Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines

Language may be approached from a variety of angles and studied in a variety of ways. As we’ve already mentioned there are two global aspects of linguistic studies: language as a system and language in action (Verbal communication). Language system deals with units of language a verbal communication – with units of communication, which are composed of units of language.

Stylistics is a synthetic branch of learning and research, concerned with both stylistic properties in language system (stylistically marked vocabulary units, emotionally charged syntactic structures and intonational contours) and in language in action, studying variation in language and in the use of language.

Stylistics is linked with a number of branches of scientific research, such as sociolinguistics. psycholinguistics, textlinguistics and its sister disciplines – phonology, lexicography, grammar and semantics above all.

Stylistics interacts with semasiology which area of study is meaning. Semasiology is related to the theory of signs and deals with visual as well as verbal meanings.

Meaning is attached to all the levels, to those of morphemes, words, phrases and texts. All stylistic effects are based on the interplay between different kinds of meaning on different levels. Types of linguistic meanings attached to the linguistic units may be named as grammatical, lexical, emotive, evaluative, expressive, stylistic.

In stylistic analysis we often have to do with a transfer of nominal meaning in a text (antonomasia, metaphor, metonymy, etc.). So Stylistics interacts with onomasiology (or onomatology), the theory of naming dealing with the choice of words when naming or assessing (оценивать) some objects or phenomenon.

Literary Stylistics will overlap with areas of literary studies: the theory of imagery, literary genres, the art of composition, etc.

Decoding Stylistics borders culture studies, including the history of art, aesthetic trends and information theory,

In fact, stylistic research is concerned not only with linguistic means used as a result of some choice, but also with the motivation of this choice, psychological or sociological, the specific intention of the user of language, the expressive value of his output and the final result of it. The stylistic aspect proper can hardly be divorced from the cognitive. This confirms the idea of the synthetic nature of Stylistics. More often than not Stylistics does go beyond the borders of the sentence, beyond language as a system.

The advent of text linguistics did not take the stylistician unawares, because he has always had to do with texts. Textual dimensions have enriched stylistic analysis, and stylistic dimension in their turn have proved to be conducive to adequate treatment of the text.

Stylistics occupies a prominent place in the domain of communicative linguistics. An important aspect of communicative linguistics, a modern trend in Linguistic Theory and Research and one of the crucial factors of communication in any concrete act of communication is Pragmatics. Pragmatics shows an immediate relation to Stylistics.