Lecture 1 General problems of stylistics Plan: Stylistics as a branch of linguistics. The objectives of Stylistics

 Objectives of the subject: 
As a subject stylistics has its objectives. They are outlined by acknowledged 
linguists who attempted to comprise all aspects of the domain.
According to the Russian linguist I.R.Galperin’s statement, stylistics is a 
branch of general linguistics, which deals with the following two interdependent 
tasks: 
A) Studies the totality of special linguistic means (stylistic devices and 
expressive means) which secure the desirable effect of the utterance; 

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B) Studies certain types of text discourse which due to the choice and 
arrangement of the language are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of 
communication (functional styles).
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Rene Wellek, a Check-American literary critic and American theorist Austin 
Warren propounded the following problems of stylistics: 
“Stylistics investigates all devices which aim at some specific expressive end 
and thus embraces far more than literature or even rhetoric. All devices for securing 
emphasis or explicitness can be classed under stylistics: all rhetorical figures, 
syntactical patterns.”
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The scholars also assert that stylistics investigates the 
aesthetic function and meaning of work of art or a group of works revealing the 
‘specific characteristics’ of them. They considers that due to stylistic analysis it is 
possible to describe the particular style of a group of works such as the Elizabethan 
drama, the metaphysical poem; and identify the genre of a particular work of art as 
the gothic novel, historical novel and others.
Thus, according to R.Wellek and A.Warren the subject of stylistics deals with: 
1)
The study of expressive/rhetorical devices. 
2)
The study of the style of a literary work.
M.D.Kuznetz and Y.M.Skrebnyov
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define the following tasks of the subject of 
stylistics: 
1) Elucidating the character and the inner structure of expressive means of the 
language. 
2) Defining the function of the expressive means. 
3) Interpretation of synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea. 
Modern theories show that the objectives of stylistics are of broad principles, 
because the subject deals with deep understanding and thorough analysis of a text, 
revealing its inner specifications and thus opening encoded message according to 
stylistic principles. Stylistic principles, in its turn, took their roots from the ancient 
verbal art – Rhetoric, which was the study of oratory and inspiring, aesthetic speech.
Rhetoric which flourished in ancient Greece during Aristotelian period was a 
subject of the art of discourse, wherein a writer or speaker strived to inform, persuade 
or motivate particular audiences in specific situations through embellished language. 
From Ancient Greece to the late 19th century, it was a central part of Western 
education, filling the need to train public speakers and writers to move audiences to 
action with arguments. The learners of rhetorical techniques were introduced not 
only with politics and logics, but also with designing a persuasive speech which 
requires the knowledge of verbal art and rhetorical devices. In his books “Rhetoric” 
1
Galperin I. Stylistics. Moscow: Higher school. – 1977.p. 9 
2
Wellek R. and Warren A. Theory of literature. New York: A Harvest book. 1956. – p. 178 
3
Кузнец М.Д., Скребнев Ю. М. Стилистика английского языка. Л., 1972.Стр. 5 

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and “Poetics” Aristotle worked out the fundamentals and canons of rhetoric, which 
contemporary domains connected with the art of discourse consider them as roots 
and basics.
While classical rhetoric trained speakers to be effective persuaders in public 
forums and institutions, contemporary rhetoric investigates human discourse which
includes all spheres: the natural and social sciences, fine art, religion, journalism and 
etc. In present as an independent subject, stylistics is confined to the bridged study 
of literature and linguistics revealing and interpreting both the rhetorical devices 
and differentiating styles and sub-styles of the language.
For this reason the research of the text can be done from two spectra.
Literary and linguistic spectrum.
T.A. Znamenskays in her manual “Stylistics of the English language”
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tried 
to differentiate types of stylistic research. According to the type of stylistic research 
it can be distinguished - literary stylistics and lingua-stylistics. They have some 
meeting points or links in that they have common objects of research. Consequently 
they have certain areas of cross-reference. Both study