Critical Stylistics

Abstract

This chapter is an overview of an approach that I have been calling ‘ critical \nstylistics ’ in order to distinguish it from mainstream critical discourse analysis \n(CDA) on the one hand and from literary stylistics on the other. In order to \nshow how it works, I will need to introduce a broader framework to demonstrate \nhow it fits into a general theory of language. \n \nThe fi rst thing to say is that stylistics puts text (understood broadly to include \nall language use) at the centre of its activity (Jeff ries and McIntyre 2010). This is \ntrue of critical stylistics too (Jeff ries 2010a, 2014). I do not wish to criticise those \nlinguists who put context at the heart of what they do (though that makes it less \nclearly linguistic in nature). Nor would I want to dismiss the work of linguists \nwho work mainly on de-contextual and de-textual understandings of how language \n(phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics) works. It will be seen below that these systematic aspects of language are vital to understanding \nhow we interpret text, and this work is therefore one of the underpinnings \nneeded to progress with stylistics, critical or otherwise. It is also, of course, \nimportant to understand how various aspects of context can and do aff ect the \nreception of texts. All I would add here is that, in my opinion, more progress is \nmade by investigating natural phenomena (such as human language) systematically \nby focusing on specifi c parts of the object of scrutiny than by trying to \nexplain everything at once.

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