CC BY
137REVIEW
UDC 378
DOI: 10.17223/24109266/12/11
Stylistics. A Resource Book for Students, 2nd Edition
by Paul Simpson, 2014. New York: Routledge, pp. xvii + 314, ISBN 978 0 415 64497 6
.. .you should never undertake to do stylistics unless you are interested in language Paul Simpson 2014: 4
The feature that strikes first is the original structure of the book which is both innovative and flexible. It is built around four sections: Introduction, Development, Exploration and Extension, and that way of organization offers self-contained stages for study.
Section A-Introduction presents the key concepts for the stylistic area of study. In the twelve numbered units of Section A the author leads the reader step by step through the basic terms and ideas and provides one, unostentatiously and reasonably, with an initial toolkit for one's own independent study. That authorized guidance results in a reader's good overview of the whole field by the end of the section.
Section B-Development glimpses bits of new information adding to the reader's knowledge and develops the key ideas which were introduced in Section A. The twelve numbered units in Section B successfully draw together several areas of interest. The authorized promotion results in a reader's good and fairly detailed grasp of the field by the end of the section contributing to one's readiness to start one's own exploration and stylistic thinking.
Section C-Exploration gives a variety of examples of language data and gives a helping hand to the reader guiding one through one's own investigation of the field. The author encourages you to try out your ideas on the basis of the newly acquired knowledge and thinking independently to develop your own thought.
Section D-Extension is designed to offer the reader the chance to compare one's own piece of stylistic analysis with key readings in stylistics. The section invites one to read what other scholars have written on stylistics over the years and offers a wide-ranging selection of relevant readings by some of the prominent stylisticians in the world, thus serving to extend the reader's intellectual and research horizon.
Each Section includes 12 units, which are build in a parallel way as to their contents and place in the arrangement.
The first pages manifest out the author's protagonist attitude towards stylistic as a self-contained linguistic discipline. I fully agree with Paul Simpson here: we should study stylistics to explore the language, to explore creativity in language use and, more than that, to feel the soul of language and its breath.
Unit 11A (p. 42), for instance, draws the reader's attention to metaphor and metonymy as the two most important tropes, or figures of speech, through which the conceptual transfer is carried out. First of all the term metaphor is given a short and none the less precise definition that reads as 'A metaphor is a process of mapping between two different conceptual domains' explained as 'the target domain' and 'the source domain', which are further detailed as 'the target domain is the topic or concept that you want to describe through the metaphor while the source domain refers to the concept that you draw upon in order to create the metaphorical construction'. The author exemplifies his definition by 'She really blew her lid'. By means of conceptualization of the source domain as 'heated fluid in a container' the metaphor under observation is thought to be represented by the formula: ANGER IS A HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER. One might agree to the author that this type of formulation is useful because it abstracts out of the certain linguistic structure of the metaphor its underlying organization (see also: [1: 45]).
The indirect relationship between metaphor and its linguistic form is stressed, which allows the same conceptual metaphor to be expressed through a variety of linguistic constructions.
Appealing to R.W. Gibbs, P. Simpson echoes his idea of metaphors as basic schemes by which people conceptualize their everyday experience and their external world. Metaphor is presented not as some kind of distorted literal thought, but as a natural part of conceptual thought. And what particularly important for the reader is that Simpson exemplifies the rehearse of the same basic metaphor through a set of different linguistic realizations (p. 44).
As far as writers consciously strive for novelty in literary expression and this requires developing not only new conceptual mappings but also new stylistic frameworks through which these mappings can be presented, these theme of novelty in metaphor is taken up and explored in greater depth in Unit B11.
The author evidently works from the background assumption that most metaphorical mappings are transmitted through familiar, commonly occurring linguistic expressions. The reader's attention is turned to a short poem by Roger McCough which serves as a good illustration of some of the connections that can be drawn between metaphor and style. McCough's poem is shown to employ a set of linguistic-stylistic devices to relay a single underlying conceptual metaphor. And P. Simpson skillfully shows how, using a variety of devices, McCough develops the basic metaphor through two
processes known as extending and elaboration (see also: [2; 3: 86]). As it is perceived and described by Simpson, in the poem McCough extends the source domain from the more general concept of sport to a specific type of sport, which enables further stylistic-expressive possibilities in the way the target domain is subsequently developed. 'The particular spatial organization of tennis, with its back and forth movement between ball and players, is captured stylistically by the break up of the text into two columns, and this forces the reading of the text into a similar to and fro movement.' Clearing up the message Simpson points out that 'both sides of the game of love, as it were, are embodied in a textual layout which serves as an orientational metaphor.' (p. 97).
It is Simpson's theory-of-style innovation which consists in not only finding out a sample of an orientational metaphor and decifing it as a COM (using the idea of space as a vehicle for tracking human emotions) but also in qualifying it as a horizontal metaphor, which in the poem under analysis directionally embodies not only emotional to and fro but the sense of implicit conflict that exists between the loving couple.
The idea of novelty in metaphor as depictured in the poem is immediately caught and skillfully described in 'Stylistics': Simpson displays a new type of conceptual mapping between a source and target domain, on the one hand, and promotes a striking method of expression to relay the metaphor, on the other hand.
The broad stylistic issues tackled in unit B11 are supplied with a set of tasks for practical activities across in unit C11, where a number of ideas touched upon in A11, including those on metonymy, are also reintroduced.
C11 deals with exploring metaphors in different kinds of texts. Proceeding with the cognitive-stylistic theme outlined in C10, unit C12 offers a selection of practically oriented activities for exploring in text both metaphor and the related trope, metonymy. The activities suggested by the author make use of a variety of texts because, as justified by the author's observations across the strand, these tropes are endemic to human thought processes.
Sets of thought-provoking tasks for the students are suggested, embracing tasks on explanation, on making up a phrase exchange suitable to contextual circumstances, on trying to predict discourse details, e.g.:
- to explain how it might be said that Bloom thinks 'centrifugally' (p. 151),
- to think about the sort of verbal interaction that would typically take place in the given contextual circumstances (p. 146),
- to try to predict what sort of dialogue would be likely to ensure between the two men should they decide to talk to one another, etc.
The particular emphasis is placed on predictions which appear to be a most creative exercise developing the reader's awareness, enabling the reader to capture the message together with the employed-for-the-purpose technique, e.g.:
- to try to predict what sort of discourse strategies are likely to be used by the respective parties in interaction,
- to try to predict what sort of terms of address or politeness tactics would characterize this sort of interaction,
- to try to predict what sort of topics of discourse would be considered suitable in this interactive context (p. 146).
All those and sets of other stimulating tasks will, no doubt, be of great help to the students in understanding which type of stylistic technique is very much the essence of a work under scrutinity.
Throughout all the four sections of the book, and in the Reading section in particular, the emphasis is laid on the importance of supplementing the student's work in stylistics by reference to original scholarly sources (p. 164). It is very important that the author is well aware of the fact that some advanced scholarship is time and again not particularly accessible and its relevance to the task in hand is not immediately apparent. Taking it into consideration, P. Simpson has managed to assemble in his book a broad selection of generally relevant work that has been carried out by prominent stylisticians from around the world.
The readings cover an extremely wide array of texts, topics and issues. P. Simpson makes it a point arguing that close and extensive reading will always be rewarded. The evident reasoning for that consists in the following:
a) it visualizes the necessary historical background of the field,
b) it introduces one into the mainstream tendencies of the research,
c) it displays pros and contras of the sorts of methods and approaches used by different stylisticians,
d) it provides one with a model for how too express oneself.
The book abounds with the terms necessary for studying of stylistics as language discipline. Despite the seeming spontaneity of emergence of terms in the text of 'Stylistics', their treatments are characterized by depth and elegance.
Alongside with the frequent linguistic terms and notions marching from page to page in dictionaries and manuals (allegory, epithet, ellipsis, flashback, genre, tautology, etc.) the author draws the unsophisticated reader's attention to such exquisite terms as haiki poem, hapax legfomo-non, holonymic agency, etc., the visualization of which appears to satisfy the reader.
The author's personal language is a sample of style full of taste and balance. Idiomatic and non-the-less natural manner of presentation strikes me not only as an absorbed reader but as well as a linguist. The phrases 'you shall know a word by the company it keeps' (p. 48), a simple rule of thumb of speech (p. 86), the FIT strand 'kicks in' (p. 87), 'cognitive models at the heart of which' (p. 91), a bird's eye view (p. 100), derive from the company the words keep (p. 101), refused point blank (p. 107), stylistic 'bare bones'
(p. 119), language 'on the page' (p. 121), the 'hard boiled' detective novel (p. 128), a venerable term (p. 158), to get... to the heart of metaphor (p. 159), etc. mold Simpson's narration into an easy-going natural dialogue engaging the reader as an involved partner.
Approving the peaks of linguistic level in Simpson's book, capturing the latest major developments in corpus, cognitive and multimodal approaches to the study of style, and its invaluable didactic and pragmatic approach alongside with the brilliancy of the style of the author himself, I would still take a risk and advise to include into the readings some glimpses of such innovative author as Anita Naciscione with her original penetrations into the depth of phraseological stylistics [2] and such representative of Germanic phraseology as Rosemarie Gläser [4] as well as such classics of eastern European school of linguistics as Ilya Galperin [5] and Alexander Kunin [6, 7].
Absorbing reading, striking innovations (a new web strand among them), elegancy of style - all that is found in the book. Presenting an abyss of fresh ideas the book is undoubtedly worth close reading and rereading and serving as an accessible overview of the subject as well as an entirely reliable manual on the studies of the style for students.
From principal stylistic notions to strategies for stylistic analysis, research and writing, Paul Simpson provides an engaging introduction to the most important aspects of studying English stylistics as well as stylistics in English.
Every line of 'Stylistics' is sure to urge immediate thought. It is a pity there is no room in this limited review for further discussion which I hope will be maintained by other readers of Simpson's valuable book the importance of which lies in its originality and applicability.
It happened so that I first got across Paul Simpson's 'Stylistics' in Kosice in late August - early September, while convening some Seminars on English phraseology for the biennial conference of the European Society for the Study of English - ESSE 2014. And the book came as a revelation upon me, and later upon a number of my disciples. And now it has taken the pride of the place in my library.
References
1. Fedulenkova, T.: Phraseological Abstraction. In Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Ap-
proaches to Phraseology, Ed. T. Fedulenkova Arkhangelsk, Aarhus: Pomorsky State
University, 42-54 (2009)
2. Naciscione, A.: Phraseological Units in Discourse: Towards Applied Stylistics Riga: Latvi-
an Academy of Culture (2001)
3. Fedulenkova, T.: Phraseological Units in Discourse: Towards Applied Stylistics by Anita
Naciscione. Riga: Latvian Academy of Culture, pp. xi + 283, ISBN 9984 95 19 01. In
Language and Literature London, 12 (1), 86-89 (2003)
4. Gläser, R. : Linguistic Features and Genre Profiles of Scientific English Frankfurt-am-Mein,
Berlin, Bern, New Zork, Paris, Wein: Peter Lang (1995)
5. Galperin, I.: English Stylistics Ed. by L.R. Todd. Moscow: KRASAND (2014)
6. Kunin, A.V.: Kurs frazeologii sovremennogo angliyskogo jazyka. Moskva: Vysshaya shko-
la (1996)
7. Kunin, A.W.: Zur primären Phraseologisierung (am Material der englischen Sprache). In
Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der KMU Leipzig: Untersuchungen zur deutschen Phraseologie. Jg. 30. H. 5, 437-443 (1981)
Tatiana Fedulenkova
Information about the author:
Fedulenkova T.N. - Doctor of Philology, Professor, Department of Foreign Languages of Professional Communication, Vladimir State University (Vladimir, Russia), Member of the Russian Professorial Board (Certificate No. 64), Member of the Scientific Council on philological sciences of RPB, Correspondent member of RANH (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: fedu-lenkova@list.ru
Received 11 October 2018
