‘Reconciling “Anglistik”’ conference,

Trier, September 2003

Designing and piloting a

world-wide-web-based
stylistics course

Mick Short, Lancaster University, UK

([email protected])
The structure of this talk

 A. ‘The place of stylistics’ in Learning and

learning

 B. The overall investigation

 C. The web-based course – some examples

 D. The Lancaster 2002-3 pilot investigation

A. The ‘place’ of stylistics in Learning

 English Language not in crisis in the UK (but we

have had to work hard at making it ‘relevant’)
 On the edges of two (three?) academic worlds
(language/linguistics and literary criticism)
 An irrelevance or a valuable link?
 The rock and the hard place - linguists want
stylisticians to be more ‘picky and formal’, the
critics want them to be less so
 Many Linguists tend to ignore stylistics – an
irrelevance?
Are academic squabbles worth it?

 Most of the squabbles involving stylistics have been

with literacy criticism
 Academic squabbles rarely change minds, and often:
 Are squabbles over territory and resources, not learning
 Involve opponents with outdated views of one another
 Are promoted by those who not take proper account of the
different academic aims of their ‘opponents’
 Don’t take into proper account of the range of different work
in each area
Mick’s stylistics (1)

 Aim – to understand how we get from the words on

the page to meanings in our heads/effects texts have
on us (cf. style)
 Lots of aspects to this and we can’t ‘beat’ intuition
 A combination of text analysis and psychological
(pragmatic?) inference
 The texts don’t have to be literary, but often are:
 (1996) Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose,
Longman
 (1997) ‘Analyzing the changing character and sophistication
of TV advertisements in the People’s Republic of China’ (with
HU Wen Zhong ), Text 17, 4, 491-515
Mick’s stylistics (2)
 Theorising, description and interpretation, e.g.:
 (1981) Style in Fiction (with G. N. Leech), Longman Ch. 10
 (1999) ‘Graphological deviation, style variation and point of
view in Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh’, Journal
of Literary Studies, 15 (3/4), 305-23
 ‘Linguistic metaphor identification in two extracts from
novels’ (with E. Semino and J. Heywood), Language and
Literature 11, 1, 35-54
 Informant-based work
 (2002) ‘A Cross-cultural study of fictional and non-fictional
text understanding’ (with L. Halász) Poetics, 30, 3, 195-219
Mick’s stylistics (3)

 Corpus stylistics, e.g.

 (2002) ‘Revisiting the notion of faithfulness in discourse
report/(re)presentation theory Using a Corpus Approach’
(with E. Semino and M. Wynne), Language and Literature,
325-55
 (forthcoming) Corpus Stylistics: A Corpus-based Study of
Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation in a Corpus of
English Writing (with E. Semino), Routledge
 Cognitive stylistics/poetics
 Characterisation, text worlds etc
 Affect
 Style, theme etc.
 ‘Discourse stylistics’
The squabble I have been
involved in

 Mackay, R. (1996) ‘Mything the point: a critique of objective

stylistics’, Language and Communication 16, 1, pp. 81-93.
 Short, M. et al. (1998) ‘Stylistics, criticism and
mythrepresentation again: squaring the circle with Ray Mackay’s
subjective solution for all problems’, Language and Literature 7,
1, pp. 39-40.
 Mackay, R. (1999) ‘There goes the other foot: a reply to Short
et al.’ Language and Literature 8, 1, pp. 59-66.
 Short, M. and W. van Peer (1999) ‘A reply to Mackay’, Language
and Literature 8, 3, 269-75.
Stylistics as an aid for
understanding and learning?

 It lays bare part of what is involved in the process of textual

understanding and interpretation
 It pushes students to be more precise and analytical in
thinking about understanding and interpretation
 If you know the techniques of stylistic analysis, you have
something to do if you get stuck interpretatively
 It pushes students to think harder about the linguistic
structure of texts and cognitive processes in understanding

 And now for something different . . .

 . . . a short simple text (a poem), which is interesting both
linguistically and critically, to illustrate these points:
Stylistics as an aid for
understanding and learning?
THE SECRET SITS
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

(Robert Frost)
Stylistics as an aid for
understanding and learning?

S V A A cj V
{[We | dance| round| in a ring] and [suppose,]}

cj S V A Cj V
But {[ the Secret | sits| in the middle] and [knows.]}
What is the overall structure of the
sentence (coordination layering)?

S S

S´ cj S´ cj S´ cj S´ cj S´
S´

S´´ cj S´´ S´´ cj S´´

Can stylistics aid weak students?

 It can help, but it depends on how weak the student is and

why
 It helps students to talk about texts as well as feelings, and
be explicit about them
 It helps students to become aware of all that needs to be
explained in understanding and communication
 Stylistic analysis is useful for teachers to know, and then
adapt to an appropriate level (cf. grammatical analysis)
 It is possible to teach ‘pre-stylistics’ to students who can’t
cope (yet) with ‘the terminology’ (!)
Can stylistics aid weak students?

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities
(Isaiah, 53, v)

They punched, kicked and gralloched him.

Questions?
 B. The overall investigation

 A comparison of two teaching methods (same

content and pedagogical philosophy):
 Web-based learning format
 Traditional lecture/seminar-based format

 Aim:
 To compare student responses and learning outcomes to
WWW-based and more traditional teaching of stylistic
analysis

 Level:
 An introductory stylistics course, aimed primarily at first-year
undergraduates (in the UK)
 Mick’s course design philosophy
 Linguistic tools should be . . . . drip-fed
 Linguistic tools should be made ‘relevant’
 Learning should be FUN!
 Materials should be varied
 Task-based learning in bite-sized chunks

For more details see:

D.McIntyre (2003) Using foregrounding theory as a teaching
methodology in a stylistics course. Style 37(1): 1-14.
M. Short and D. Archer (2003) Designing a world-wide web-
based stylistics course and investigating its effectiveness. Style
37(1): 27-46.
 Timetable for investigation

December 2000 to present

Development of materials & Lancaster Pilot

September 2003 - June 2005

Comparison of student reaction to the web-based and
traditional formats (and other agreed investigations) at
Lancaster and other institutions
Would you like to join in the investigation?
September 2005
I want to make the course freely WWW-available to all
 Support given to collaborators

The teaching
 The web-based course online, password protected
 A full set of lecture/seminar handouts for the traditional version of
the course (if required)
 Video-taped recordings of the lectures for the traditional version of
the course (taken during 2001-2)
 Discussion group – email/online facility

The experiment
 Advice about when and how to administer the questionnaires, run
the focus groups and conduct interviews
 Advice on analysing collected data
 Collaborators will need to:
 Give initial comments on materials
 Provide me with copies of handouts and other
materials used in their location with their students
 Provide a complete set of questionnaires,
transcripts of tape-recordings, marking scheme,
data on essay and examination grading etc.
 Publish their own results (alone and/or co-
operatively)
 Make investigative data accessible to other
collaborators
Questions?
 C. The web-based course
 Task-based with variation in task types
 Features to aid navigation round the site
 Pages designed to be clear and ‘easy on the eye’
 ‘Smileys’
 Audio and video clips
 Chat café
 Self-tests
 Printer-friendly notes
 Glossary
 Self-assessment mechanism
 Links to other sites (e.g. author sites, the UCL Internet
Grammar of English)
 The URLs

 Language and Style course:

http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/internet_stylistics/start.htm

Username: stylistics
Password : 131course

 Collaborators’ website:
http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/internet_stylistics/tutors/
(same username and password as above)
 Includes electronic versions of McIntyre (2003) and Short
and Archer (2003), advice, lecture/seminar handouts etc.

CD-ROM: Course | Collaborators’

Questions?
The Lancaster 2002-3 pilot
investigation (January–March 2003)
Pilot of an introductory stylistics course for first
year undergraduates
 One term course
 Three ‘hours’ of contact time in workshops (‘2 +1’)
 Students encouraged to work in pairs
 Tutors present to give advice in all workshops
 The ‘2-hour’ workshop contained a 15-minute discussion
session with the tutor
 Poetry and prose sections taught via web-based workshops
 Drama section taught via traditional workshops
 Chat café
 ‘Printer-friendly’ notes facility
Investigative instruments
 Questionnaires
 Initial
 Medial (after poetry and prose)
 Final (last week of the course)
 Tape-recorded interviews (following questionnaires)
 Tape-recorded focus group discussions (following
questionnaires)
 Observations by tutors and observers of workshop
sessions
 (Video recordings)
Initial questionnaire: topics covered

Their familiarity with the web … All had several years

experience
Student views of the perceived
(dis)advantages of web-based … Main advantage: able to
courses review material/work at own
pace
… Main disadvantage:
impersonal/tutor contact
Their attitude towards paired- limited
work
… 40 against, 19 in favour

Their previous experience of … Mixed

English language in general,
and stylistics in particular
 Mid-course questionnaire (49 returns)

+ 1 2 3 4 5 -
Scale reflecting students’ general opinion of the course overall

Very 5 20 20 4 0 Not at all
interesting interesting
Easy 2 8 21 16 2 Difficult

Clear 10 14 25 0 0 Unclear

Fun 3 15 17 13 1 Boring

 Advantages - material can be reviewed/can work at own pace

- able to discuss ideas with partner
 Disadvantages – No tutor; two-hour session too long/hard on eyes
Our
“response”
 Students not expected to work “solidly” at the
computer for two hours
 Pair-work discussions
 Tutor-led group discussions
 Students had a 10-minute break in the ‘2 hour’ session
 However, whole group discussions were difficult
 Computers too noisy/room layout not amenable
 So we switched to smaller discussion groups
 Proved popular. Students said:
helped with shyness, less intimidating, easier to hear, a break
from the screen, more personal
End-of-course questionnaire
(43 returns)

Scale reflecting students’ general opinion of the course overall

 1 2 3 4 5 
Very 7 16 15 5 0 Not at all
interesting interesting
Easy 0 9 22 11 0 Difficult

Clear 7 20 12 3 0 Unclear

Fun 2 12 20 7 1 Boring
 Perceived disadvantages

at end of course
 Too much material
 Grammar sessions too difficult
 These are typical criticisms of the course, whether web-
based or lecture/seminar-based
 Length of sessions

 ‘Self-taught’
 = no lecturer present?

 Too demanding, takes too much time

 Again a standard comment on the course, whatever
the mode
Perceived advantages
at end of course

 Accessibility (especially useful for revision)

 Paired-work ultimately seen as a positive (2-to-1)
 NB. Paired-work could still prove problematic, especially
if partner missed a session or worked at a
different pace
 Changes to be introduced
 3 X 50 minute sessions
 New and better venue – dedicated to Linguistics teaching

 Room format better for workshop

teaching
- Able to split the groups,
enabling better group
discussions
- Beamer + screen for whole-
class work
 LCD screens
- Less tiring on the eyes
 Coursework essay
results
No significant statistical difference when compared to last
year’s marks (52.7 : 55.4 (53.5 : 57.1 if zero marks
discounted)). Number of students similar.
Issue of uncontrolled
variables …
35  Students, texts and
30 markers were different
25
However …
20
 Mick acted as a
15 2001-2 standardiser for sample
10 2002-3 scripts
5  Standardisation also a
0 feature of the Self
0%

10%+

30%+

50%+

70%+

Assessment mechanism
 Examination Results
 2001-2 Average = 53.02
 2002-3 Average = 52.83
35
30  No zeros – marks on scripts
25 used, so non-attendees (very
few, as per cwa) ignored
20
15 2001-2  Markers/standardising
10 2002-3 situation as per cwa
5
0
30%+
40%+
50%+
60%+
70%+
 Conclusions … to date
 Web-based mode did not appear to disadvantage
students
 Course rating good (but not as good as previous years?)
 Students prefer a combination of lecture/seminars and
web-based materials (but may attitudes change – they
tend to like what they have been used to from school)
 Social element difficult to reproduce
 Self-assessment mechanism was used, but patchily
 Web-based learning most appreciated when in distance-
mode?
 Special difficulties involved in investigating (Lancaster)
first-year students
Questions?