LING 450: Stylistics
Course Aims and Objectives
This course is concerned with the linguistic analysis of literary texts. Its main aim is to enable students to use linguistic analysis in order to explain how literary texts achieve their effects (e.g. how they convey new views of reality, how they project text worlds and characters, how they convey different points of view). The course introduces the most central concepts in stylistics, including the most recent advances in the field (especially in cognitive stylistics). The focus is mostly on prose fiction, but poetry and drama will also be considered.
Course Content
- Creativity in language
- Metaphor: conventionality and creativity
- Point of view
- Mind Style
- Speech and thought presentation
- Text worlds 1: possible worlds
- Text worlds 2: schemata and blends
- Characterisation 1: background knowledge and characterisation
- Characterisation 2: textual clues and characterisation
Assessment
A 5,000 word written assignment.
Recommended Reading
Jeffries, L., & McIntyre, D. (2010). Stylistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leech, G. N., & Short, M. (2007). Style in fiction (2nd ed.). London: Longman.
Semino, E., & Culpeper, J. (Eds.). (2002). Cognitive stylistics: Language and cognition in text analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Short, M. (1996). Exploring the language of poems, plays and prose. London: Longman.
Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics. London: Routledge.