This book explores some of the developments in Stylistics since its
pioneer, Roman Jakobson identified the patterning of the message as the
poetic function. It analyses in turn Golding's Pincher Martin, Rowling's
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Housman's A Shropshire
Lad, Elizabeth Jennings' poem 'One Flesh', Harold Pinter's The
Birthday Party, Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, and a range of
poems by John Donne. The analyses show how Jakobson's emphasis on the
message gives way to emphasis on the code or on undermining the code (in
the Golding and Donne chapters), on the context (in the Rowling and
Golding chapters), on the reader's response (in the Housman chapter), on
the relationship between the addresser's and the addressee's shared
assumptions and their use of pragmatic principles (in the Pinter and
Ishiguro chapters). The pivotal Jennings' chapter shows how these
different stylistic perspectives can be applied variously to the same
text.
This collection of essays will be especially useful for students of
Stylistics courses at the undergraduate and graduate level as it
illustrates the use of a range of analytical tools: Systemic Functional
Grammar's analysis of transitivity and theme; pragmatic theories of
co-operation, politeness, presupposition and inferencing; and conceptual
metaphor theory. Additionally it demonstrates central stylistic concepts
such as foregrounding, and how to analyse rhythmical, lexical,
grammatical and semantic patterning.
