1、Significance of Studies of Stylistics and RhetoricStylistics is a scientific study of style. The word style used in the definition refers to a distinctive or characteristic manner of expression in language. By identifying and analysing both the effects and processes in employing the devices in langu
2、ages such as rhetorical figures as Active Rhetorical Means and syntactical patterns, as Passive Rhetorical Means. Stylistics also attempts to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language, such as socialisation, the p
3、roduction and reception of meaning, critical discourse analysis and literary criticism.Other features of stylistics include the use of dialogue, including regional accents and peoples dialects, descriptive language, the use of grammar, such as the active voice or passive voice, the distribution of s
4、entence lengths, the use of particular language registers, etc. In addition, stylistics is a distinctive term that may be used to determine the connections between the form and effects within a particular variety of language. Therefore, stylistics looks at what is going on within the language; what
5、the linguistic associations are that the style of language reveals.Rhetoric is “the art practice or science the study of communication in words“; it means literally the art of oratory, for in the former times, communication was carried on through speaking. Later it is generally believed that the pri
6、nciples and rules of composition should be encapsulated in the art of oratory, because the artistic use of language derives from well-composed scripts.Contemporary studies of rhetoric address a more diverse range of domains than was the case in ancient times. While classical rhetoric trained speaker
7、s to be effective persuaders in public forums and institutions like courtrooms and assemblies, contemporary rhetoric investigates human discourse writ large. Rhetoricians have studied the discourses of a wide variety of domains, including the natural and social sciences, fine art, religion, journali
8、sm, digital media, fiction, history, cartography, and architecture, along with the more traditional domains of politics and the law. Public relations, lobbying, law, marketing, professional and technical writing, and advertising are modern professions that employ rhetorical practitioners.1.1Great He
9、lp in Expression and Understanding of LanguagesOn one side of communication, encoding or expressing ones ideas, different people sharing the same geographical surroundings and social/cultural background might have different accentual, lexical and syntactic preferences; the same types or genres of di
10、scourses spoken by the similar group of writers/speakers might assume different prosodic features or tones to their favorite, not to mention different groups of writers/speakers possibly employing different manners in expressing similar notions. One of the most important considerations for writers/s
11、peaker to worry about is whether the desired meaning is being conveyed effectively in their own style.On the other side of communication, decoding or understanding the texts or discourses conveyed, listeners/readers have sought every possible clue or hint to comprehend or perceive the texts or disco
12、urses. Irony, for example, is a figure of speech, a kind of active means to express ones meaning intended opposite to the literal sense. There are various kinds of figures of speech, many different make oneself understood. Those means and devices are the subject matte of stylistics and rhetoric, any
13、 of which could be analyzed in meaning retrieval and comprehension of texts, let alone facial expressions in visual conversations and typographic or semiotic symbols employed in written texts and discourses.1.2Great Help in Employing Achievements in Literary Criticism and LinguisticsStylistics knowl
14、edge helps readers and critics to read out of meaning from texts. Armed with notions and methodological approaches to any piece of text, readers and critics has ceased to opinionatedly assume the alleged meaning into it, for theories of literary criticism, concerning the literary works, have come to
15、 play a central role in the academic study of the humanities and social sciences. Jacques Derridas Deconstructionism, for example, makes inquiries into authorized structural approach initiated by F. de Saussure by inventing the term difference and thus make people realize the conventional opposition
16、s are, to a great extent, yet to be thoroughly argued before being taken for granted, and foreword its influence onto philosophical reasoning in feminism and power politics. It is universally accepted that linguistics, as has been discussed above in Register or Varieties, has furnished readers and c
17、ritics alike with thorough knowledge of discourse analysis. Stylistics, exploiting the methods used in phonetics, phonology, prosody, lexicology, morphology, and syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, could integrate different disciplines into a complex engineering in contributing to desired, justifiabl
18、e approaches to the reading of any text. 1.3Great Help in Promoting and Developing Computer Science and Information TechnologyThe most function of language is to have information, e.g. ideas, feelings, desires, or other messages communicated to the co-operators. Stylistics has, ever sine the advent
19、of computer application put into practice in routines in offices and at home, become concerned with the essays and other literary works in terms of special styles opposed to the controversial ones. Computer science and Information Technology engineering, thus, enrich the expressing means and extend
20、the vocal symbols and writing, print and physical sighs onto the screen of personal compute in multimedia. Modern stylistics, on the one hand, benefits a lot from the statistics data worked out and gathered by computers, setting stylistic free from counting and sorting out disorderly headaches. On t
21、he other hand, computer science and IT set forth challenging problems and phenomena in e-novels and other literary works for stylistic studies.Nowadays, front-page making and pleasantly colorful language against background in fine designs of web pages in the Internet demonstrate the outcomes of adva
22、nced stylistic studies, for the fact that stylisticians have to make a great variety of versions to compare with the originals in order to identify what the style of this particular text or author is. For example, in order to fully understand the Chinese poem rearranged in the following, the second
23、column, we put it another way in terms of shape of text and during experimenting with the rewriting, we find some words in it, namely, shng(sound),tng(finished),r(in),w(whether not),might imply or suggest some otherwise undiscoverable senses in the verse.Not to mention emails,visible and audile chat
24、ting through the Internet with nonverbal symbols and equipped with the facilities furnished by hard wares and soft wares ,e.g. word processors and other information techniques.People could no longer take publication of their personal opinions as luxurious professional privileges of correspondents an
25、d journalists. Many amateurs go in for designing soft wares to format therr own essay style and shape, and to experimant with concrete poetry opposed to the conventional ways of expression and articulation.In the following are listed three specially patterned poems: the first poem is “she loves me n
26、ot” by Emmett Williams,the second is a Chinese poem rearranged by this book, and the third by e.e. cummings.The second poem literally reads in the Chinese original like this:”Read candles light,in Bridal room last night/To greet Parents-in-laws in court at dawn-light./On cace-painting,to her man she
27、 whispers./Whether her make-up is in prevalence right.”With the rearrangement of the versification,four characters are highlighted by being singled out in red color:shng(sound) ,tng(finished),r(in),w(wethernot),.Vulgar menings are read into the verse.1.4Great Significance in Sharing Heritage of Huma
28、n CivilizationsGreat heritage of man, passed down to the present from generation to generation, from a culture to a culture, keeping witty and philosophical epigrams and maxims in classics, keeps its grace in any community of the world. However, not every nation has an equally long, glorious, and va
29、luable history with uniform antiquities. Any nation should learn from others in borrowing novelties in foreign nations to supply the lack of its own. Stylistics functions as great help in keeping all possible original shades of human heritage by virtue of expressive and special language style in tra
30、nslating exotic antiquities into other literary texts, e.g. various versions of Bible in different languages. And masterpieces of the world, e.g. those by Shakespeare, by Freud, by Karl Marx, by Hegel, by Jacque Derrida, by Saussure, etc. are nearly put into all languages in the world as long as the
31、 nation has her own language. Any good translators, no matter whether they acknowledge or not the help from achievement of stylistics or rhetoric, are definitely heeding verbal effect and style and thus secure a thorough understanding of texts; otherwise they could not render works fully into anothe
32、r language.Stylistics assumes as its own obligatory destination all the possible effective expressions and rhetorical means conveying the senses onto the media in which divine messages passed down from ancestors and from immemorial. It follows therefore that stylistics exerts great significance in rendering and thus sharing heritages of other nations civilizations, hence of the entire human civilizations.Significance of Studies of Stylistics and RhetoricEnglish and Chinese stylistics and rhetoric English Department Wang Huamin 传 2010.10.192010.12.17 Class 4
