Stylistics

A Practical Coursebook

Jonathan Hope, Laura Wright

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN:
  9781138170230
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134823727
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Using a wide range of twentieth-century literary prose Laura Wright and Jonathan Hope provide an `interactive' introduction to the techniques of stylistic analysis. Divided up into five sections; the noun phrase, the verb phrase, the clause, text structure and vocabulary, the book also provides an introduction to the basics of descriptive grammar for beginning students.
* Presumes no prior linguistic knowledge
* Provides a comprehensive glossary of terms
* Adaptable: designed to be used in a variety of classroom contexts
* Introduces students to an enormous range of 20th century literature from James Joyce to Roddy Doyle
A practical coursebook rather than a survey account of stylistics as a discipline, the book provides over forty opportunities for hands-on stylistic analysis. For each linguistic feature under discussion the reader is offered a definition, a text for analysis, exercises and tasks, in addition to a suggested solution.
Stylistics: A Practical Coursebook is genuinely `student friendly' and will be an invaluable tool for all beginning undergraduates and A-level students of language and literature.

Chapter 1
The Noun Phrase

1.1
Introduction: the structure of the noun phrase

The simplest kinds of clause usually consist of nouns (sometimes called naming words) and verbs (doing words), for example:

Helen	saw	Bill
(noun)	(verb)	(noun)

However, in spoken language these positions before and after the verb are rarely occupied by just a single noun. More usually, they are filled by groups of two or more words. These groups of words are called noun phrases (NP) because, although they can consist of more than one word, they function in exactly the same way as a single noun:

NP(My friend)

saw

NP(Bill who comes from Leeds)

You can check that the groups of words bracketed here as noun phrases really do function as nouns by substituting Bill or a pronoun like she, he or him:

NP(She)

saw

NP(him)

Noun phrases consist of one head noun, which must always be present, and a number of further elements, all of which are optional. Noun phrases can therefore consist of only one, or very many, words. If only one word is present, it will usually be either a proper noun (a name) or a pronoun, for example:

NP(Helen)	saw	NP(him)
NP(She)	saw	NP(Bill)

The majority of noun phrases consist of a head noun plus one or two of the optional elements. These optional elements fit into four predetermined slots in the noun phrase:

for example:

The optional nature of elements 1, 2 and 4 means that noun phrases have a highly variable appearance—from single words to very long passages of text, for example:

compare:

NP(it) was too expensive

Slots 2 and 4 in particular can be almost infinitely expanded—but note that slot 2 is usually occupied by single words (either adjectives, or nouns with an adjectival function), while slot 4 usually contains phrases or clauses. In all cases, the word in slot 3 is the most important one—it can be replaced by a pronoun, but never deleted. This is the head noun.

Stylistically, slot 4 is the most usual place to find modification of the head noun in English. This may seem strange—after all, modification in slot 2 is simpler in that it consists of single words—but it makes sense in that this allows the hearer or reader to know what the head noun is before receiving any extra information about it. Some types of text (adverts, newspaper headlines) do have modification in slot 2 more frequently as it saves space, for example:

but having more than two elements in this slot quickly sounds unnatural.

Pronouns

Pronouns are a special type of noun phrase which we will be looking at in some detail. Pronouns refer to people or things, and are used to replace full nouns (hence their name).

Typically pronouns occur on their own in the noun phrase—without determiners or modification:

(he)

(she)

(I)

(it)

(they)

although possessive pronouns can themselves function as determiners:

Pronouns are structured in terms of their reference to person and number:

Person	Number
	Singular	Plural
1st	I	we
2nd	you	you
3rd	he/she/it	they

and most change their form according to role within the clause:

subject	I	you	he/she/it	we	you	they
object	me	you	him/her/it	us	you	them

hence:

(I)

saw

(you)

???

(you)

saw

(me)

Writers can, however, achieve stylistic effects by broadening these limits of reference.

1.2
Premodification

Definition

Words which can occur in slots 1 and 2 to the left of the head are typically:

slot 1	determiners, numbers, pronouns
slot 2	adjectives, nouns

The head of the noun phrase (slot 3) is a word which is modified by modifiers to the right (slot 4) or left (slots 1 and 2) but which cannot be deleted.

TEST-FRAME

One way of testing to see whether a word is a premodifier or not, is to pick a noun (let’s take, for example, the word ashtrays) and put the word you suspect might be a premodifier to the left of it, for example:

EXAMPLES

heavy coloured glass ashtrays

six coloured Wedgwood ashtrays

her own two ashtrays

Exercises

Identify the premodifiers in the following:

1. listless Saturday afternoons
2. the vaguely baronial gas fire
3. dishes with gold rims
4. tiny napkins of écru linen

Comment

In (1), listless is an adjective; Saturday is a noun. We can run a test for adjectives and nouns: adjectives fit between determiners and nouns, and must be followed by a noun (e.g. the…girl); nouns fill the slot after a determiner, and do not need an adjective (e.g. the…). Here, both listless and Saturday premodify afternoons.

In (2), the adverb vaguely premodifies the adjective baronial, which together with gas, premodify fire.

In (3), with gold rims postmodifies dishes, and gold premodifies rims.

In (4), of écru linen postmodifies napkins. Tiny premodifies napkins and écru premodifies linen.

In the following exercise, we are interested in the lexical items which occur in premodifying position. Typically, these will be adjectives and nouns.

TASK

Identify the adjective, adverb and noun premodifiers in the noun phrase, in the following texts.
Relate your findings to the subject of the text: what is their purpose?

TEXT 1

I was not disappointed. The house—a substantial but essentially modest suburban villa—was furnished with voluptuous grandeur in approximations of various styles, predominantly those of several Louis, with late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century additions. Heavy coloured glass ashtrays of monstrous size and weight rested on inlaid marquetry tables of vaguely Pompadour associations. At dinner we drank champagne from ruby Bohemian glasses: the meat was carved at a Boulle-type sideboard. ‘Regency’ wallpaper of dark green and lighter green stripes was partially covered by gilt-framed landscapes of no style whatever. The dining-room seemed dark, as dining-rooms often do. In fact all the rooms seemed to repel both light and weather; they were designed to keep one’s thoughts indoors, resigned and melancholy. I thought of listless Saturday afternoons, when I pictured Oscar relaxing in one of the turquoise silk-covered bergères, with foot-stools to match. I thought of Dorrie taking a nap in her shellpink bedroom with the extravagant expanses of white shag-pile carpet. All the windows would be closed, of course, the smell of a substantial lunch still heavy on the air, slightly obscured by one of the two or three weekend cigars. Upstairs, the nap finished, and the light already beginning to fade, I imagined Dorrie switching on the vaguely baronial gas fire and pulling the satin curtains. Throwing a handful of flowery cologne over her throat and shoulders, she would change into a patterned silk dress, taking a clean handkerchief and tucking it up her sleeve. It would not be quite time for tea, but as relatives were expected she would start her preparations in the kitchen, transferring home-made cakes and biscuits on to dishes with gold rims, and laying cups and plates, interleaved with tiny napkins of écru linen, on the trolley, knives and spoons tinkling, to be wheeled in effortlessly at the right moment. For she was daintily houseproud.

TEXT 2

It was an old temple, a small one, in the city, which she had taken and was turning into a dwelling house. It had been built for a very holy monk by his admirers three hundred years before, and here in great piety, practising innumerable austerities, he had passed his declining days. For long after in memory of his virtue the faithful had come to worship, but in course of time funds had fallen very low and at last the two or three monks that remained were forced to leave. It was weather-beaten and the green tiles of the roof were overgrown with weeds. The raftered ceiling was still beautiful with its faded gold dragons on a faded red; but she did not like a dark ceiling, so she stretched a canvas across an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Texts
• How to Use This Book
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: The Noun Phrase
• Chapter 2: The Verb Phrase
• Chapter 3: The Clause
• Chapter 4: Text Structure
• Chapter 5: Vocabulary