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Rhetoric and Stylistics: Some Basic Issues in the Analysis of Discourse

Article  in  College Composition and Communication · December 1969

DOI: 10.2307/355035

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Jakobovits, L.A. Rhetoric and stylistics: Some basic issues in the analysis of discourse. College
Composition and Communication, 1969, 20, 314-28.

Rhetoric and Stylistics: Some Basic Issues in the

Analysis of Discourse
Leon James (formerly Leon. A. Jakobovits)
1969

INTRODUCTION
UTTERANCES AS INDEXICAL EXPRESSIONS
THE NATURE OF STYLISTIC DESCRIPTION
THE ANALYSIS OF THE QUALITY OF DISCOURSE
EPILOGUE: THE MOST BASIC ISSUE OF ALL
REFERENCES
FOOTNOTE

INTRODUCTION

This paper addresses itself to some basic issues in the

composing process whereby people create sentences,
paragraphs, essays, and the like. An inquiry of this kind
must be very general: a basic function of speech or writing is
the communication of ideas and this process is intimately
related to the cognitive abilities of man, his capacity for
drawing inferences from past experience. The process of
communication always presupposes an audience - real or
imagined, and listeners are social-psychological entities:
they interpret, they assimilate, they respond, all in terms of
their cognitive abilities, their past experiences, their social
histories. Thus a theory of the composing process must be
at least as general as any psychological theory of the
individual or any sociological theory of interacting men.

There is a central issue in all discussions relating to

communication via language which must be dealt with
before all else. This is the question of whether linguistic
expressions are fixed vehicles that carry meaning, like a
fountain pen that holds ink, or are they more like the ink
itself which spreads on the paper in varying shapes under

1
the will of the hand that holds it. Do words refer to things, do
utterances denote propositions, or is it that the speaker
himself, using words, refers to this or that, and the writer,
composing phrases and sentences, denotes perceptions and
cognitions?

There are two extreme views on this question, both having

their proponents and detractors. On one account, words
have their precise meaning and the problem in composition
is to find that linguistic expression which best describes the
thought one wishes to communicate. The other view is that
linguistic expressions are merely indexical devices for
conjuring up in the mind of the recipient some cognitive
process that might correspond to the thought that the
sender has and wishes to convey.

The consequences of adopting one or the other of these two

views have important implications for the kind of theory of
language performance one would want to propose. It is
important therefore to resolve the issue if at all possible.

UTTERANCES AS INDEXICAL EXPRESSIONS

Discourse is elliptical. Consider the following examples:

(1a) Hi! How are you?

(1b) Fine, thanks! And you?
(2a) Is Mr. Jones in?
(2b) My husband is out of town.
(3a) I don't seem to have a pencil.
(3b) Why don't you use mine?

The answer in (1b) represents a contextual ellipsis; the full

grammatical sentence can be reconstructed on the basis of
linguistic cues in the question. In fact, computer programs
can decode such elliptical utterances by a mechanical
application of a few transformation rules (Holzman, 1968). In
(2b), the answer cannot be reconstructed solely on the basis
of the linguistic context. It is an instance of "telegraphic
ellipsis": inferential reasoning of a non-linguistic sort is
required to recognize that (2b) is indeed an answer to the
question in (2a). Similarly, the exchange in (3a) and (3b) are
instances of telegraphic ellipsis: functionally, both (3a) and
(3b) are requests. While syntactically one is a declarative
sentence and the other a question.

2
The juxtaposition of sentences in discourse implies relations
between their propositions that are not overtly expressed in
linguistic form. Consider:

(4) You can forget about the golf game. It's raining. How
about bridge? I'll call John and Mary to see they're
interested.

After the first sentence, each subsequent sentence is to be

understood in terms of the logical implications of the
preceding sentence: "We can't play golf because it's raining.
Bridge can be played indoors despite the weather. I'll see if
John and Mary want to play since it takes four people to play
bridge." The structure of the sequence is demonstrated by
the fact that the sentences which compose it cannot be
rearranged in any order and still retain the same significance
of what is being expressed.

The fact that a word can be looked up in a dictionary seems

to suggest that meaning is a characteristic of words which is
attached to them and which they can carry around wherever
they appear in sentences. However, a more correct view is
that dictionary definitions are indexical descriptions of
particular words which specify certain essential features of
the meaning they may have in actual sentences, but without
in fact specifying their meaning. Consider the dictionary
entry for "book": "Noun, 1. A number of sheets of paper
bound or stitched together; especially, a printed and bound
volume. 2. A literary composition or treatise of some length."
Now consider three instances of the use of "book":"

(5a) This book is not the book you borrowed.

(5b) There has never been written a book on that subject.

It is clear that in (5a) the two tokens of "book" have different

referents, while in (5b) "book" has no referent at all. The
three tokens of "book" in (5a) and (5b) share certain common
features related to the dictionary entry, but in each of the
three instances their referents and their implications-their
meanings-are different.

It is the indexical feature of word definitions that allows

novel usage. In other words, "dictionaries are not
depositories of 'true meanings' ....[They] can only record how
a word has been used in the past; [they] cannot predict its
use in the future" (Hughes and Duhamel, 1966, p. 192). Thus,

3
while it is possible to define all the words in a language, it is
impossible to specify all the meanings of a single word.

One can conclude on the basis of the foregoing

considerations that words, phrases, utterances do not stand
for things, thoughts, propositions, but rather have the
potential of implying such entities provided the listener
engages in inferential reasoning that is based on linguistic,
non-linguistic, and experiential cues. If this conclusion is
accepted, how is one to interpret stylistic characteristics that
are often being attributed to discourse as features of the
utterances themselves, as opposed to characteristics of the
speaker or writer? In what way can a sentence be formal or
informal or colloquial? How can a piece of prose be
expository rather than loose, a word precise rather than
suggestive? These questions deal with the nature of
description of stylistic features in language. This issue will
now be examined.

THE NATURE OF STYLISTIC DESCRIPTION

Consider the following two sentences:

(6a) Shut up. [meaning: "stop talking."]

(6b) I like this creation of the milliner's art appropriate for the
vernal months. [meaning: "I like this spring hat."]1

In qualifying these two sentences, one might say that (6b) is

pompous. What justifies the ascription of such qualities to
linguistic expression? One hypothesis is that the
connotation of coarseness or pompousness is associated
with these particular sentences. But this does not seem
correct: in making judgments of this type about linguistic
expressions we appeal to the taste of "sensitive" or
"linguistically sophisticated: people, thereby indicating that
the ascribed quality is held to be neither idiosyncratic to the
listener nor universal within the cultural speech community.
Hence the association hypothesis must be rejected.

A second possibility is to ascribe equalities to linguistic

expressions on the argument that people who use these
expressions possess these qualitities; vis., people who say
(6b) are pompous. Note, however, that the claim that (6a) is
coarse is held to be true despite the fact that no information
is available as to whether or not a hypothetical speaker that
might have uttered it is in fact a caorse person, and the

4
pompousness of the expression in (6b) is not mitigated by
any knowledge one might have about the utterer (say, that he
is actually a modest and humble person).

Sircello (1967) provides a third hypothesis which avoids the

preceding difficulties. He points out that expressions like
(6a) and (6b) are "semantic acts": they indicate that the
utterer is suggesting, referring, implying, denoting, naming,
etc. When a person utters (6a), he is in fact suggesting to the
listener that the latter's talk is annoying and that he should
stop talking by forcibly keeping his mouth shut as one would
a window or door to keep noise out. To suggest such a thing
strikes the listener as being a coarse act. To refer to a
common object such as a spring hat by the circumlocutions
in (6b) is a pompous act. NOte that Sircello's solution to the
problem avoids the difficulty whereby one must ascribe a
personality trait to the speaker on the basis of the
expression he uses. In a number of situations one is forced
to distinguish between what a speaker does and what the
expressions he is using do: "semantic acts" which are
linguistic expressions are not to be confused with "semantic
acts" which speakers perform. There are circumstances
under which a person may utter an expression (i.e. perform a
semantic act) without being aware of the implications of the
semantic act (i.e. the linguistic expression). One might
excuse the act of the person by saying that "he does not
mean what he says." Nevertheless, it is plain that "semantic
acts," viz., certain linguistic expressions, are not "acts" in
the sense that referring on the part of the speaker who utters
the expression is an "act," a performance. One must
conclude, therefore, that if a speaker uses a linguistic
expression which indicates that he is performing a semantic
act that is qualified in a particular way (e.g. coarseness), he
is then held responsible for that act, whetheror not he is
aware that his act is thus qualified, just as a man in a court
of law is held responsible for his prior actions and cannot
plead ignorance. It is true, though, that the punishment may
be mitigated by special circumstances, and one might
excuse a coarse act on the basis of ignorance, emotional
disturbance, etc.

It is now time to summarize the argument thus far presented.

Words, phrases, sentences, linguistic expressions generally,
are indexical devices which a speaker uses to conjure up in
the mind of the listener an idea or thiough that he has and
wishes to convey. Thus, the communication of ideas makes

5
use of an elliptical process whose success and effectiveness
depends on a number of factors: the indexical feature of
words whose communicative possibilities are specified by
dictionary-type definitions, the inferential capacities of the
listener, and the presuppositions (background expectations)
which both speaker and listener hold in common about the
speech act--the intentions for which a speaker is held
responsible (accountable) when performing a particular
speech act. In this theoretical context, the nature of stylistic
description (variation) pertains to an explicit account of
these factors as they have been enumerated.

Definitions of words as given in existing dictionaries

represent only one of the many ways one can talk about
words. Other metalinguistic possibilities have been
explored: giving synonyms and antonyms, listing other
words that are associated with a particular word (e.g. Russell
and Jenkins, 1954), identifying clusters of words that are
stored together in memory (Deese, 1965), arranging them in
some relative order such as frequency (Thorndike and Lorge,
1944), similarity (Haagen, 1949), abstractness (Paivio),
evaluating them on particular scales of, say, "goodness"
(Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum, 1957), and so on - the list
is very large indeed. An important point to realize in
connection with such a taxonomic approach to word
description is that it is an open process: the number of ways
words can be described is potentially infinite.

A particularly interesting suggestion for the description of

words is the notion of identifying "semantic features" that
are general enough to be applicable to all words in language
(e.g. Katz and Fodor, 1965). by arranging these features into
a hierarchy of descending order of inclusiveness one can
specify the relations between words in terms of a common
conceptual framework. Roget's Thesaurus represents an
early version of this approach. To date, attempts of this kind
have achieved some measure of success for restricted
categories of words (Goodenough, 1967; Osgood, 1968;
Steinberg, 1969).

An important aspect of the indexical feature of words is

highlighted when one contrasts the description of a word as
given in a dictionary-type definition with the description
given by semantic feature analysis or, to use the term better
known to ethnolinguists. "componential analysis." Consider
the dictionary entry for the word "damson": "Noun. An oval

6
purple plum of Syrian origin." A semantic feature analysis
might give the following description for the same word:
"Concrete object; inanimate; edible; fruit." A componential
analysis of the concept category "fuit" might describe a
"damson" as follows: "Arboreal; smooth-skinned; juicy;
sweet; drupaceous." None of the features or components
listed are mentioned directly in the dictionary definition,
although they could be discovered by successively looking
up the entries for the words used in the definition of
"damson" and thereafter. "Plum" yields "edible" and "fruit";
the latter yields "drupaceous," "juicy" and "product"; the
latter yields "thing" which in turn leads to "inanimate," etc.).
But no such mechanical search could yield information as to
the meaning of "damson" in the following sentences:

(7a) He expressed his displeasure rather crudely by an

accurately directed damson that hit the speaker in the face.
(7b) He used a damson to keep his desk neat.
(7c) He gave the child a damson for knowing the answer.

(Definitions: "damson": Noun. 1. When very ripe, an effective

missile againt unpopular public speakers (as in 7a); 2. When
attached to a square wooden base, a temporary paper weight
(as in 7b); 3. a reward (as in 7c).) It is obvious that there is no
limit to the number of such derived definitions for any one
word.

Analogous instances of the indexical feature of words are

illustrated by considering certain sets of contrasting words.
Thus:

(8a) to stare versus to notice

(8b) fearful versus frightened
(9a) to nag versus to criticize
(9b) wave versus line
(10a) to toss versus to throw
(10b) to nibble versus to eat

In examples (8a) and (8b) there is a contrast between

"extended" versus "limited" duration; in (9a) and (9b) there is
a distinction of "iteration," and in (10) "nonchalance" marks
the difference between the contrasting pairs. "Duration,"
"iteration," "nonchalance" are some instances of what might
be called the "aspectual quality" of words (see Jakobovits,
1968). These distinctions, and others of this type, are made
possible by applying inferential reasoning to the indexical

7
possibilities of words.

An important application of this same principle is the

derivation of the connotation of words. Consider these
examples:

(11a) He is the life of the party.

(11b) He is the life of the company.

In each case, a different connotative aspect of "life" is

salient: "activity" in (11a), "importance" and "potency" in
(11b). Similarly, the figurative use of words is made possible
by their indexical feature, but inferential reasoning is
required to isolate the relevant comparison. Consider:

(12a) Juliet is the Sun. (Shakespeare)

(12b) She'll make someone a nice husband. (C.E. Osgood)
(12c) He is a mother to me.

By a literal interpretation of "Sun," "husband," and "mother"

should be female. But when certain other features of these
words are abstracted, the sentences in (12) become quite
apposite: "brightness," "source of heat and life" for "Sun,"
"masculinity" for "husband," and "with loving care" for
"mother."

Thus, as a summary of the discussion in this section, it is to

be recalled that the indexical feature of words insures their
use in infinitely variable ways, their meaning in any
particular instance being specified by inferential reasoning
that draws out salient features relevant to the context of the
sentence in which they are embedded.

One further aspect of the inferential process remains to be

discussed, namely, the background expectations or common
understandings which speaker and listener share and
without which communication via linguistic expressions is
impossible.

To begin with, it is to be recognized that utterances are

speech acts that vary in function. the identification of the
particular function of the speech act which an utterance has
is essential to its being understood in the manner intended
by the speaker. Consider some examples from a class of
speech acts, "mands," defined as "a type of utterance which
the speaker uses when he attempts to induce some action in

8
the listener" (Jakobovits, 1968, p. 12):

(13a) Pass the salt, please.

(13b) Take that coat off! It's hot in here.
(13c) Take that coat off! It's mine.

requests, as in (13a) are appropriate only where the speaker

assumes the listener is already disposed to act in the
intended manner. When giving advice, as in (13b), the
speaker makes the public claim that his purpose is to
promote the interest and welfare of the listener. the
command in (13c) is effective only when the speaker can
claim that lack of compliance may result in retributive action
on his part.

A different type of utterance is the "tact" which is defined as

a speech act by which the speaker intends to comment on
some aspect of the world (e.g. instructing, describing,
entertaining). "Autoclitics" are utterances whereby the
speaker comments on other utterances in terms of
importance, existential status (e.g. possibility vs. certainty
vs. probability), relational status to other utterances, and the
like (Jakobovits, 1968).

It is important to recognize once again that linguistic

information by itself is insufficient for the unambiguous
recognition of the function of utterances. As pointed out in
the discussion on telegraphic ellipsis, the syntactic form of a
sentence is not necessarily related to its function as a
speech act: the declarative sentence in (3a) is functionally a
question or request, while (3b), having the syntactic form of
a question, is functionally a request.

Earlier in this paper, it was stated that a performance theory

of language--an account of how people communicate via
linguistic expressions --would have to be at least as complex
as a psychological theory of the individual and a sociological
theory of interacting men. A psychological theory is
necessary to account for the inferential reasoning process
that makes use of the indexical feature of words and
utterances. A sociological theory is required to explicate the
role relationship between speaker and listener within the
sociocultural context which determines the function of
speech acts and conditions the form and selection of
elements in the composing process. To engage in social
communication via language, the person must be a

9
psychologist and sociologist, and the quality of the
psychological and sociological theories that he has
developed for himself will determine the quality and
effectiveness of his communication act. the psycholinguistic
and sociolinguistic enterprise, as formal disciplines are at
the present time of their development at a stage far less
advanced than the comparable personal subjective
enterprise attained by the average individual who has
developed communicative competence.

THE ANALYSIS OF THE QUALITY OF DISCOURSE

Individual men vary in reasoning ability, in the quality of their

thinking, in their creative capacity, in the depth of
communicative competence, in the effectiveness of their
speech performance. Some people are better psychologists
than others and are able to use their practical sociological
knowledge more effectively. The discovery of the etiology of
such differences would be an important enterprise, for it
would enhance the effectiveness of educators in their
attempts to impart the knowledge and improve the abilities
which underlie these vital processes. The success of such
an enterprise is still far off in the future. For the present time,
a lesser goal must be chosen, one which ahs a more realistic
probability of success but whose attainment is a prerequisite
for the success of the larger and more crucial enterprise.
This is the description of the dimensions of variability of
discourse and the identification of evaluation criteria for the
quality of discourse.

1. Levels of analyses. The analysis of discourse can proceed

at various levels. At the lower, "micro" level, attention is
focused on individual units of discourse such as lexemes
and phrases. At some higher "macro" level, one is
concerned with larger units such as the sentence, the
paragraph, the essay, the play and the novel. The choice of
unit determines the kind of observation and generalization
that can be induced about discourse. Thus inferences about
ratiocination (the analytic quality of thought), organization,
inventiveness, require the examination of larger units such
as the paragraph and multiples thereof. Inferences about
creativity and originality are possible at all levels, although
the nature of these processes may not be of the same form
at the various levels. For instance, the originality of a writer
in the figurative use of words and the construction of
metaphoric expressions may not be matched by a parallel

10
creativity in the organization and inventiveness of an essay.
Command over the manipulation of complex syntactic
constructions may not be related to the ability to choose
words whose indexical features facilitate the reception of the
intended thought.

The analyses of discourse must take into account the three-

way relation between the sender, the message, and the
receiver. In order to evaluate a piece of composition,
information about all three aspects of this relationship is
required: What is the goal of the writer? Is the content
original, interesting, worthwhile? Has the author chosen
words and syntactic constructions that allow for the
derivation of his intent? Is the reader's inferential reasoning
accurate, perceptive, sufficiently complex?

In traditional discussion about "style" the nature of the role

of the author and that of the reader is often not explicitly
recognized. Disagreements amoun literary critics about the
quality of a piece of writing and the low correlation among
judges of scores assigned to student essays (Braddock.
Lloyd-Jones and Schoer, 1963) are clear indications of the
reader's role in the evaluation of discourse. The appreciation
of universally recognized literary contributions ("the great
literature of the world") is a skill that has to be learned and
individuals can be expected to attain different levels of
achievement in this skill. The same sentence might mean
one thing to one person and something quite different to
another person. A rhetorical scheme effective in one context
might be quite inappropriate and tedious in a different
context. it has been stated that if there is one absolute rule in
rhetoric it is that no rule is absolutely true.

A relativistic viewpoint to the analysis of discourse and the

evaluation of style should not be allowed to obscure the fact
that there are certain inherent characteristics in the indexical
feature of words and utterances, in the inferential reasoning
of people, and its relation to the syntactic organization of
linguistic expressions. Consider each of these in turn.

An extreme instance of the inherent variability of words in

terms of the possibilities for their indexical breadth is
represented by the difference between function words and
content words. Novel uses of functors are extemely limited,
and ths restriction is determined by the nature of their
definition. A less extreme example is provided by the use of

11
conventionalized symbols and expressions: fad words, code
words, technical words, proper names, acronyms, greetings,
trite phrases, idioms, proverbs etc. The "difficulty" of words
is not simply a function of familiarity. Thorndike and
Garrettson (1968) report that high school pupils find abstract
words more difficult to understand than concrete words, and
root words are more difficult than compound words. These
differences in difficulty were independent of word-count
frequency. Words differ also in the intensity of their
connotation. Some words like "snake," crime," "death"
evoke intense negative affective responses; others like
"stick," "February," "five" are almost neutral in connotation
(Center for comparative Psycholinguistics, 1969). Some
words have definitions which allow for diffuse and
unspecific reference (e.g. "wonderful," "feathery," "thing,"
"anywhere") while others are restrictive and specific (e.g.
"screwdriver," "melting point," "naturalized").

At the syntactic level, different codes exist which vary in

flexibility and complexity. Bernstein (1964) distinguishes
between "elaborated" and "restricted" codes. The latter is
characterized by the following: short, grammatically simple
sentences with little subordination of clauses; repetitive and
predictable with frequent use of trite phrases, expressions,
and "in" words; rigid and limited use of adjectives and
adverbs; active declarative sentences predominate. The
"elaborated" code is characterized by grammatical
complexity and by the use of subordinate clauses with a
range of conjunctions; prepositions indicating logical,
temporal, and spatial relations are frequent; passive
constructions with impersonal pronouns are common; there
is discriminative use of a range of adjectives and adverbs. In
short, the elaborated code makes use of the theoretical
possibilities of expressing individuated thought while the
restricted code conveys intent by relying on non-linguistic
information provided by the social structure which governs
the relationship between the two individuals.

The quality and complexity of inferential reasoning is the the

third factor which determines the indexical possibilities of
linguistic expressions. Two encyclopedias may have a very
similar index, yet one may contain much richer information
than the other. Individuals differ not only in their
encyclopedic knowledge of the world but also in their
habitual mode of realizing the indexical possibilities of
expressions, viz., the extent to which they simply scan the

12
information in their encyclopedias or review it in depth. A
particular poem can be either rich or poor in meaning
depending on the extent to which the reader explores the
indexical possibilities it contains. On the other hand,
discourse in a restricted code contains little indexical
potential, in which case the reader's inferential reasoning
capacities will be limited value.

In summary, then, the levels of analysis of discourse can

vary from the lexemes the micro-unit to the larger
compositional whole and the choice of level will determine
the nature of the critical inferences one can make about the
discourse. Since meaning derives from the indexical feature
of linguistic expressions rather than from their absolute
denotation, discussions about style and the quality of
discourse must take into account the three-way relation
between writer, composition, and reader (or speaker,
utterance, and listener). The reader's inferential reasoning
abilities set a limit on the extent to which he recognizes the
writer's intent and explores the indexical possibilities of the
compositional matter. But equally important is the quality of
the discourse in terms of its potential for indexical
possibilities at all levels of analysis.

2. Types of analyses. De Vito (1967a) identifies six areas of

focus in the analysis of style: psychological: drawing
inferences about the psychological state of the speaker;
rhetorical: evaluating the effectiveness of the discourse
upon the listener; semantic: examining the effectiveness
with which words convey reference and cognitive intentions;
literary: describing the poetic and literary form of a piece of
writing; sociological: indentifying the social relation between
speaker and listener; and linguistic: describing the lexical
and syntactic variability of a passage (e.g. type frequencies).

Heinberg, Harms, and Yamada (1969), whose chief interest

lies in oral speech-communication, define satisfactory style
as the ability to transform sentences for the purpose of
getting the listener to respond in the intended funtional way.
They specify a number of such functions: (a) Question-
Answere: To transform a simple declarative sentence into a
question which succeeds in getting a response that clarifies
the declarative sentence; (b) Confirmation-Negation: to
transform a declarative sentence which receives a "Yes" or
"No" answer; (c) Generalization-Specification: to transform a
declarative sentence into a question which requires the

13
listener to expand or restrict the applicability of the original
declarative sentence; (d) Elaboration-Summarization: to ask
a question which requires elaboration (more wordiness) or
summarization (less wordiness) of the original declarative
sentence; (e) Predicting: formulating a declarative sentence
which anticipates questions and provides answers for them
before they occur.

Chatman (1967) reviews the literature on style and

categorizes the various definitions that have been proposed
into four groups: (a) The noramtive sense: deals with the
question of what is "good writing"; (b) Individual manner of
expression; (c) Form: features of expression that belong to
form rather than content; and (d) Tone of speaking:
sometimes referred to as levels of style" (e.g. formal vs.
colloquial). Chatman finds shortcomings with each approach
taken singly and proposes a synthesis of his own in terms of
a hierarchy of distinctions at five different levels: (1) a three-
pronged division of "purport" into cognitive, emotive, and
general; (2) a subdivision of general purport into "casual"
and "non-casual" discourse; (3) variability in casual
discourse is identified with "register" and the focus can be
either on the message ("situational register") or on the
speaker ("personal register"). Variability in non-casual
discourse is identified with "style" which has various forms:
literary, legal, etc.; (4) the focus of style forms can be either
on the author or on the work; (5) finally, at the lowest level,
and for all preceding branches, there is a bifurcation into an
analysis of "semantic texture" (micro level) and "semantic
structure" (macro level).

Further approaches to the analysis of style is exemplified by

Hughes and Duhamel (1966). They distinguish between
motive, diction, sentence movement, and schemes. The
motive of style is carried through in thre modes: description,
narration, and exposition. The diction of style is cast in three
forms: formal, informal, and colloquial. Sentence movement
can be described as balanced (syntactically symmetrical),
curt (short and direct), loose (rambling), and familiar. Finally,
15 rhetorical schemes are identified (e.g. alliteration,
antithesis, anaphora, inversion and so on).

The availability of large computers in recent years has

sparked renewed interest in an approach to the analysis of
style that makes use of frequency counts of lexical and
syntactic elements and various derivative ratios based on

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these counts (see the review by DeVito, 1967b). This
approach is sometimes referred to as "stylometrics." It is
generally recognized by users of this approach that type
frequencies are merely indicators of style rather than
inherent features of it. By developing style indicators that
correlate with inherent features that have more face validity,
but are also more subjective and less reliable, the
proponents of this approach hope to increase the objectivity
and reliability of essay grading. For example, Slotnick and
knapp (1967) developed the MOMSR computer program
(Machine Oriented Measurement of Student Writing) which
utilizes some 40 mechanical indicators based on Page (1967)
and Bernstein (1964). In a recent application of the MOMSR
program, Slotnick (personal communication) obtained a
multiple correlation of .67 between teacher evaluations of
style and four of the mechanical measures. The data was
based on 40 essays written by college freshmen on an
assigned topic (literary criticism of a character in a novel).
The four measures were: number of rare words (an indicator
of "vocabulary richness"), number of temporal prepositions
(negative correlation), total number of sentences, and total
number of quotations.

In a series of articles, De Vito (1967c, d/ 1966a, b; 1965)

reports differences in type frequency characteristics
between written and oral discourse produced by the same
persons. Reliable differences were found for the following
types (in each case, the difference is stated in favor of the
written material): greater number of Friesian Class I (nouns)
and Class 3 (adjectives) type words and a correspondingly
smaller number of Class 2 (verbs) and Class 4 (adverbs) type
words: greater number of abstract words relative to the
number of finite verbs and definite articles and their nouns; a
smaller number of terms of self-reference, of "pseudo-
quantifiers" (much, many, a lot), of qualification (however,
but, except), of allness (none, never, always, all), and of
"consciousness of projection" (apparently, it seems to me);
greater number of "difficult" words (low frequency and
polysyllable); larger diversity (type/token ratio); and , finally
a greater number of content words. None of these
differences seem surprising and as De Vito points out, they
are understandable in terms of the conventionalized
requirements of written expository scholarly writing.

A more complex approach within the stylometric tradition

was recently developed by Hunt (1965) who replaced the

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traditional measure of sentence length by the "T-unit"
("minimal terminable units"), which is defined as a main or
independent clause together with its subordinate elements.
Hunt found that the length of the T-unit in the compositions
of school children gradually increases as their writing skill
improves. He argues, however, that the maturing of style
does not consist merely of lengthening the T-units but in the
way in which the T-unit is made longer. Hunt concludes that
the significant factor is the development of "sentence
embedding transformations" whereby adjectival clauses are
lengthened by the use of noun clauses and phrases (in place
of nouns and pronouns) and modifiers embedded before and
after nouns. Christensen (1968) questions this conclusion
and argues instead that the more relevant indicator of a
"mature style" is the extensive use (frequency and length) of
free modifiers, especially in the final position, while the base
clause is kept relatively short.

It is clear even from this brief and selective review that the
analysis of discourse can be approached from a large
number of vantage points. In fact, it would appear that
discourse analysis is an open-ended enterprise, in which
relevant features for study can be invented without limit in
number. This is hardly surprising given that the variability of
language is infinite and that new stylistic devices can be
created which have never existed before. These remarks
apply to the approaches developed and used thus far, all of
which are descriptive. It is obvious that no taxonomic
approach can give a complete description of an open-ended
system. Until more powerful theoretical devices are invented,
the analysis of discourse must perforce remain incomplete,
descriptive, merely enumerative.

3. Evaluation Criteria. The question of how many criteria are

needed to evaluate the style of discourse is not particularly
significant. The answer surely depends on some arbitrary
classification of elements one may wish to dream up. The
more serious question is the corollary. "Needed for what
purpose?" If the purpose is to distinguish between the
writing of high school seniors and regular contributors to
Harper's, Christensen's (1968) measure of the number and
length of free modifiers in final position is quite adequate.
But this same measure will also distinguish between the
writings of Hemingway and James; the latter's passages will
typically show a much higher count than those authored by
the former. Yet it is plain that the difference in style between

16
a Hemingway and a James is not of the same sort as the
difference between a high school senior and David
Halberstam.

Hughes and Duhamel pose the problem as follows: "There is

no such thing as a 'good' stylistic device or a 'bad' stylistic
device; there are only functional and non-functional devices.
If a style satisfies and completes the writer's intention, then
it is successful. If it frustrates or is contrary to his intention,
then it is a failure" (1966, p. 229). This is the "autotelic"
approach to the evaluation of style; it asks, first, what is the
writer's intention and, second, do the components of his
writing fulfill that intention.

There are several difficulties with this type of evaluation

criterion. In the first place, how is one to determine the intent
of the author? When confronted with the works of great
literary figures, the skilled reader has no difficulty in
recognizing the intent of the author and he can appreciate
the masterful way in which the linguistic composition
effectively promotes his purpose. But surely it is the
"effectiveness" of their writing that makes their intent so
clear to grasp --which means that the determination of intent
is not independent of the quality of the discourse, hence the
autotelic definition suffers from circularity.

Furthermore, the contribution of the reader in the

indentification of intent is a difficulty to be recognized.
Granted that training for reading appreciation, assuming it
can be standardized (another difficulty!), would improve the
reader's ability to infer intent, it still is to be expected that
individual differences would remain in inferential reasoning.
Thus, one critic might "see" things which another might not.

Finally, what if the discourse suggests to the reader new

perceptions and new cognitions which the author himself
never intended (at least consciously) or never even realized
during the composing process. After all, discourse is
indexical, as discussed earlier, and its cognitive possibilities
may be very stimulating indeed. It is not unreasonable to
suppose that new indexical possibilities are realized upon
second, third, and even subsequent readings of a passage of
prose or poem. At which point, then, is one to decide
whether the discourse promotes or frustrates the author's
intent?

17
It would seem that the problem of developing evaluation
criteria is the problem of determining what questions the
evaluator wishes to ask about the discourse. Heinberg,
Harms, and Yamada (1969), concerned as they are with
speech communication (see above), asks the question of
whether the speaker can get the listener to respond in a
predetermined way. If he can accomplish this within the
restriction imposed upon the communication situation (time,
number of questions asked, etc.), then his style is
"satisfactory," "effective," etc. for this particular purpose. If
the literary critic decides (by any means whatsoever) that the
intent of a writer in a particular passage is "obviously
intended to suggest an atmosphere of terror and foreboding"
(Hughes and Duhamel, 1966, p. 182), then the first paragraph
of Edgar Allan Poe's The fall of the House of Usher is
"effective," for indeed the trained reader (and possibly the
untrained as well) does "get the message." If the critic
decides that the purpose of metaphors and similes is to
suggest to the reader novel recombinations of perceptions,
then Shakespeare's writings are replete with schemes of this
sort that are supremely effective, certainly insofar as the
trained reader is concerned, and possibly even for the
untrained reader. A professor's lecture might be entertaining
but uninstructive, instructive but boring, or both entertaining
and instructive; then, the lecture is "effective,"
"satisfactory," "creative," "original" depending on what the
critic decides the purpose of the lecture is or ought to be.

To summarize the argument thus far, the determination of

evaluation criteria for the style of discourse is strictly a
question of deciding, first, what its function is and, second,
whether the function is fulfilled effectively under appropriate
conditions. The preceding sentence italicizes "deciding" and
"under appropriate conditions" because this is where the
difficulties pertaining to the autotelic definition must be
resolved. The "intent of the author" is but one of the many
functions. Then, the determination of whether the chosen
function is accomplished effectively must take into account
the limiting conditions: the trained or untrained reader or
listener, the social-psychological background of the receiver
to whom the discourse is addressed, of the critic who uses
himself as the "guinea pig" to test out his reactions, and so
on.

The problem of developing evaluation criteria for assessing

the style of discourse is after all not different from the

18
problem of evaluating any human endeavor. The principles
are the same whether the object is art, a teaching method, a
piece of machinery, or a scientific theory. But, whereas the
decision of the function of a piece of machinery easily
commands common consensus among its users, such
consensus is more difficult to atttain about the decision of
the function of a work of art. This is because the indexical
possibilities are so much richer for a work of art than for a
machine.

EPILOGUE: THE MOST BASIC ISSUE OF ALL

Discourse is the product of the composing process. But

what is composing? All acts of composition, in whatever
mode they occur--linguistic (e.g. discourse), visual (e.g.
painting), auditory (e.g. music), etc. --have this thing in
common, that they are all sequencing operations, organized
in time-space. There are at least two fundamentally different
kinds of sequencing operation: the mechanical and the
creative. Mechanical sequences are generated by an
algorithm, which is a computational device that specifies the
order and nature of the steps to be followed in the
generation of a sequence. Thus, a computer program is an
algorithm. Algebraic problems can be solved by the
application of an algorithm that specifies the order of some
specific manipulations to be performed. A music score is an
algorithm for generating a tune. Electro-magnetic devices
have been developed for generating random sequences. In
this case, the product, the composition, is not predictable in
advance, but the method of generation is mechanical,
through the repeated application of the same series of steps,
an algorithm. "Abstract" paintings can be produced by the
mechanical repetition of a specified series of steps whereby
a paint gun (or some equivalent device) is activated in front
of a canvas. "Aleatoric" musical compositions ("computer
music") can be generated by writing a program, an
algorithm, which controls "sub-programs" in predetermined
(restricted) or in random variations. 2

Creative sequencing is one which is produced without a

known algorithm. The emphasis is on "known" because it is
possible to claim that all sequences are produced by some
algorithm. Certainly it is the case that a sequence produced
by an unknown algorithm can, at some future time, be
discovered. At that point, the composition process changes
from a creative to a mechanical one. The famous

19
mathematician and developer of computers, John von
Neumann, has characterized two kinds of "games" in just
terms discussed here for the distinction between mechanical
and creative processes. He defines an "interesting" game as
one whose solution presents some unsolved problems. An
"uninteresting" game is one whose solution is completely
known. Thus, checkers ceased to be an interesting game (in
the mathematical, not psychological sense) when all the
problems connected with playing it were solved. A computer
can now play a perfect game of checkers. The simulation of a
process via computer is an ipso facto demonstration of its
interesting status. The program which controls the
computer's game is the algorithm of the process. It has
become mechanical.

Chess is today still an interesting game. No algorithms exist

which would allow a computer to play an unbeatable game.
In fact, chess playing computers consistently lose against
human opponents that have the standing of "International
Grandmaster." Von Neumann predicted that chess will cease
to be an interesting game in the decade of the 1970's. (And
with that he also foretold the demise of international chess
tournaments.)

Discourse, being a sequence of linguistic elements, can be

produced by either a mechanical or a creative process.
Algorithms for the generation of sentences are still in an
early stage of development but they already exist and further
strides are certain to come. That discourse can be generated
through a mechanical process is no longer the issue. The
pertinent question today relates to the comparison of the two
products--and, here the issues dealt with earlier in this paper
become salient. There is no doubt that discourse produced
by a mechanical process can be "interesting" (in the
psychological sense), novel, effective, etc. at some point and
for some listeners. But it can never be creative. To the
programmer who developed the algorithm for the production
of such discourse, there can be no surprise in the product,
no novel rhetorical schemes, no creation of new stylistic
devices not known to him. In short, to him and other
knowledgeable individuals, mechanically produced
discourse is a stale piece of composition.

These considerations have important implications for the

teaching of composition. Examples of algorithms that are
being used in the teaching of "good writing" consist of the

20
"rules" one finds in "how to" type cookbooks of rhetoric and
English composition: the "do's" and "don't's" of
punctuation, of sentence length and subordination, of theme
organization, and so on. the result of such teaching, when it
is successful, can never in and of itself produce anything but
stale writing. The importance of such teaching, when it is
successful, can never in and of itself produce anything but
stale writing. The importance of such teaching should not,
however, be minimized. There are two reasons for this. In the
first place, stale writing of this sort is often more effective for
communication than the undisciplined composition of the
untrained, insensitive individual. In the second place,
teaching of this sort may not impart merely the knowledge of
the algorithms involved.3 The human mind can be of a
staunchly independent spirit: it can resist indoctrination and
control by algorithms. The question whether the teaching of
rhetorical algorithms facilitates or inhibits such
independence or creativeness is one for which we do not
now have the answer. On it hinges the value of our
educational system.

Center for Comparative Psycholinguistics

University of Illinois, Urbana

REFERENCES

Bernsein, B. Aspects of language and learning in the

genesis of the social process. In Dell Hymes (Ed.), Language
in Culture and Society. New York: Harper and Row, 1964, Pp.
251-263.

Braddock, R., Lloyd-Jones, R., and Schoer, L. Research in

Written Composition. Chanmpaign, Ill.: National Council of
Teachers of English, 1963.

Center for Comparative Psychollinguistics. A World Atlas

of Affective Profiles, University of Ilinois, Urbana, 1969. (In
preparation.)

Chatman, S. The semantics of style. Social Science

Information, 1967, 6 (4), 77-99.

Christensen, F. The problem of defining a mature style.

English Journal, 1968, 572-579.

Deese, J. The Structure of Associations in Language and

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Thought. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1965.

De Vito, J. A. Style and stylistics. An attempt at definition.

The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 1967a, 53, 248-255.

De Vito, J. A. Oral and written style: Directions for

research. Souther Speech Journal, 1967b, 33, 37-43.

De Vito, J. A. Levels of abstraction in spoken and written

language. The Journal of Communication, 1967c, 17, 354-
361.

De Vito, J. A. A linguistic analysis of spoken and written

language. Central States Speech Journal, 1967d, (May), 81-
85.

De Vito, J. A. The encoding of speech and writing. The

Speech TEacher, 1966a, 15,55-60.

De Vito, J. A. Psychogrammatical factors in oral and

written discourse by skilled communicators. Speech
Monographs, 1966b, 33, 73-76.

De Vito, J. A. Comprehension factors in oral and written

discourse of skilled communicators. Speech Monographs,
1965, 32, 124-128.

Goodenough, W. H. Componential analysis. Science, 1967,

156, 1203-1209.

Haagen, C. H. Synonymity, vividness, familiarity, and

association value ratings of 400 pairs of common adjectives.
Journal of Psychology, 1949, 27, 453-463.

Heinberg, P., Harms, L. S., and Yamada, June. Speech-

Communication Learning System. Speech-Communication
Center, Department of Speech, Univerity of Hawaii, 1969.

Holzmakn, Mathilda S. Ellipsis in discourse: A

psycholinguistic problem. eliot-Pearson Department of Child
Study, Tufts University, 1968. (Mimeo.; date uncertain)

Hughes, R. E. and Duhamel, P. A. Principles of Rhetoric.

Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966.

Hunt, K. W. Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grade

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Levels. Champaign, Ill.: The National Council of Teachers of
English, 1965. (Research Report No. 3.)

Jakobovits, L. A. The act of composition: Some elements

in a performance model of language. Paper prepared for a
Conference on the Composing Process sponsored by the
National Council of Teachers of English, Colorado Springs,
November 3-6, 1968. (Proceedings are in press.)

Katz, J. J. and Fodor, J. A. The structure of a semantic

theory. In J. A. Fodor and J. J. Katz (Eds.), The Structure of
Language. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965.

Osgood, C. E. Interpersonal verbs and interpersonal

behavior. Institute of Communications Research, University
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Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., and Tannenbaum, P. H. The

Measurement of Meaning. Urgana: University of Illinois
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Page, E. Statistical and linguistic strategies in the

computer grading of essays. Paper presented at the
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Paivio, A. Abstractness, imagery, and meaningfulness in

paired-associate learning. Journal of Verbal Learning and
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Russell, W. A. and jenkins, J. J. The complete Minnesota

norms for responses to 100 words from the Kent-Rosanoff
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Sircello, G. Expressive qualities of ordinary language.

Mind, 1967, 76, 548-555.

Slotnick, H. B. and Knapp, J. V. Machine oriented

measurement of student writing. Office of Instructional
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Steinberg, D. Analyticity and features of semantic

interaction. Instistute of Communications Research,

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University of Illinois, Urbana, 1969. (Mimeo.)

Thorndike, E. L. and Garrettson, Judith. What makes a

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FOOTNOTES

1 These examples and the arguments are based on Sircello's

(1967) paper.

2 Whereas the application of the algorithm, once developed,

is a mechanical process, the discovery or invention of
algorithms is a creative process since they are not controlled
themselves by algorithms. Algorithms for the discovery of
algorithms is not a certain achievement that man can count
on. It seems to me that "stale art" is so because it is
produced by known algorithms (the artist--in this case,
"technician" would be a better descriptor--merely repeats
what has already been done before).

3 Some types of "rules" might be useful in this respect. I am

thinking of Christensen's (1968) rule for developing "mature
style": use long free modifiers in final position in conjunction
with short base clauses. I might call this rule a semi-
algorithm since it does not specify the manner of
constructing free modifiers--and for just cause since they
can be infinitely variable.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Applied Psycholinguistics in Social Psychology

Effects of Mere Exposure: A Comment
Rhetoric and Stylistics: Some Basic Issues in the Analysis of Discourse
Semantic Satiation and Cognitive Dynamics
Semantic Satiation as a Function of Initial Polarity and Scale Relevance
Some Potential Uses of the Cross-cultural Atlas of Affective Meanings

24
 STUDENTS ARTICLES

An Evaluation of People's Attitudes Toward Technostress and Techniques on How to Overcome it.
To Fear or not to Fear the Computer
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