Model B

Model A.

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

Encoder   chooses items from the code		Decoder interprets items of the code
Transmitter speaks writes	Signal sounds wave marks of a script	Receiver listens reads

The message is the common ground for communicants in an act of communication, in the exchange of information between two participants of the communicative act –

the addresser (the supplier of information, the speaker, the writer) and

the addressee (the receiver of the information, the listener, the reader).

Problems concerning the choice of the most appropriate language means and their organization into a message, from the viewpoint of the addresser, are the centre of attention of the individual style study.

The individual style study puts particular emphasis on the study of an individual author’s style, it looks for correlations between the creative concepts of the author and the language of his works.

In terms of information theory the author’s stylistics may be termed as the stylistics of the encoder and the supplier of the information, the addresser as the encoder.

The addressee in this case plays the part of the decoder of the information contained in the message and the problems connected with the adequate reception of the message (without any informational losses or deformations, i.e. with adequate decoding, are the concern of decoding stylistics.

M. Riffaterre states that “Stylistics will be a linguistics of the effects of the message, of the output of the act of communication, of its attention-compelling function.”

Thus language is regarded in the above quotation from a pragmatic point of view. Stylistics in that case is regarded as a language science which deals with the results of the act of communication.

Дата добавления: 2013-12-12