Rhetoric, Stylistics and Discourse

Analysis
Riaz Hussain, PhD
 Overview
• Goal of Stylistics
• Microstylistics & Macrostylistics
• Stylistics is not confined to literature only
• Stylistics is Multidisciplinary in Nature
• Rhetoric
• Discourse Analysis
• Rhetoric, Stylistics & DA: Similairities
 The Goals of Stylistics
The Goals of Stylistics •
Stylistics is adaptive in nature such that its •
framework, as a veritable linguistic analytical
approach, deals with a whole range of human
discourses: medical, religious, political, legal,
social, interpersonal, group communication,
and so on
 Micro-stylistics & Macro-stylistics
• Broadly speaking, stylistics can be divided into two
sub-fields: micro-stylistics, also called by Crystal
literary stylistics dealing with the variations
characteristic of literature as a genre and of the
style of individual authors, and macro-stylistics
which is usually termed as general stylistics, which
deals with the whole range of non-dialectal
varieties encountered within a language.
Microstylsitics is a borderline discipline between
language and literature.
 Stylistics, Literature & Language
The preferred object of study in stylistics is
literature, whether that be institutionally
sanctioned ‘Literature’ as high art or more
popular ‘non-canonical’ forms of writing. The
traditional connection between stylistics and
literature brings with it two important points,
though.
 Stylistics is Not Confined to the Study of
Literature only
• Creativity and innovation in language use
should not be seen as the exclusive preserve
of literary writing. Many forms of discourse
(advertising, journalism, popular music – even
casual conversation) often display a high
degree of stylistic dexterity, such that it would
be wrong to view dexterity in language use as
exclusive to canonical literature.
 Stylistics deals with Language
• The techniques of stylistic analysis are as
much about deriving insights about linguistic
structure and function as they are about
understanding literary texts. Thus, the
question ‘What can stylistics tell us about
literature?’ is always paralleled by an equally
important question ‘What can stylistics tell us
about language?’.
 Stylistics is Multidisciplinary in Nature
• It focuses on language use in
both literary and non-literary
texts. In doing this, it uses
insights from numerous
disciplines such as literature,
psychology, sociology,
philosophy and so on.
Therefore, while it has its own
focus, it is multidisciplinary in
nature. It has connections with
other subjects and disciplines.
For instance, the concept of
‘foregrounding’ in stylistics
came from painting .
 Rhetoric
• Rhetoric is the art of effective or persuasive speaking
or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of
speech and other compositional techniques.
Rhetoricians emphasize the composing processes of
the texts or discourses.
How to win arguments and influence people
Aristotle’s rhetoric
 What is
rhetoric?
Rhetoric is the “art of persuasion”. It’s a practical
everyday art of convincing others of your way - the “art of
good argument”.
And what is Aristotle’s
Rhetoric
Written in 4BC, Aristotle wrote a
treatise (essay) called “ars rhetorica”
(the art of rhetoric). This focused
on how rhetoric could be used to
persuade using “probably
knowledge”, rather than pure emotion
- something he accused the Sophists
of.
Aristotle’s
What makes a “good
arguer”

Pathos Ethos Logos

In his “art of rhetoric” he identified three key traits of a “good

arguer:
- Pathos: appeal to the emotion of the audience
- Ethos: a sense of credibility and “moral competence”
- Logos: good logical structure
PATHOS
Pathos

Pathos appeals to the emotion of the audience. This can be

done in a number of ways, for example by passion of delivery or
by the use of metaphor or story telling.
Ethos

Ethos is all about the sense of weight and expertise of the

arguer. Aristotle specifically noted that Ethos wasn’t necessary
about the character of the arguer, but the character of what the
arguer says.

www. a Map. org.

Logos

Logos is all about making sure your argument is well structured

and based on sound data / evidence. Structuring your
argument and basing around data, makes an argument
particularly difficult to counter.

www. a Map. org.

 Rhetoric & Stylistics
• Rhetoric is the art of communication in words. It is
an extensive study of how to make human
communications effective, while by 'stylistics', we
mean scientific study of linguistic style by
identifying the devices in language. Rhetoric and
stylistics, the two disciplines, are both concerned
with text (Spoken & written ), and come to it from
two different ends. Stylistics is rhetoric's most
direct heir or stylistics is the modern name of
rhetoric .
 Discourse
• According to Crystal (2003:141),is “a continuous
stretch of
• Language larger than the sentence.” Leech et.al.
(1982:133) refer to discourse as “chunks of
language in actual use .” Discourse may be spoken
or written literary or non-literary, eg ‘an
interview’ ,a ‘novel’, ‘a speech by a politician’, ‘a
lecture to students ’ or any other series of speech
events in which successive sentences or utterances
hang together(Matthews,2007:107) .
 Discourse analysis
• Discourse analysis is composed of a wide range of
sub-disciplines, such as pragmatics, conversational
analysis, speech act theory and ethnography of
speaking. The discipline studies language used in
the context, so its subject matter is language as a
whole, either written or spoken, in terms of
transcriptions, larger texts, audio or video
recordings, which provides an opportunity to the
analyst to work with language rather than a single
sentence.
 Discourse Analysis
& Stylistics

Discourse Analysis and Stylistics are broad-based

disciplines which deal with the functional aspects
of language. Both aim to show why and how the
text means what it means (linguistically). While
D.A. analyzes what is communicated in Discourse,
Stylistics analyzes how it is communicated. In
Stylistics we are more concerned with showing
the uniqueness of the text we are analyzing .
•
 Discourse Analysis & Stylistics
• Discourse and Stylistics are two different but closely related
linguistic disciplines that are inseparable. The relationship
between them can be likened to the proverbial controversy
in the actual maternity of the hen and the egg. This is
because it is very difficult to draw a line of demarcation
between Discourse and Stylistics. While on the one hand,
there is hardly any exercise on Discourse without a bit of
Stylistic input, Discourse, on the other hand, “is broader in
its analysis (Aziz n.pag). While Discourse is essentially
communication, Stylistics on the other hand is concerned
with the study of the pattern and style of what is
communicated.
 Discourse Analysis
• Discourse Analysis (henceforth DA)is the study
which aims at discovering linguistic regularities in
discourses using grammatical , phonological and
semantic criteria(eg cohesion, anaphora, inter-
sentence connectivity)(Crystal,2003:141) .To put
it in another way, DA deals with the various
devices used by the speakers and writers when
they put sentences together to form a coherent
and cohesive whole(Aitchison,1999:97):
What distinguish stylistics from other types
of critical practice?
What sets stylistics apart from other types of critical
practice is its emphasis, first and foremost, on the
language of the text, while discourse analysis is mainly
concerned with the real speech situations, verbal
communication, talk or conversation, in terms of
speech acts. It, in turn, is very difficult to analyse real
conversation in terms of speech acts because explicit
performative utterances are rare and any attempt to
expand primary performatives runs immediately into
the problem of what is / are the correct expansion(s).
 DA & Stylistics
• Both approaches pursue meaning not only in
terms of the linguistics element and the sense
it makes to the hearer but also seems to see
any word in terms of who said it, to whom,
where, in whose presence, with what objects
around and what effect it has on the hearer
(reader).
Rhetoric , stylistics and discourse analysis

• Rhetoric , stylistics and discourse analysis have

some similarities. All the three domains of
language deal with linguistic choices . They are
part of socio-linguistics. Despite these
similarities, they have some differences.
 Conclusion
• Rhetoric, Discourse Anlaysis and Stylistics
seem to be linked to socio-linguistics, that is
language studied in relation to society.
Stylistics is the modern name of rhetoric and
where Stylistics stops, Discourse Analysis
starts working.
Rumi on language
Thank you very much