Chapter Overview

• • the concept of style

• • stylistics

• • dialect and register

• • style as choice

• • levels of language and branches of linguistics

• • style as deviation

• • foregrounding

Introduction

This chapter opens by introducing the concept of style in general and goes on to examine style in language. This leads us to stylistics, which is defined in terms of language variation in response to characteristics associated with the user (e.g. dialect) and characteristics associated with the use of language (e.g. field, tenor, and mode). We also learn about the concepts of style as choice and style as deviation and substantiate the discussion with examples of repetition, parallelism, and deviation at different levels of language such as the formation of words, patterns of grammar, and patterns of meaning. Finally, we discuss the concept of foregrounding, which is the psychological effect of unconventional textual choices. The chapter includes six Do it yourself activities to check understanding of the concepts introduced.

What is style?

The most common definition of STYLE is that it is a way of doing something. Think of yourself shopping for clothes, for example. Do you buy the first jeans you see in the first shop you visit? Probably not. You visit shops looking for a particular brand, a particular fabric, or a particular colour. You might even go online or travel overseas to buy the jeans of your ‘style’. Think of the way you choose friends in your first year of college, to take another example. At times this happens naturally, but often we decide who, of all the people we talk to on campus, become our close friends. We observe what campus events they regularly attend, what clubs they join, what physical or artistic activities they prefer, what parties they go to, and what classes they attend. It is these decisions, along with personality traits of course, that help us decide whether or not our interests and personality types, or styles if you like, intersect.

In light of these two examples, let us refine our definition of style. We could now safely contend that style is a matter of choice made from a set of possible options or from a range of possibilities. It is not a random choice. In fact, it is a calculated choice that reflects our background and expresses our character.

Style in language

How about style in language? Will this definition work if we take it beyond clothes and making friends into language use in speech and writing? The simple answer is yes. Let us take an example. Say you are working on an assignment and a group of teenagers playing outside your house are making a lot of noise. ‘Shut up, you morons’, is one likely reaction. Now if the source of that noise is a conversation between your elderly, sick neighbours next door, your selection of words and structures to express your dissatisfaction will be different.