1. foregrounding

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Advanced textual analyses:the cases of poems, prose

and plays

Dr. Codrua Goa

[email protected]


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Unit 1: Stylistics

Key bibliographical resources:

Short, M. 1996: Exploring theLanguage of Poems, Plays andProse, London and New York:Longman

Verdonk, P. 2002: Stylistics,Oxford: Oxford University Press


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What is stylistics?

a method of linking linguistic

form, via reader inference, to

interpretation in a detailed way

and thereby providing as much

explicit evidence as possible for

and against particular

interpretation of texts. (Short,1996)


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Key concept

Foregrounding

a means by which an author of

a text, consciously or

unconsciously highlights the

parts which he considers crucial

to our understanding of what

s/he has written;

an abnormal use of language;


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Example

Come, we burn daylight, ho

(William Shakespeare, Romeoand Juliet)


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Means of achieving foregrounding

Deviation

Parallelism

Style variation


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Types of deviation (1)

Lexical:

The boys are dreaming

wickedof the night and the

jollyrodgeredsea.

(Dylan Thomas,Under Milk Wood)


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Semantic (figures of speech)

Where no sea runs, the waters of

the heart

Push in their tides;

(Dylan Thomas, Light Breaks

Where no Sun Shines)


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Morphological (at the level of

morpheme):

perhapslessmystery of paradise

(e.e. cummings, from spiralling

ecstatically this)


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Grammatical (Syntactic, at

sentence level): And there are

so many stories to tell, too

many, such an excess ofintertwined lives events

miracles places rumours, so

dense a commingling of theimprobable and the mundane!

(Salman Rushdies Midnight

Children)


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Discoursal:

- Think you are in

Heaven?

Wellyoull soon beIn H

E

LL

(Michael Horovitz; Man-to-Man-Blues)


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Yes is a pleasant country (fragment) e.e.

cummings(1894 - 1962)

yes is a pleasant country:

if's wintry (my lovely)

let's open the year

both is the very weather

(not either)

my treasure,

when violets appear

love is a deeper season

than reason;

my sweet one

(and april's where we're)


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Parallelism

Repetition and parallelism

Simple repetition: deviation

The repetition of one word orstructure:

Blow, blow, though winter

wind ()Come hither, come hither,

come hither.

(Shakespeare,As You


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Parallelism

A different method of foregrounding where:

Some features are held constant (usuallystructural features) while others (usually

lexical items, e.g. words, idioms arevaried). In other words: the repetition ofgrammatical structures (parallel structures)while varying the meanings of the wordsrepeated.

The parallelism rule for interpretation: invitesthe reader to search for meaningconnections between parallel structures, inparticular, in terms of the parts which are

varied (Short, 1996, p.14)


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Love is(Adrian Henri)

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans

Love is a fanclub with only two fans

Love is walking holding paintstained

handsLove is

Love is fish and chips on winter nights

Love is blankets full of strange delights

Love is when you dont put out thelights

Love is


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Love is presents in Christmas shops

Love is when youre feeling Top of thePops

Love is what happens when the musicstops

Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn

Love is pink dresses still slightly warm

Love is when you have to leave at

dawnLove is


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Love is you and love is me

Love is a prison and love is free

Loves whats there when youreaway from me

Love is


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Chronolog ical In jus t ice

(Raymond Brooks)

She came.

She saw.

She thought.She said.

She did.

Shes gonefor good!


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1. foregrounding

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