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Review of Leech and Short, Style in Fiction

Article  in  American Speech · December 1985

DOI: 10.2307/454789

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Review: Outstanding Stylistics Study
Reviewed Work(s): Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose by
Geoffrey N. Leech and Michael H. Short
Review by: Richard D. Cureton
Source: American Speech, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Winter, 1984), pp. 362-364
Published by: Duke University Press
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362 AMERICAN SPEECH 59.4 (1984)
OUTSTANDING STYLISTICS STUDY

Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Pro

frey N. Leech and Michael H. Short. London and New York:
1981. Pp xiv + 402.

Reviewed by RICHARD D. CURETON, University of Wisconsin-

Style in Fiction (SF) is an impressively researched and beautiful

piece of scholarship and pedagogy. As an introduction to literary
it has no peer. Other introductory textbooks in literary stylistic
Leech's earlier A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry) have various
ings. In general, they have been too narrow, too theoretical,
ecdotal: they have failed to give the student the range of th
analytical tools necessary to do revealing stylistic analysis. Th
been a disturbing lack of adequate teaching materials for the
stylistics course. SF corrects this lack.
The outstanding strengths of SF are its scope, balance, and
lier treatments of fictional prose have been limited by wh
Short (L&S) call "bittiness" (p.3)-meaning that the previous
overemphasized the aesthetic importance of one or another l
stylistic feature, examined only a narrow range of texts, and
these texts with an equally narrow range of linguistic tools.
this trend, L&S provide "an overall 'theory' or 'model' of pr
classification of features of style as a tool of analysis which c
to any text"(p. 4). And they go on to apply their model to over 1
from 51 different authors and 85 different works.

Linguistically, L&S's approach is functional and eclectic. They draw on

a number of contemporary approaches to linguistic description: Chom-
sky's transformational grammer, Halliday's systemic grammar, Grice's con-
versational analysis, Searle's theory of speech acts, Quirk, Greenbaum,
Leech, and Svartvik's Grammar of Contemporary English, and others. Like
all good stylisticians, L&S's aim is not theoretical purity but practical re-
sult: aesthetically revealing linguistic analysis. And they do not limit them-
selves to what traditional linguistic theories offer. By drawing together
and organizing insights from work in stylistics, literary criticism, and rhet-
oric, they GIVE BACK to linguistic theory at least as much as they take. Early
on, the reader is told: "Stylistics builds on linguistics, and in return, sty-
listics challenges our linguistic frameworks, reveals their deficiencies, and
urges us to redefine them"(p. 6). The analyses presented in SF repeatedly
justify this claim.

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 REVIEWS 363

L&S divide their presenta

This two-part presentatio
for further reading, a use
page section containing "P
The first part ("Approach
discussion of methodologic
the purpose and domain o
nature of internal and ext
and other matters. L&S's a
ably judicious: they present
that preserve what is val
section with an extensive ch
gether with three applicat
Lawrence, and James. Th
elled, linguistically explici
There are things in this fir
that stylistic
ul analysis is
inherently comparative, t
stylistic analysis, and so f
advances in stylistic meth
of these matters to my kn
of "meaning" in a work: s
meaning of linguistic form
and beyond their semantic
built up by readers from
forms together with their
outthat various well-known
DUALISM, and PLURALISM
on one or another of these
into one undifferentiated
a synthesis that distinguish
work as a FICTION-a refe
as a TEXT-with structures
at both a deep (semantic)
level. While recognizing a la
they can then limit their tr
same fictional "world" (ST
tional insight that style c
mon source while at the s
semantic choices into the
Part II ("Aspects of Style

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 364 AMERICAN SPEECH 59.4 (1984)

authors exploit the forms and functions of linguistic stru

thetic effects. In a chapter on the ideational function, L&
how authors can manipulate participant roles, pronomin
phor, lexical choices, and various degrees of syntactic complex
atize a particular conceptualization of reality-in Roger Fow
"mind style." In a chapter on the textual function, they d
trate how authors use the linear and hierarchical nature of sy
tures to highlight and background, integrate and fragment, b
and diffuse tension. Asignificant advance in this section is th
ment of syntactic iconicity (the use of syntactic form to
an important aspect of literary style omitted in Leech's e
poetry. And the rest of the book treats various aspects of the
function of language within the complex discourse pragm
works-problems involving point of view; authorial evaluat
distance; and the presentation of speech and thought. Wh
L&S ground their analyses explicitly in well-known work
and without sacrificing aesthetic insights to achieve this grou
short review, I cannot do justice to the wealth of materia
this second part of the book; its breadth of coverage an
emplification is unprecedented in a work of this sort. Th
is a remarkable achievement.

SF DOES have some limitations. Any book of such scope must struggle
with some difficult (if not insoluable) problems. For instance, to mitigate
problems of excessive length, L&S choose not to present stylistic tools that
are discussed in Leech's earlier work A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry.
And some of this work is crucial to a complete treatment of fictional style:
work on the iconics of sound, the interpretation of metaphor, the nature
and sources of ambiguity, the structural diversity and function of paral-
lelism, the variety and function of rhetorical schemas, and other matters.
The naive reader, I think, MUST follow L&S's many references to work in
this earlier text to take full advantage of their presentation.
With this additional supplementation, however, SF can provide any in-
terested reader with the means to DO stylistic analysis-a remarkable
achievement for a single volume. SF is a must for all students of language
and literature and should become a central classroom text in stylistics
courses-wherever such classes convene.

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