TOPIC NO.

1:
DUALISM, MONISM AND PLURALISM:
1. DUALISM:
Dualism is the theory of style which recommends that the style of expression and content
can stand separately. It means that the same content can be conveyed by using different
ways or forms in a text. It suggests that any literary piece of writing is possible to be
expressed in other words, phrases and language and it cannot affect the content or the
deeper meaning of the text and thus contents and style of any literary work can be
appreciated separately. Dualism assumes that one can paraphrase the sense of a text and
that there is a valid separation between sense (which refers to the basic logical, conceptual,
paraphrasable meaning and significance (which refers to the total meaning of what is
communicated to the world by a sentence or a text).
FOR EXAMPLE: The sentence, ‘After dinner, the senator made the speech.’ can be
paraphrased as following:
i. When the dinner was over, the senator made a speech.
ii. A speech was made by the senator after dinner.
iii. The senator made a postprandial oration.
Another example is: paraphrasing the sentence, Columbus discovered America to America
was discovered by America.
As similar to one of the ideas held by OHMANN, who was a supporter and an advocator of
dualism, we can see that the differences which the paraphrase of the above-mentioned
sentences have made are more just grammatical (form and structure) rather than change in
lexical content (the deeper meaning) and this is what the theory of dualism emphasizes.

2. MONISM:
This theory of style advocates the inseparability of style and content. In other words,
to say, style and content are the same things. There is no distinction between the two. The
monists are of the view that any change in the form of a text will change the content or
deeper meaning of the text. They hold the view that matter and manner are innate. Any
endeavour to separate one from the other leads any literary piece to death.
Monism finds its strongest ground in poetry where through such devices like
metaphor, irony and ambiguity, the meaning becomes multivalued. Monism was a doctrine
of the New Critics with its rejection of the division of form and content. New critics rejected
the idea that a poem conveys a message, hence, they preferred to see it as an autonomous
verbal piece of art which means that the poem governs its meaning through its form
(structure and words). They were of the view that ‘A poem should not mean but be’. In Leo
Tolstoy’s (a Russian writer) words, ‘It is one of the significant facts about the true work of
art that its content in its true entirety can be expressed only by itself’.
The theory of monism believes that it is impossible:
i. to paraphrase literary writing
ii. to translate a literary work
iii. to divorce the general appreciation of a literary work from the appreciation of its
style, for the inevitable loss of the hidden, metaphorical meaning.
EXAMPLE:
The advocators of this theory of style often quote the following lines from Macbeth
written by Shakespeare, as:
‘Come steeling night
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day.’
The quoted lines are metaphorical. Every metaphorical saying bears two meanings: one is
surface meaning and the other is hidden (figurative meaning). But metaphor always denies a
basic or literal sense. Instead, it induces the reader to make a sense to find an interpretation
beyond one truth-based meaning. Hence the writings as quoted above are impossible to
paraphrase and translate. This theory holds well in poetry, though it finds its ground in
prose also.

3. PLURALISM:
According to the pluralistic approach to stylistics, language performs several functions and
that any piece of language is possibly the result of choices made on different functional
levels. A pluralist hence focuses on different meanings of a piece of work based on the
various functions of language. Pluralism does not favour the dualistic division among
expression and content. It is a way better alternative to monism and dualism. According to
this theory, language performs a number of different functions, such as:
(i) Referential function (e.g., newspaper reports)
(ii) Directive (or Persuasive) function (e.g., advertising)
(iii) Emotive (or Social) function (e.g., casual conversation)
A pluralist believes in the functional variety in language. Moreover, pluralism gives us the
idea that language is naturally multifunctional which means that even a simplest sentence
conveys more than one kind of meaning.
FOR EXAMPLE:
‘Is your father feeling better?’ may be at a time referential (referring to a person’s
illness), directive (demanding a reply from the hearer) and social (maintaining a bond of
sympathy among speaker and hearer).

Note:
 Pluralism is analysing the style in terms of functions, characterized by Halliday’s (a
pluralist) three major functions of “ideational”, “interpersonal” and “textual”. Halliday's
view is that all linguistic choices are meaningful and stylistic.

TOPIC NO. 2:
Comparison and Contrast of Dualism and Monism:
♦ Dualism and Monism are both major approaches to the study of stylistics. These are
basically the ways to discuss relationship between ‘form’ and 'content'. The form of a
work of literature or texts generally refers to its "architectonic" or a well-defined
structure. It is the essential organizational structure or formal features. The content, on
the other hand, is more or less, the subject matter, the idea, the worldview, or theme
or more significantly, what Halliday (1970) refers to as the 'ideational content' of a
text.
FOR EXAMPLE: The Sonnet has the following formal properties, a single stanza
poem, composed of fourteen iambic pentameter lines containing a rhyme scheme, which
depends on whether the poem is the Italian or English sonnet. The formal features
distinguish the sonnet from other types of poems. The content on the other hand, deals
with the thematic concerns expressed in the poem. These include socio-economic problems,
politics, religion, culture, love anger, and the like
♦ In analysing a text, stylisticians necessarily assume a relationship between form and
meaning. The two opposing positions in this debate can be defined as monism,
which ‘argues for the inseparability of form and content’ and dualism, which argues
that ‘the same content or "meaning" can be expressed in various ways (forms or
style). These two positions are important to all fields of literary criticism as an
underlying assumption that governs how texts are discussed.
♦ Dualistic stylistics offers to paraphrase the texts as it asserts that by changing the
form of the texts its meaning or content does not change. Ot most often finds its
ground in prose. On the other hand, monism finds its most often finds its place in
poetry where the literary devices like metaphors and irony etc make the meaning
multivalued itself by losing a literal sense of the text hence allowing the readers to
make a sense, to find interpretations which are beyond the truth-functional
meaning of a paraphrase, like in dualism.
♦ One can say that the suitable place for dualism is prose while that of monism is
poetry. If we most ordinarily define the difference between prose and poetry by the
presence or absence of the form of verse in it, then some types of poetry are more
prosaic or unimaginative and ordinary while some of the prose are more poetic than
prose. Based on Lodge’s claim that there is no discontinuity between the way
language is used in prose and poetry, we cannot reject or devalue one in favour of
the other between monism and dualism. Because if monism particularly finds its
ground in poetry and everyone seems to agree that it is easy to translate a novel
 than a poem, so a monist should be able to easily show that even the best
translation of a prose work loses something of the original and also that how the
translation is possible at all.
So, we can say that both dualism and monism have their own sets of rules for analysing a
literary piece of art but neither of them can be called as perfect.