is usually studied to explain
something. Thus, literary stylistics aims to explain the relation between language and its artistic
function. Its goal is "to relate the critic's concern of aesthetic appreciation with the linguist's concern of
linguistic description."

A question that is often asked is which comes first, the aesthetic or the linguistic? This question is
answered by Spitzer's 'philological circle'. There is a cyclic motion in which the linguistic observation
stimulates or modifies the literary insight, and in which the literary insight in its turn stimulates further
the linguistic observation. There is no logical starting point since we bring to a literary text two faculties:
our ability to respond to it as a literary work and our ability to observe its language.

1.3 Style and Content:

There are a number of approaches to style. The first one is the 'Dualist' approach which defines style
as a "way of writing " or a "mode of expression". These definitions imply a separation between
"manner" and "matter" or "expression" and "content". Another view sees form and content as one
thing. This view is called the 'Monist' view.
1.3.1 Style as the 'Dress of Thought' one kind of Dualism:
The earliest and the most persistent concept of style is the view that style is the 'dress of thought'.
Although this view is no longer widely current, it appears in Renaissance and rationalist
pronouncements of style. This is clear in Pope's well-known definition of wit:
‘True wit is nature to advantage dressed
What oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed’.
It is also clear in Wesley's definition:
‘Style is the dress of thought; a modern dress,
neat, but not gaudy, will true critics please’.
Dualists distinguish between what a writer has to say and how his thoughts are dressed to be
presented to the reader. The writer's choice of dressing his thoughts in a certain way implies certain
meanings; for example, the choice of using third-person pronouns is regarded as neutral in narration.
Yet the choice of such a neutral form is as much a linguistic choice as any other, and may have
implications which may be fruitfully examined in stylistics: the third-person pronoun, for example,
distances the author and the reader from the character it denotes.
It is hard to deny, from a common-sense reader’s point of view, that texts differ greatly in their
degree of stylistic interest or markedness; or that some texts are more ‘transparent’, in the sense of
showing forth their meaning directly, than others. But for all practical purposes, the idea of style as an
‘optional extra’ must be firmly rejected.
 1.3.2. Style is a manner of expression:
This notion maintains that the style of each writer is determined by the choices of expression he
makes.
Here we can draw a distinction between monism and dualism; dualist maintains that the same content
can be conveyed in different ways. Monists maintain that any change of form entails a change of
meaning.
In order to prove this theory, Richard Ohmann, a modern dualist, argues that it is the grammatical
aspects (particularly the transformational grammatical Rules) not the lexical aspects that determine
style. These are rules which change the form of a basic sentence type without changing its lexical
content. Ohmann employed the device of reversing the effects of grammatical transformations to
produce kernel sentences to point the artistic value of these transformations.
Moreover, these Transformational rules provide a linguistic basis for the notion of paraphrase.

Sense + stylistic value = (total) significance

Paraphrase itself depends on the conception of "sense", the basic logical, conceptual, paraphrasable
meaning, and "significance", the total of what is communicated to the world by a given sentence.
Dualism assumes that one can paraphrase a sense of a text, and that there is a valid separation of sense
from significance. Still, Dualists do not treat stylistics as devoid of significance. Rather, they search for
some significance, STYLISTIC VALUE, in a writer's choice to express his sense in this or that way.

However there are difficulties with this version of dualism as well:

Some transformations don't preserve to the same "logical content"
Some girls are tall and some girls are short---- Some girls are tall and short.
However, Ohmann's approach still has a linguistic validity since the principle of paraphrase is held by
many linguistic schools.

In conclusion, the relation between transformations and meaning goes beyond being mere paraphrases.

Although Ohmann's detransforming technique provides the idea of stylistic neutrality, still the
detransformed passage cannot be said to be neutral or "styleless," because writing it in disconnected
sentences can be regarded as a stylistic choice.
1.3.3 Monism: the inseparability of style and content.
Monism finds it strongest ground in poetry where meaning becomes multivalued and sense loses
its primacy through metaphor, Irony, etc. Monism supports the New Critics who rejected the idea that a
poem conveys a message, preferring to see it as an autonomous verbal work of art.
The problems facing the dualist approach exist also in prose because according to them
1- It is impossible to paraphrase literary writing
2- It is impossible to translate a literary work
3- It is impossible to divorce the general appreciation of a literary work from the appreciation of its style.
Nevertheless, translating novels is possible though it loses some of its originality while monism
maintains that it is impossible to translate any literary work.

A new trend of criticism argues that criticism is a criticism of language, yet we can't separate the
creation of plot, character, etc. from the language in which it is portrayed. Language is the medium
through which the novelist does anything. Accordingly, there is no difference between the choice of the
writer to call a character dark or fair and the choice between synonyms such as dark and swarthy. All the
choices he makes are equally matters of language.

1.4. Comparing dualism and monism:

Whereas dualism seems happier with prose, monism seems happier with poetry. However, if the
difference between poetry and prose is defined by the absence and presence of verse, then some types
of poetry are more "prosaic" than others and some types of prose are more "poetic" than others. For a
further explanation of this point, Burgess proposes a division of novelists into two classes:
- Class I Novelist: is one in whose work language is a zero quality, transparent, unseductive that the
reader need not become consciously aware of the medium through which the sense is conveyed to him.
- Class II Novelist: is one for whom ambiguities and puns are to be enjoyed and whose books lose a great
deal when adapted to visual medium since the interpretation of sense may be frustrated and obstructed
by the abnormal lexical and grammatical features of the medium.

All in all we can't reject one of them and accept the other as each one of them has its minuses and
pluses. Actually, for most novels neither dualism nor monism will be satisfactory, there is a need for
something that avoids the weaknesses of both.

1.5 Pluralism: Analyzing Style In Terms of Functions:

An alternative to monism and dualism is the approach called stylistic pluralism. The pluralist holds
that language performs a number of different functions, and any piece of language is the result of
choices made on different functional levels. Hence, the pluralist isn’t content with the dualist’s division
between “expression” and “content” as he wants to distinguish various standards of meaning according
.to the various functions
That language can perform varied functions or communicative roles is a commonplace of linguistic
thought. The popular assumption that language simply serves to communicate “thoughts” or “ideas” is
too simplistic. Some kinds of language have a referential function (newspaper reports), others have a
directive or persuasive function (advertizing), others have an emotive or social function (casual
conversation). To this general appreciation of functional variety in language, the pluralist adds the idea
that language is multifunctional, so that the simplest utterance conveys more than one kind of meaning.
For example, “is your father feeling better?” may be referential (referring to a person and his illness),
directive (demanding a reply from the hearer) or social (showing sympathy between the speaker and
hearer). From this viewpoint, the dualist is wrong in assuming that there is some unitary conceptual
.“content” in every piece of language
Of the many functional classifications of language that have been proposed, three have had some
:currency in literary studies
Richards in “Practical Criticism” distinguishes 4 types of function and 4 kinds of meaning: sense, -1
.feeling, tone and intention
Jakobson’s distinguishes 6 functions: referential, emotive, conative, phatic, poetic, and metalinguistic. -2
.3- Halliday acknowledges 3 major functions: ideation, interpersonal and textual
It is clear that pluralists disagree on what the functions are and even on their number and how
these functions are manifested in literary language. Richards holds that in poetry the function of feeling
tends to dominate that of “sense” but Jacobson identifies a special “poetic” function which dominates
.over other functions in poetry
Halliday holds that different kinds of literary writing may foreground different functions. Halliday’s
analysis of Golding’s The Inheritors shows the relation of pluralism to dualism and monism. (a passage)
Halliday’s analysis is revealing in the way it relates precise linguistic observation to literary effect. Its
interest is that it locates stylistic significance in the ideational function of language; that is in the
cognitive meaning or sense which for the dualist is the invariant factor of content rather than the
variable factor of style. For Ohmann, the choice between: A stick rose upright’ and ‘He raised his bow’
isn’t a matter of style as these sentences contrast grammatically in terms of phrase structure and hence,
.they aren’t paraphrases of each other
There is thus incompatibility between the pluralist and the dualist. Comparing Ohmann and Halliday as
:representatives of these two schools
 Halliday (1970) Ohmann (1964)
Ideational function Content (phrase Structure)
Textual function Expression (optional transformation)
C- Interpersonal function --------------------------------------
For Ohmann, style belongs to level B, but for Halliday, style can be located in A, B or C. the
interpersonal function shows the relation between language and its users and combines two categories
which are often kept separate in functional models: the affective or emotive function (communicating
.the speaker’s attitudes) and the directive function (influencing the behavior and attitudes of the hearer)
Halliday’s view is that all linguistic choices are meaningful and all linguistic choices are stylistic. In
this respect, Halliday’s pluralism is a more sophisticated version of monism. The flaw of monism is that it
tends to view a text as an undifferentiated whole, so that examination of linguistic choices can’t be
made except on some ad hoc principle. One can argue that the monist can’t discuss language at all: if
meaning is inseparable from form, one can’t discuss meaning without repeating the same words in
which it is expressed and one can’t discuss form except by saying that it expresses its own meaning. But
the pluralist is in a happier position; he can show how choices of language are interrelated within the
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 such as the choice between
transitive and intransitive verbs. That’s to say that the pluralist has a theory of language whereas the
.monist doesn’t

:A Multilevel Approach To Style 1.6

Halliday’s pluralism is superior to both monism and dualism. Dualism can say nothing about how
language creates a particular cognitive view of things, what Fowler calls Mindstyle. Thus, dualism
.excludes much that is worthy of attention in modern fiction writing
Both monism and pluralism are more suited to opacity than to transparency. Halliday discusses
The Inheritors against the background of the theory of foregrounding and Golding’s Lok-language in its
opacity bears some resemblance to the language of child Stephen in Joyce’s portrait. In both cases, the
author shocks us into an unfamiliar mode of expression, by using language suggestive of a primitive
.state of consciousness
What is good in the dualist’s position is that he shows that two pieces of language can be seen as
alternative ways of saying the same thing, that there can be stylistic variants with different stylistic
.values
Halliday’s approach is hard to reconcile with this everyday insight about style. For him, even
choices which are dictated by subject matter are part of style: it is part of style about a particular
cookery book that it contains words like butter, flour, boil and bake, and it is part of style of Animal Farm
that it contains words like farm, pigs and Napoleon. Even choice of proper names or of whether to call a
character fair or dark-haired is a matter of style_ in this the Pluralist Halliday must agree with the monist
.Lodge
Applied to non-fictional language, this position fails to make an important discrimination. In a
medical textbook, the choice between clavicle and collar-bone can justly be called a matter of stylistic
variation. But if the author replaced clavicle by thighbone, this is no longer a matter of stylistic variation,
but a matter of fact, and of potential disaster to the patient. There is no reason to treat fictional
language in a totally different way. The referential, truth-functional nature of language isn’t in use in
.fiction, rather it is exploited in referring to, and thereby creating a fictional universe, a mock-reality
At the referential level, Golding’s sentences: The Stick began to grow shorter at both ends. Then it
shot out to full length again. Tell the same story as: Lok saw the man draw the bow and release it.
Although these aren’t paraphrases, they can be regarded as stylistic variants in a more liberal sense as
.ways of making sense of the same event
It is important to understand that language is used in fiction to project a world “beyond
language”, in that we use not only our knowledge of language, the meanings of words but also our
.knowledge of real world to furnish it
It is reasonable to say that some aspects of language have the referential function of language,
and some others have to do with stylistic variation. If Golding had replaced ‘bushes’ with ‘reeds’ and
.river with ‘pond’, this wouldn’t have been stylistic variation but a change in the fictional world
What is good in the dualist’s position is that it allows for more than one level of stylistic variation.
The traditional term “content” fails to discriminate between ‘sense’ and reference’: what a linguistic
form means and what it refers to. Taking into account this discrimination, there can be alternative
.conceptualizations of the same event and alternative syntactic expressions of the same sense
Fiction is an invariant element, i.e. it must be taken for granted. The author is free to order his
universe as he wants, but for purposes of stylistic variations, we are only interested in those choices of
.language which don’t involve changes in the fictional universe
In this light, the view of Lodge, that whatever the novelist does, he does in and through language”
is attractive but misleading. This is because the novel has a more abstract level of existence, which in
principle is partly independent of the language through which it is represented and may be realized
through the visual medium of film. In support of this, two distinct kinds of descriptive statement can be
made about a verbal work of art. On the one hand, it can be described as: x contains simple words, more
abstract than concrete nouns, x is written in ornate, vigorous or colloquial language, or it can be
described in a way void of any linguistic dimension: x contains Neanderthal characters, x is about a
.woman who kills her husband, x is about events which take place in 19th C Africa
A Novel, therefore, has these two interrelated modes of existence_as a fiction and as a text, and
to adapt Lodge’s view: it is as text-maker that the novelist works in language, and it is as fiction-maker
that he works through language. This view distinguishes between ‘what one has to say’ and ‘how one
.’says it

:Conclusion: Meanings of Style 1.7

1- Style is a way in which language is used: i.e. it belongs to parole rather than to langue.
2- Style consists in choices made from the repertoire of the language.
3- Style is defined in terms of a domain on language use.
4- Stylistics has typically been concerned with literary language.
5- Literary stylistics is typically concerned with explaining the relation between style and literary or
aesthetic function.
6- Style is relatively transparent or opaque; transparency implies paraphrasability and opacity implies
that a text can’t be adequately paraphrased and the interpretation of the text depends on the creativity
of the reader.
7- Stylistic choice is limited to those aspects of linguistic choice which concern alternative ways of
rendering the same subject matter.