IV. Stylistic analysis

Here you are supposed to analyze the linguistic means by which the message of the text is conveyed.

The analysis focuses on:

- the language register, or combination of different registers (formal, semi-formal, neutral, semi-informal, informal; high-flown, poetic, casual, colloquial etc.) employed by the author,

- syntactic peculiarities of the text (types of sentences prevailing, rhetoric questions, elliptical or inverted phrases, parallel constructions),

- special choice of the vocabulary (terms, dialectisms, slang
etc.),

- stylistic tropes.

All these features are to be regarded not just for the sake of enumeration but in connection with their role in achieving the writer’s communicative goal. That is why the language of the text is to be analysed in terms of foregrounding.

Foregrounding is the practice of making some element of the text stand out from the surrounding words or images. Foregrounding can occur on all levels of language (phonology, graphology, morphology, lexis, syntax, semantics and pragmatics). It is generally used to highlight important parts of a text, to aid memorability and/or to invite interpretation.

"Foregrounding" literally means "to bring to the front." The writer uses the sounds of words or the words themselves in such a way that the readers' attention is immediately captivated.

The most common means employed by the writers is r epetition. Our attention is immediately captivated by the repetition of the sounds of certain words or by the repetition of words themselves, or of some syntactic structures (parallelism) and we begin to analyse the reasons why the writer is repeating this particular sound or word or structure.

Another foregrounding device is deviation, which means departure from rules, maxims, or conventions. These may involve the language, as well as literary traditions or expectations setup by the text itself. The result is some degree of surprise in the reader, and his / her attention is thereby drawn to both the form of the text itself as well as its content). Cases of neologism, live metaphor, or ungrammatical sentences, as well as archaisms, paradox, and oxymoron are clear examples of deviation.

Both repetition and deviation are based on the effect of defeated expectancy: some units are either over-used (= used more often than we could expect), or are used instead of other, more predictable units.

The use of a unit in one of the strong positions of the text can also be considered as a foregrounding device. Traditionally, these are the title, the prologue, the epigraph, the opening lines, the end – their great informative value is determined by psychological factors.

Foregrounding provides structural cohesion between the whole and its elements, enhances emotional involvement, provides retention of the information in memory, protects the message from misunderstanding, thus providing the basis for text interpretation.

The thorough analysis of stylistic features of the text, as well as of its structural characteristics, will enable you to define the author's position, his/her attitude towards the subject of the story and its problems, towards the characters and their actions, and finally to understand properly the author's message, the main idea of the story. Sometimes these attitudes and the message are expressed openly and directly (usually in the beginning or the end of the story), but more often than not it is revealed indirectly in the whole complex of linguistic and stylistic peculiarities of the text, in the author's characteristics of the characters, in the atmosphere created by the author in the story. Hence, the analysis of stylistic features of the story is of a principal importance for the proper understanding of its message.

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