Model A

Information and Communication.

C. Shannon, W. Weaver, M. Riffaterre.

Style, Redundancy and Information Theory.

The concept of the norm.

The theoretical point of departure here is the concept of the norm.

Stylistic norm is understood to be non-specific language units which belong to all the sublanguages, which do not participate in the formation of its style, (which are stylistically neutral).

The other terms for stylistic norm are “zero stylistic reference”, “stylistic neutrality”.

Some prominent scholars state that what is stylistically conspicuous, stylistically relevant, stylistically coloured is a departure from the norm of the given language.

Thus style may be defined as deviations from the lingual norm.

Stylistics and information theory have much in common: it is communication by signal, it is exchange of information.

Communication or exchange of information plays a most important role in all phenomena of the world. Human society will be impossible without a continuous exchange of information.

70% of our life time is spent in various forms of communication activities.

Men communicate with one another in various ways. The most obvious are speech and writing. Human languages [natural language] is the most powerful and elaborate of all means of communication.

[But there are many other ways: gestures with the hands, facial expressions, nods, winks, smiles; the ringing of the bells or the sounding of horns, sirens or klaxons, the waving of flags; the flashing or changing colours of lights (traffic lights); the moving of pointers over dials; carving in wood or stone or the shaping of metal or plastic, or some other material; drawings, painting, singing, dancing, acting, miming and so on]

In its most general sense information is an imprint left by one object or phenomenon on another. Communication is an activity in which some information is transferred from one system to another by means of some physical embodiment. [Literature is the medium of transmitting aesthetic information].

Communication can be represented in the form of a model [to see different aspects of the process].

Here we present a variant of the Shannon and Weaver model.

Encoder		Decoder
Transmitter	Signal Message Channel Noise	Receiver

C. Shannon and W. Weaver proposed one of the first information theory models. Shannon was an engineer and he was concerned with the accurate transmission of message over the telephone. Weaver extended Shannon’s concepts to apply to all kinds of communication.

In terms of information theory language can be regarded as a code. [The word “code” may be defined as a prearranged set of signs used for making signals. Linguistically speaking, a code is a scale of signs, ranging from the smallest units (phonemes) and then progressively, to morphemes, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, texts]

A code must always have more than one sign and the encoder has to make a decision about which sign to use. The simplest kind of code is one that has only two signs – e.g. ringing or not ringing. In this case the choice is a binary one.

In very complicated codes, such as languages, the choice is much greater (than a simple binary one). Consequently, in language as a code there is always a potential, a stock of signs that can be used. This feature of the language code may be termed as “redundancy”. It is the redundancy of the language code that provides the opportunity of choice.

An outstanding American linguist M. Riffaterre applied the concepts and terms of Information theory to stylistics. The process of language communication can be illustrated by

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