Stylistics in Transition: From Classical Rhetoric to Critical Digital Semiotics

This paper traces the disciplinary evolution of stylistics from its classical rhetorical foundations to its contemporary engagement with AI-driven digital semiotics. Rooted in Greco-Roman and Arabic traditions, early stylistics emphasized eloquence, ethical persuasion, and structural harmony. The rise of linguistic stylistics in the twentieth century introduced systematic models such as foregrounding, deviation, and systemic-functional grammar, which reoriented the field toward the empirical analysis of form–function relations. Subsequent developments in reader-response theory and critical discourse analysis expanded the field’s ideological and social dimensions. The digital turn brought computational methods: natural language processing, stylometry, and machine learning. These enabled large-scale stylistic analysis across genres and languages-yet also introduced risks of interpretive flattening and methodological reductionism. In response, this study proposes an integrative stylistic model encompassing rhetorical-hermeneutic, linguistic-structural, critical-ideological, and computational–semiotic dimensions. Guided by reflexivity, modularity, and epistemic humility, the model facilitates culturally and ethically sensitive analysis, particularly for spiritually significant texts. The study concludes that while AI extends the scope of stylistic inquiry, interpretive agency remains irreducibly human. Thus, stylistics must navigate technological innovation without relinquishing its humanistic and interdisciplinary core.