Stylistic Categories for Analysis of Prose/Fiction :

I. General Information: 

          Every analysis of style is an attempt to find the artistic principle underlying a writer's voice of language. Ail writers and all texts have their individual qualities. Therefore the features which recommend themselves to the attention in one text will not necessarily be important in another text by the same or a different author. There is no infallible technique for selecting what is significant. We have to make ourselves newly aware for each text, of the artistic effect of the whole, and the way linguistic details fit into this whole.

II. Stylistic Categories : 

          The categories are placed under four general headings : lexical categories, grammatical categories, figures of speech, and cohesion and context. Semantic categories are not listed separately, since it is easier to arrive at these through other categories. It is also in the nature of things that categories will overlap, so that the same feature may well be noted under different headings.

(i) Lexical Categories : 

(Here, you have mentioned lexical items. The following questions can be taken as hints).

1. General. 

          Is the vocabulary simple or complex? formal or colloquial? descriptive or evalu-ative? general or specific? How far does the writer make use of the emotive and other associations of words, as opposed to their referential meaning? Does the text contain idiomatic phrases, and if so, with what kind of dialect or register are these idioms associated? Is there any use of rare or specialized vocabulary? Are any particular morphological categories noteworthy (eg compound words, words with particular suffixes)? To what semantic fields do words belong?

2. Nouns. 

          Are the nouns abstract or concrete? What kinds of abstract nouns occur (eg nouns referring to events, perceptions, processes, moral qualities, social qualities)? What use is made of proper names and collective nouns?

3. Adjectives.

           Are the adjectives frequent? To what kinds of attribute do adjectives refer? physical? psychological? visual? auditory? colour? referential? emotive? evaluative? etc. Are adjectives restrictive or non-restrictive? gradable or non-gradable? attributive or predicative?

4. Verbs:

           Do the verbs carry an important part of the meaning? Are they stative (referring to states) or dynamic (referring to actions, events, etc.)? Do they refer' to movements, physical acts, speech acts, psychological states or activities, perceptions, etc? Are they transitive, in-transitive, linking (intensive) etc? Are they factive or non-factive?

5. Adverbs:

           Are adverbs frequent? What semantic functions do they perform (manner, place, direction, time, degree, etc)? Is there any significant use of sentence adverbs (conjucts such as so, therefore, however, disjuncts such as certainly, obviously, frankly)? 

(ii) Grammatical Categories :

1. Sentence Types:

           Does the author use only statements (declarative sentences), or does he also use questions, commands, exclamations, or minor sentence type (such as sentences with no verb)? If these other types are used, what is their function

2. Sentence Complexity: 

          Do sentences on the whole have a simple or a complex struc-ture? What is the average sentence length (in number of words)? What is the ratio of dependent to independent clauses? Does complexity vary strikingly from one sentence to another? Is complexity mainly due to (1) coordination, ii) subordination, iii) parataxis (juxtaposition of clauses or other equivalent structures)? In what parts of a sentence does complexity tend to occur? For instance, is there any notable occurrence of anticipatory structure (eg of complex subjects preceding the verbs, of dependent clauses preceding the subject of a main clause)?

3. Clause Type: 

          What type of dependent clause are favoured: relative clauses, adverbial clauses, different types of nominal clauses (that - clauses, wh - clauses, etc)? Are reduced or non-finitive clauses commonly used, and if so, of what type are they (infinitive clauses, - ing clauses, -ed clauses, verbless clauses)?

4. Clause Structure : 

          Is there anything significant about clause elements (eg frequency or objects, complements, adverbials; of transitive or intransitive verb constructions)? Are there any unusual orderings (initial adverbials, fronting of object or complement, etc)? Do special kinds of clause construction occur (such as those with preparatory it or there)!

5. Noun Phrases : 

          Are they relatively simple or complex? Where does the complexity lie (in pre-modification by adjectives, nouns, etc, or in post-modification by prepositional phrases, relative clauses, etc.)? Note occurrence of listening (eg sequences of adjectives), coordina-tion, or opposition.

6. Verb Phrases: 

          Are there any significant departures from the use of the simple past tense? For example, notice occurrences and functions of the present tense; of the progressive aspect (eg was lying); of the perfective aspect (eg has/had appeared); of modal auxiliaries (eg can, must, would, etc).

7. Other Phrase Types: 

          Is there anything to be said about other phrase types : prepositional phrases, adverb phrases, adjective phrases?

8. Word Classes : 

          Having already considered major or lexical word classes, we may here consider minor word classes (function words") : prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, deter. miners, auxiliaries, interjections. Are particular words of these types used for particular effect (eg the definite or indefinite article; first person pronouns I, we, etc; demonstratives such as this and that; negative words such as not, nothing, no)?

9. General: 

          Note here whether any general types of grammatical construction are used to special effect; eg comparative or superlative constructions; coordinative or listing construc-tions; parenthetical constructions; appended or interpolated structures such as occur in casual speech. Do lists and co-ordinations (eg lists of nouns) tend to occur with two, three or more than three members?

(iii) Figures of Speech, etc. :

1. General and Lexical Schemes: 

          Are there any cases of formal and structural repetition (anaphora, parallelism, etc) or of mirror-image patterns (chiasmus? Is the rhetorical effect of these one of antithesis, reinforcement, climax, anticlimax, etc?

2. Phonological Schemes: 

          Are there any phonological patterns of rhyme, alliteration, as-sonance, etc? Are there any salient rhythmical patterns? Do vowels and consolants sounds pattern or cluster in particular ways? How do these phonological features interact with mean-ing?

3. Tropes: 

          Are there any obvious violations of, or departures from the linguistic code? For example, are there any neologisms (such as Americanly)? deviant lexical collocations (such as portentous infants)? semantic, syntactic, phonological, or graphological deviations?

          Such deviations with often be the clue to special interpretations associated with traditional figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, paradox, irony.

          If such tropes occur, what kind of special interpretation is involved (eg metaphor can be classified as personifying, animizing, concretizing, synaesthetic, etc)? Because of its close connection with metaphor, simile may also be considered here. Does the text contain any similies, or similar constructions (eg'as if constructions)? What dissmilar semantic fields are related through simile?

 (iv) Context and Cohesion :

1. Cohesion: 

          Does the text contain logical or other links between sentences (eg coordinating conjunctions, or linking adverbials)? Or does it tend to rely on implicit connections of meaning? What sort of use is made of cross-reference by pronouns (she, it, they, etc.) ? by substitute forms (do, so etc, or ellipsis? Alternatively, is any use made of elegant variation - the avoidance of repetition by the substitution of a descriptive phrase (as, for example, the old lawyer or "her uncle' may substitute for the repetition of an earlier "Mr Jones)?

2. Context :

           Does the writer address the reader directly, or through the words or thoughts of some fictional character What linguistic clues (eg first-person pronouns, l, me, my mine) are here of the addresser-addressee relationship? What attitude does the author imply towards his subject? If a character's words or thoughts are represented, is this done by direct quotation (direct speech) or by some other method (eg indirect speech, free indirect speech)? Are there significant changes of style according to who is supposedly speaking or thinking the words on the page?