Style in Language
...d writing etc. The other is quantitative deviation, which can be identified through counting the frequency of all forms of linguistic features and making comparisons. Such studies compromise a main part of the field of a statistical stylistics, which is not our concern in this article. But the difficulty is deciding what deserves to be counted, and which frequencies are the important ones for the style. So this is the disadvantage of the view of style as deviance. The second is to consider style as choice .To Wang Shouyuan ,by style as choice is meant that style results from a tendency of a speaker or writer to consistently choose certain structures over others available in the language. With this view, Traught and Pratt say “We can distinguish between ‘style’ and ‘language’ by saying that language is the sum total of the structures available to the speaker, while style concerns the characteristic choice in a given context.” According to David Crystal, the concept of choice is central to stylistics study, whatever is our approach. Style is seen as the selection of a set of linguistic features from all the possibilities in language. Style as choice is often considered to be influenced by context, which includes the relationships among people, the medium of the discourse, the content of the discourse and the occasion in which the discourse is delivered and so on. However, the view of style as choice also has limitations. For example, it implies that every linguistic element in a text is a choice of the writer and therefore should be paid attention to. But in practical stylistics study, we only concern the features that are most relevant to our discussion and ignore the irrelevant ones. The third is to consider style as foregrounding. “The term, foregrounding is a concept of pictorial arts, referring to that part of the composition that appears to be closest to the view.” In stylistics, foregrounding theory is explained differently by different scholars. Mukarovsky thinks that foregrounding is the unexpected departures from the accepted norms. So foregrounding is closely related to deviation. But foregrounding isn’t necessarily deviation. Short thinks that foregrounding can be achieved through deviation or through over regularity in language use. According to Wang Huamin , foregrounding in stylistics refers to the part to non-lexical elements,e.g. graphological devices, prosodic devices and striking visual signals that make the text stand out from the common reading and listening . III. Synthetic definitions of style: The above views on style all have their advantages and disadvantages. So some scholars tend to combine the three views, defining style from multiple aspects. One of those scholars, Leech, summarizes the defining features of style in this way: 1) Style is a way in which language is used: i.e. it belongs to parole rather than to langue. 2) Therefore style consists in choices made from the repertoire of the language. 3) A style is defined in terms of domain of language use (e.g. what choices are made by a particular author, in a particular genre, or in a particular text) 4) Style has typically been concerned with literary language. 5) Literary stylistics is typically concerned with explaining the relation between style and literary or aesthetic function. 6) Style is relatively transparent or opaque: transparency implies paraphrasability; opaque implies that a text can not be adequately paraphrased, and that interpretation of the text depends greatly on the creative imagination of the reader. 7) Stylistic choice is limited to those linguistic choices, which concerns alternative way of rendering the same subject matter. At last we can derive from the definition of Leech that is stylistics is concerned with Prole.i.e. Language use in choosing or selecting a particular author for a genre of text, explaining style from aesthetic function supplying transparent proofs or from opaque intuition, because of alternative ways of rendering the same subject matter. David Crystal holds that style can be identified through two approaches: the evaluative, and the descriptive. In the first category, style is thought of in a critical way: the features that make someone or something stand out from an undistinguished background. In this sense, it implies a degree of excellence in performance or a desired standard of production. The second sense lacks these value objects, persons, periods, or places. Both senses are widely used in stylistic studies. Evaluative notions are an essential part of aesthetic approaches to language, and are implicit in such areas as elocution, oratory, and literary criticism. Descriptive approaches are found more in scientific studies, such as the various branches of linguistics, where there is a concern for objective identification without evaluation. In Tong Qingbing’s style and stylistic creation, style is regarded as literary genre with their textual aesthetic standards emphasized;And Tao Dongfeng,in his Development of Style and its Cultural Implications, argues that style is form of literary (works in )discourse and mode of textual structure. Wang Huamin has a relative brief definition: Style refers to a distinctive or characteristic manner of expression in languag...