Tuesday 25 August 2015

IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN STYLISTIC ANALYSIS

Stylistic analysis is different from literary analysis because it entails the explication of how the words of a text generate the feelings and reactions that we get when we read them. In line with the above position, Ahmad (online) describes stylistic analysis as the
“identification of patterns of usage in speech and writing”. It comments on quality and meaning in a text and endeavours to ascertain the rules capable of explaining the particular choices made by individual and social groups in their use of language. He adds that stylistic analysis helps us to understand the possible meanings in a text. He cites examples with the stylistic analysis of the opening lines of Shakespeare’s Richard III.
          “Now is the winter of our discontent
          Made glorious summer by this sun of York”
He explains that the stylistic analysis of the above lines may reveal the following:
·                 the play is written in poetic blank verse
·                 that is unrhymed, iambic pentameter
·                 now is the winter of our discontent
·                 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”
·                 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.

Ahmad opines that stylistic analysis entails looking at the text in great detailsand noting what the parts are and stating what function they perform in the context of a passage. He therefore, likens stylistic analysis to taking a car- engine to pieces, looking at each component in detail, and then spotting its function as the whole engine starts working.
In his exploration of some methodologies used in stylistic analysis, Carter (2012) maintains that the essence of stylistic methodologies is to make it possible for analysts to expound what they are doing and how they are doing it so that the analysts is transparent to others. Thus, this enables readers to retrieve how the analyst came about the interpretative decisions. However, he argues that “there is no infinite number of possible interpretations and there are no single correct way of analysis and interpretation of the texts.” So, each method is “a hands-on approach” meaning that each text is taken on its own merits using what the reader knows. In support of the above opinion, Leech and Short (1985:74) proclaim that:
All writers and for that matter all texts have their individual qualities. Therefore, the features which recommend themselves to the attention in one text will not necessarily be important in another text by the same or different authors. There is no infallible technique for selecting what is significant. We have to make ourselves newly aware of each text…

They maintain that despite the fact that new stylistics has brought illuminating studies of stylistic features, of works or writer, no adequate theory of prose style has emerged.
Again, Ian Watt in his explanation of Henry James style in “The Ambassador” in Leech and Short (1985:3) complains that he is “virtually helpless as far as any fully developed and acceptable technique of elucidating prose is concerned. But they maintain that stylistic analysis is more readily adapted to poems than to the investigation of novels where some hitches are usually encountered in the course of interpretation. Carter(2012) and Leech and Short (1985) then contend that because of the complicatedness in the study of prose style, prose analysis has suffered unevenness. Consequently, they uphold that.
A writer’s style has all too frequently been reduced to one feature or a handful of features. Some aspects of style such as speech presentation have been recognized as interesting and have been intensively studied, whereas others have been intensively neglected. And where the data are so vast and varied, there is inevitable temptation to retreat into vague generalization 

          Despite the inadequacies inherent, Carter (2012) introduces some methodologies for the stylistic analysis of literary texts.

2.5.1 Practical Stylistics
          This approach is derived from practical criticism and the practice of making use of language to achieve meaning of texts. This system entails close reading of verbal texture of the texts. The basic assumptions of practical stylistics include:
·                 that literature is made from language and with language.
·                 that language is the medium of literature and
·                 that beginning with the very textuality of the text is a secure foundation for its interpretation.
Carter affirms that the basic and preliminary interpretation of a text is the account of the role of verbs, and that the verb creates an atmosphere of constant actions and movement. The main verb provides an anchor for these actions. He gives example with the following sentence:
foot passengers jostling one another’s umbrellas loosing their foot hold at street corners arrived at the bank.


Carter maintains that a sentence such as the above provides the kind of anchor for the action in the verb ‘arrived’, which is a finite verb in the sentence. As a result, the finite verb is a verb, which tells when something happened (past or present). But present participles such as “lowering” “jostling”, “wheezing”, “looming” (got from Dicken’s Bleek House)convey a feeling of continues action which could be timeless. He argues that the only way of getting such practical stylistic analysis is “close reading.” Practical stylistics therefore, ensures that stylistic analysis makes it possible for others to see how the analyst reaches the interpretative account he provides. Carter welcomes this analysis thus:

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