Types of Stylistics

Feminist Stylistics:

• Feminist Stylistics:
• Bradford sees feminist stylistics as having a view of “discourse as something which transmits social and institutionalized prejudices and ideologies, specifically the respective roles, the mental and behavioural characteristics of men and women”.
• It is apparent from the two viewpoints that feminist stylistics cannot be divorced from sexism and gender-oriented issues.

Computational Stylistics:

• Computational Stylistics:
• This is a sub-discipline of computational linguistics.
• It evolved in the 1960s and involves the use of statistics and other data that are readily generated by the computer to treat different problems of style.
• In the area of “stylometry,” the computer is used to generate data on the types, number and length of words and sentences which aid the stylistician in his study of texts, ensuring the objectivity required.

Computational Stylistics:

• Computational Stylistics:
• Such data from different texts may even be used for comparative purposes as well as for the authentification of authorship.
• For example, stylometric data may be used to determine which author a piece of disputed writing belongs to according to whether the stylometric data in it conform to stylometric data already associated with the author.
• The risk here are that it forecloses the possibility of an author changing his style from text to text and the possibility of two authors writing alike.

Expressive Stylistics:

• Expressive Stylistics:
• This approach is often considered “old-fashioned” in seemingly upholding the view “Stylus virum arguit” (“The style proclaims the man,” that is the author).
• This approach emphasizes an identification of how the style, the linguistic elements, reveal the personality or “soul” of the author.
• It pursues the belief that the artists employ language to express their inner selves.