《优》Chapter 1 A survey of stylistics__ research.docVIP

Chapter 1 Stylistics Research: A Survey Contents of this lecture 1. Introduction 2. Definition and classification of stylistics 3. Development of stylistics 4. Research methodology 5. Prospects for future research 6. Summary 1. Introduction Modern stylistics is a sub-branch of modern linguistics, exactly speaking, an interdisciplinary subject linking linguistics and literary criticism. This chapter is but a brief survey of stylistic research at home and abroad, including the discussion of the definition and classification of stylistics, development of stylistics, research methodology of stylistics, and some prospects for future research in stylistics. 2. Definition and classification of stylistics 2.1 Defining stylistics Stylistics can be defined in two senses, namely, stylistics in its narrow sense as well as its broad sense, the former referring to literary stylistics while the latter to general/theoretical stylistics, which embraces the stylistic research of all forms and varieties of language. 2.1.1 Stylistics in its narrow sense: literary stylistics Below are three typical definitions of stylistics, especially of literary stylistics (Wang Shouyuan, 2000: 1): Wales (1989: 437) defines stylistics simply as “the study of style”. According to Widdowson (1975: 3), stylistics is “the study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation”, which is essentially a means of linking literary criticism and linguistics. Leech (1969: 1-2) defines stylistics as the “study of the use of language in literature” and considers stylistics a “meeting-ground of linguistics and literary study”. Based on the above definitions, Wang Shouyuan (2000: 2) concludes that stylistics is an area of study which straddles two disciplines: literary criticism and linguistics. It takes literary discourse as its object of study and uses linguistics as a means to that end. 2.1.2 Stylistics in its broad sense: general stylistics According to Qian Yuan (2006: 1), “STYLISTICS is a branch