The Interlude

The Purposes (Aims) of the Course of Stylistics and Stylistic Analysis.

1. Stylistics gives students of English some major concepts in the theory of verbal art, it broadens the theoretical horizons of a language learner.

2. Stylistics has a practical value: it teaches students to master the language working out a conscious approach to language.

3. The purpose of stylistic analysis is to help the students to observe the interaction of the form and matter, to see how through the infinite variety of SDs and their multifarious functions the message of the author is brought home to the reader.

4. Stylistic analysis teaches a language learner the skill of competent reading, on the one hand, and proprieties of situational language usage, on the other.

5. Stylistics teaches the reader the skill of appreciation, it enables him to derive more information, greater aesthetic pleasure on the basis of studying the main code of literature – the national language.

Every notional word of a natural language carries some definite information which may be called basic and which conveys the main idea of an object, process, action, etc. We should differ it from the so-called additional information which is present in a number of words in the language or may be created in the context in speech; it offers various additional data about the object in question.

The ability of a verbal element to obtain extra significance in a definite context was called by Prague linguists foregrounding. A contextually foreground element carries more information than when taken in isolation, so it is possible to say that in context it is loaded with basic information inherently belonging to it, plus the acquired, adherent, additional information.

So, stylistic analysis involves rather subtle procedures of finding the foregrounded element and indicating the chemistry of its contextual changes, brought about by the intentional, planned operations of the addresser, i.e. effected by the conscious stylistic use of the language.

For foreign language students stylistic analysis holds particular difficulties: linguistic intuition of a native speaker does not work; besides, difficulties may arise because of the inadequate language command in grasping the basic denotational information. Starting stylistic analysis one should bear in mind that the understanding of each separate component of the message is an indispensable condition of satisfactory work.

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