II. Evocative Devices

Stylistics is usually regarded as a special division of linguistics; since, however, it has a point of view which is peculiar to it and distinguishes it from all other branches of linguistic study, it would perhaps be more logical to regard it as a sister science concerned not with the elements of language as such, but with their expres­sive potential. On this reading, stylistics will have the same subdivisions as linguistics. If one accepts the view that there are three distinct levels of linguistic analysis: phonological, lexical and syntactical, then stylistic analy­sis will have to distinguish between the same three levels. ‘Stylistics of the sound’, or phonostylistics, will deal, among other things, with the utilization of onomatopoeia for expressive purposes; some aspects of this problem have already been touched upon in earlier chapters. ‘Stylistics of the word’ will explore the expressive resources available in the vocabulary of a language; it will investigate the stylistic implications of such phenomena as word-formation (Lewis Carroll’s and James Joyce’s portmanteau words), synonymy, ambiguity, or the contrast between vague and precise, abstract and concrete, rare and common terms. The study of imagery [...] will occupy a prominent place at this level of style analysis. Finally, ‘stylistics of the sentence’ will examine the expressive values of syntax at three superimposed planes: components of the sentence (individual grammatical forms, passages from one word-class to another), sentence-structure (word-order, negation, etc.), and the higher units into which single sen­tences combine (direct, indirect and free indirect speech, etc.).

At all these various levels, attention will have to be paid to a fundamental distinction: that between expressive and evocative devices. The latter, as already noted, derive their stylistic effect not from any inherent quality but from being associated with a particular milieu or register of style. A few examples will show how these evocative values work:

1. At the phonological level, such devices are a peren­nial source of comedy and satire. The faulty pronunciation of foreigners has been parodied in countless plays and nov­els; all readers of Balzac will remember Nucingen, the financier with the inimitable Alsatian brogue, who says ‘Hanimal edait azez’ for ‘Animal etait assez’. More serious problems are raised when native speakers have an accent which differs from the Received Standard — a situation whose psycho­logical and social implications form the central theme of Shaw’s Pygmalion. Such speakers will sometimes overcompensate their sense of linguistic insecurity by using ‘hypercorrect’ forms; the Cockney who, for fear of ‘dropping his aitches’, inserts an [h] where there is no need for one, has a close paral­lel in the Roman Arrius, ridiculed by the poet Catullus because he would pronounce insidias as hinsidias and Ionios as Hionios, in order to impress people with his superior education. [...]

2. At the lexical level, there is a wide range of evoca­tive effects: archaisms, neologisms, fashionable slogans, slang, dialect, technical terms, foreign words. [...]

3. Some examples of the manifold and intricate evoca­tive effects in syntax have already been given in our discus­sion of inversion; we saw there how this construction, which is rare in the spoken language but frequently used in scientific and literary contexts, acquires from this very fact certain overtones which can be exploited for stylistic ends: to create an impression of solemnity, pathos or fi­nality, and also as a vehicle of irony and parody. [...]

Before turning to the other main stream of style stud­ies, there are two brief remarks on research methods which ought to be made:

1. In stylistics, as in certain branches of linguistics proper, there are two alternative approaches. In the words of Jespersen, ‘any linguistic phenomenon may be regarded either from without or from within, either from the outward form or from the inner meaning. In the first case we take the sound (of a word or of some other part of a linguistic expression) and then inquire into the meaning attached to it; in the second case we start from the signification and ask ourselves what formal expression it has found in the particular language we are dealing with. [...]

2. The study of stylistic resources is essentially a de­scriptive discipline since these resources, and the uses to which they are put, are synchronic phenomena which nor­mally have nothing to do with historical antecedents. By comparing the usage of different periods, one could trace the development of these resources, and in this way sty­listics could acquire a historical dimension. This would presuppose, however, that one could recapture the stylistic overtones which linguistic elements possessed for successive generations, and this is often a difficult and hazardous task. [...]