ENG 3223d STYLISTICS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Bryan Paul Espinosa, M.Ed.

Course Facilitator
• Overview of Prose
• Stylistic Analysis of Prose
 TYPES OF PROSE
FICTION NON-FICTION

SHORT STORY BIOGRAPHY

NOVEL REFERENCES
NOVELLA LETTER
FOLKTALE DIARY
LEGEND MEMOIRS
Elements of a Fiction
1. Setting
2. Characters
3. Plot & Plot Devices
4. Conflict
5. Point of View
6. Theme & Motif
7. Mood & Tone
Setting : time & place What kind of setting is this?

1. Integral Setting Once upon a time

fully described in both time & Lord
inHistorical
offarthe
a land far
place Fairy
Folk tales
Tales
away…
Novels
Rings
2. Backdrop Setting
vague and general; does
not go into the details Backdrop
Integral
Characters : role & quality
Protagonist Dynamic
Antagonist Static
Deuteragonist Stock
Confidante Symbolic
Love interest Round
Foil
Plot : flow of events KINDS of PLOTS
1. Linear/Natural/Dramatic Plot
2. Non-Linear
Circular
In Medias Res
Frame Story
Episodic
Parallel
Plot Devices : technique used to move the plot forward
Cliffhanger
Flashback
Flashforward
Foreshadow
Deus Ex Machina
Telescoping
Chekov’s Gun
Red Herring (misdirect)
 Conflict
What type of conflict is in…

Wedding
Moby Dance
Harry Dick
Potter
by
byHerman
Hamlet
Amador&
(Voldemort
Daguio
Melville
Harry)

vsvs
vssociety
self
nature
man
Point of View
is the “eye” or narrative voice through which you tell a story

First POV
Second POV
Third POV
Types of Third Person Narrator
1. He only knows the thoughts of the main character.
2. He knows everything!
3. He does not know anything. He merely describes what he
sees.
a. Third Person Omniscient
b. Third Person Objective
c. Third Person Limited
Theme & Motif

Object
Event
Color
Structure
(Love always
prevails.)
What is the theme?
• Theme is the main idea or message about mankind or
life conveyed by a piece of literary work.
• A theme should be expressed by a complete sentence,
thought, or idea rather than just one word.
• A theme can be the “moral” of a story or a lesson, but
it does not have to be.
Mood vs Tone
STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
OF PROSE
PARTS OF STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. ANALYSIS
a) LEXICAL FEATURES
b) GRAMMAR
c) FOREGROUNDED FEATURES
d) CONTEXT & COHESION
3. CONCLUSION
I. INTRODUCTION
Start with your initial thoughts and feelings about the text you're going to
analyse
1. What is the text all about? (theme and motif, short summary)
2. What is the author’s known style in his works in general?
style in terms of diction, choice of stylistic devices,
techniques, themes, sentence structures, etc.
3. Does his known style seem present upon initial investigation in the given
text? Is it different from what he is known for?
NOTE:
Most poems are short, and so it is possible to analyze a whole
text. And when analyzing poetry, we noticed that we could get a
long way by concentrating on foregrounded features:
particularly deviation and parallelism.

On the other hand, for novels and short stories, because they are
much longer, stylistic analysis can only be done on selected
extracts which are representative or especially interesting for
some reason. And one of the results of this extra length is that
effects in prose are often spread through whole texts, or textual
extracts, and so, just looking at foregrounded features will not
necessarily reveal enough of what we need to show. This is
Leech and Short prepared a methodology checksheet to be used
for prose analysis.
II. ANALYSIS
a. LEXICAL FEATURES
1. Identify the Open Class Words
2. Classify them according to FORM (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
3. Identify the common categories of the given form
sample categories you can classify terms:
simple (no affixes) or complex (with affixes)
general (superordinate) or specific (subordinate)
denotative (literal) or connotative (suggestive)
idiomatic? figurative? archaic?
II. ANALYSIS
a. LEXICAL FEATURES
1. Identify the Open Class Words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
II. ANALYSIS
a. LEXICAL FEATURES
2. Classify them according to FORM (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

NOUNS: breakfast Papa ax Fern mother table breakfast

VERBS: is going were setting
ADJECTIVES:
ADVERBS:
II. ANALYSIS
a. LEXICAL FEATURES
3. Identify the common categories of the given form

Most of the nouns are simple words.

They are mostly concrete nouns too.
They don’t have connotative meaning.

Both verbs are in progressive form.

They are action verbs.
II. ANALYSIS
a. LEXICAL FEATURES
1. Identify the Open Class Words
2. Classify them according to FORM (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
3. Identify the common categories of the given form
sample categories you can classify terms:
simple (no affixes) or complex (with affixes)
general (superordinate) or specific (subordinate)
denotative (literal) or connotative (suggestive)
idiomatic? figurative? archaic?

CLEAR?
II. ANALYSIS
a. LEXICAL FEATURES
(In writing this part, provide an overview of your findings.)
Majority of the word class E.B. White uses are concrete nouns that
create clear image to the reader. Majority of these words are easy to
read words as well, making the text kid-friendly. He also….
(After writing the overview, you may provide the specifics)
NOUN. (write your observation of the nouns in the text)
ADJECTIVE. (write your observation of the adj in the text)
VERB. (write your observation of the verbs in the text)
ADVERB. (write your observation of the adverbs in the text)
PARTS OF STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF PROSE
1. INTRODUCTION
2. ANALYSIS
a) LEXICAL FEATURES
b) GRAMMAR
c) FOREGROUNDED FEATURES
d) CONTEXT & COHESION
3. CONCLUSION
II. ANALYSIS
b. GRAMMAR
*overview
*specifics
Grammar
(1) General
Are any general types of grammatical construction used to special effect, e.g. comparative or superlative constructions,
parallelisms, listing, interjections or other speech-like phenomena?
(2) Specific
1. SENTENCES. Are they statements, questions, commands, etc. or are they like speech-type sentences, e.g. without a
predicator? Are they simple, compound or complex? How long are they? Are there striking contrasts in sentence length or
structure at any point in the text? If the sentences are long, is their length due to embedding, co-ordination, long phrases?
2. CLAUSES. What types of clauses are noticeably favoured (e.g. relative, adverbial, noun clauses etc.)? Is there anything
special about the clauses, e.g. a frequent and unusual placement of adverbials, or 'fronting' of object or complement? Are
there clauses with 'dummy subjects' (i.e. there, it)?

3. PHRASES
(a) NOUN PHRASES: are they simple or complex? If complex, is this due to the frequency of pre-modifiers (adjectives,
noun-modifiers, etc) or is it due to post-modification (prepositional phrases, relative clauses, complement clauses, etc.)?
(b) VERB PHRASES: what is the tense? present or past? Are there sections of apparent narration where the tense is other
than the simple past tense (e.g. continuous past, present, perfect, or where modal auxiliaries such as can, must, should etc.
occur)?
(c) OTHER PHRASES: are there any remarkable features about other phrases (i.e. prepositional, adverbial, adjectival)?
(iv) WORD CLASSES. Do the Closed Class words (i.e. prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, determiners, auxiliaries,
interjections) play any significant role in the text?. Is there frequent or striking use of e.g. the first person pronouns (I, we),
negative words (no, not, neither) or the definite or indefinite article (the, a(n))?
(1) General
The sentences are direct speeches, which are in themselves mostly
simple sentences. The sentences are also mostly declarative
sentences as well.
PARTS OF STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF PROSE
1. INTRODUCTION
2. ANALYSIS
a) LEXICAL FEATURES
b) GRAMMAR
c) FOREGROUNDED FEATURES
d) CONTEXT & COHESION
3. CONCLUSION
II. ANALYSIS
c. FOREGROUNDED FEATURES
Foregrounding are elements that stand out from the text. These may include
stylistic devices and deviation. The author…
c.a. STYLISTIC DEVICES
The text has a few figures of speech, which are as follows: simile, hyperbole,
alliteration, etc.
c.b. DEVIATION
I. SEMANTIC LEVEL
Symbolisms are a common motif in the text. For example, the pencil in
paragraph 2 signifies the preoccupation of the deuteragonist with education as a means
of surviving poverty. In fact, the word pencil appeared 12 times in three paragraphs.
II. SYNTACTIC LEVEL
The most common deviation on a syntactic level is the use of inversion. In such
sentences, the verb comes before the subject. For example, the sentence “Over the hills
and through the woods come the bears,” is inverted and the theme highlights the
location over the doer of the action.
PARTS OF STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF PROSE
1. INTRODUCTION
2. ANALYSIS
a) LEXICAL FEATURES
b) GRAMMAR
c) FOREGROUNDED FEATURES
d) CONTEXT & COHESION
3. CONCLUSION
II. ANALYSIS
d. CONTEXT AND COHESION
COHESION is the name given to those language features which do
the job of 'holding together' a text; these can cover a wide range of
linguistic and stylistic devices.
(i) Does the text contain logical or other links between sentences
(e.g. and, or, but, and so, then etc.) or does it rely on implicit
connections (e.g. juxtaposition, sequence)?

Explicit connections: First, you message Jen and wait for her reply. Then, you
send back the message to me. I will wait. Lastly, we will decide what to do
next once you arrive.
Implicit connections: We will decide what to do after you tell me Jen’s reply.
d. CONTEXT AND COHESION
COHESION is the name given to those language features which do
the job of 'holding together' a text; these can cover a wide range of
linguistic and stylistic devices.

(ii) Is there a lot of cross-reference by means of pronouns or ellipsis?

Or is there 'elegant variation' - the use of different ways of describing
the same thing/person (so as to avoid repetition or to give you an idea
of whose view of the thing/person you are getting)? Simply put,
elegant variation is the use of synonyms. For example, instead of
using the word beautiful all the time, you may use its synonyms like
gorgeous, ethereal, goddess-like, Aphrodite, The Helen of Troy, etc.

(iii) Are meaning connections made by means of lexical repetition or

by the frequent use of words from the same semantic field?
An example of a
paragraph with words
from the same
semantic field.
My cat Jessica likes to
be independent. As our
family’s favorite pet—
sorry Jack, this feline
enjoys so many
privileges that other
domestic animals don’t
enjoy. Jealous much?
II. ANALYSIS
d. CONTEXT AND COHESION
(2) CONTEXT
External context, like internal context, is concerned with TEXTUAL
RELATIONS, i.e. with the apparent relationships between persons inside
and outside the text (e.g. the author and the reader, the author and the
characters, one character and another).
• (i) Does the writer address the reader directly, or through the words or
thoughts of a fictional character?
• (ii) What language features are there which tell you who is "speaking"
(e.g. first person or third person pronouns)?
• (iii) Can you sense the author's attitude to his subject? Is it revealed
explicitly or can you infer it from the way he writes?
• (iv) If a character's words/thoughts are represented, how is this done: by
direct quotation (direct speech) or by some other means (indirect or
free indirect speech)
PARTS OF STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF PROSE
1. INTRODUCTION
2. ANALYSIS
a) LEXICAL FEATURES
b) GRAMMAR
c) FOREGROUNDED FEATURES
d) CONTEXT & COHESION
3. CONCLUSION
I. CONCLUSION
1. Briefly mention the style the author is known for.
2. Identify whether the same style is present in the current work.
3. Identify the most common stylistic choices of the author. In other words,
mention the significant findings of your stylistic analysis. Provide
examples briefly.
4. Explain how stylistic analysis helped you understand this prose.
References:
• https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/stylistics/topic4a/6spoca.h
tm
• https://www.teachervision.com/entertainment-
activities/books/charlottes-web-chapter-one
• https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/stylistics/topic10/12metho
d.htm
• https://www.slideshare.net/pipitkh/prose-41329376
• https://slideplayer.com/slide/9047246/
• https://www.grin.com/document/43131