Stylistics and Contemporary Fiction

Stylistics is the study of language patterns in texts and of the meaningful relationship between linguistic choice and literary interpretation. Stylisticians apply the most up to date theories from linguistics and language study to analyse both the production and interpretation of texts and aim to o ff er precise, robust and non-impressionistic accounts of literary reading. The discipline ’ s roots can be traced right back to classical studies of rhetoric and, in the twentieth century, to traditions and practices developed in both Europe (e.g., Formalism, Structuralism) and the United States (e.g., New Criticism) all of which made the language of the text being analysed a central consideration. Over time, stylisticians have continued to draw on the latest insights from linguistics, adopting those theories, methods and frameworks which have proved to have the most currency and, above all, are inherently practical. In a practices and principles for the fi eld been identi