Chapter 4: levels of style

We shall examine language as a communication system and how language operates in fictional and
.non-fictional contexts

:Language as a cognitive code 4.1

We often use the analogy of language as a code. As a code, language then is multileveled. There are
.four levels of organization and analysis in language. They are as follows

1. The level of phonology in spoken language.

2. The level of semantics that is concerned with meaning.
3. The bridge between the level of semantics and the level of phonology or the graphology is
the level of syntax.
4. The level of graphology in written language.

Syntax is the level of lexico-grammatical code that works as a mediator between structures of
meaning and structures of sounds or graphs.

Language is regarded as a way of translating meanings in the speaker's mind into sounds or graphs
and vice versa. Therefore, we call the process of translating meanings in the speaker's mind into
sounds or graphs 'encoding' and the process of translating sounds or graphs into meanings
'decoding'. Fig 4.1 represents how language operates as a coding system. (Page 121)

If there are two sentences that are equivalent in terms of the message encoded, this does not mean
that they are equivalent in terms of their significance. In order to explore the stylistic values, we
need to determine the significance which is not part of the code, but it is produced through the use
of the code.

In order to identify the effect of any stylistic choice, determining whether some features of
language are equivalent or not in terms of the code can be helpful. For example, 'often' and
'frequently' are two syntactic encodings of the same meaning. They are synonymous. 'hard' has at
least two different senses: one which is the opposite of easy and another which is the opposite of
soft. Therefore, 'hard' is ambiguous or polysemous.

:Messages and models of reality 4.2

In general, a code is a means through which a message is delivered. In order to understand what is
meant by message in linguistics, we need to shed light on the distinction between sense and
reference through examples: "the morning star" and "the evening star" are two senses referring to
one referent which is Venus. "yesterday" is one sense but can have variable referents.

(1) John Smith's birthday was on the twenty-fourth of June.

(2) Yesterday was my birthday.
If we have a look at these two sentences, we will find out that they are different in sense but it is
possible that they have the same reference and the same truth value if the speaker of (2) was John
Smith and he said (1) on the twenty-fifth of June. In this case, we can say that (1) and (2) have the
same message. The 'message' of an utterance is what it conveys about the real world.

The source from which the message comes is what is called 'model of reality'. It is carried inside our
heads and has all the things we know, believe or understand to be the case in the real world. When
we inform someone something through language, we retrieve a message from our model of reality
and by means of encoding and decoding the message is transferred to the addressee, who in turn
fits the message into his own model of reality. There are real model of reality and mock realities of
fiction. The mock reality of fiction has its points of overlap with our model of the real world.

:An example: Katherine Mansfield 4.3

.It is a sentence from her story A Cup of Tea

".The discreet door shut with a click"

:The semantic level 4.3.1

:Other variants of the original sentence can be as follows

.The discreet door closed with a click ]1[

The meaning of 'shut' differs from that of 'close' as 'shut' focuses on the completion of the event.in
addition, we should notice that the phrase 'with a click' implies that the door was shut without
great force. In other words, the door was shut gently and with respect, which is more socially
.acceptable

.There was a click as the discreet door shut ]2[

This sentence has two clauses. The separation of the 'shutting' and 'clicking' in two clauses has the
effect of making the click come before the shutting, thus reversing the normal precedence of cause
to effect. Additionally, this would give greater importance to the shutting of the door than
.necessary

.The discreet door was shut with a click ]3[

The replacement of the IT verb 'shut' by the passive form 'was shut' tells us that there is a doer.
Perhaps the doer is the shopkeeper but we are not quite sure that he shut it. It seems that the
author has left things vague on purpose by choosing the intransitive verb to serve two purposes
intended by the writer: the first is that high-class shops have doors open and shut almost by
themselves and the second is that the heroine moves confidently not caring whether there are
.servants closing the door for her or not

.The door discreetly shut with a click ]4[

Changing the adjective into adverb minimizes the force of the original sentence. The original
.sentence makes it seem as if the shopkeeper's behavioral qualities have imparted to the door

:The syntactic level 4.3.2

Semantic variants involve differences of expression (of syntax and phonology/ graphology)

.With a click the discreet door shut ]5[

The adverbial with a click) being placed before the rest of the sentence makes us aware of the click
.before the shutting which caused it

.The discreet door clicked shut ]6[

The change of syntactic form in spite of making the sentence more concise has undesirable
.phonological consequences

:The graphological level 4.3.3

.The discreet door shut - with a click ]7[

This punctuation would have made some difference. It makes the 'click' seem important in its own
.right. Also, it divides the reader's attention between the two events instead of uniting them

Graphological variation is relatively minor or superficial part of style concerning such matters as
.spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, etc

Some writers, such as Sterne, Dickens and Joyce are interested in unconventional graphology as
.they believe in the expressive power of the written symbol

:A justification for studying stylistic variants 4.4

Examining variants of the same message and comparing these unwritten alternatives with the
original makes us focus more on the stylistic value of each variant and explain in a way what
happens in the process of composition and also what happens in the reader's mind while
.interpreting the text

There are two voices of protest against this experience. The first suggests that this is a kind of
disrespect and disturbance to the text since what is written is written and no might-have- beens
enter into it. A possible reply to this protest is that exploring unrealized possibilities can help us
define the writer's achievement. The second suggests that this is more of a laboratory experiment
and no one has time or inclination to put a literary text under the microscope. The reply to this
protest is that the importance of doing so lies in the fact that it can sharpen observation and make
.us aware of the how larger effects are built up from smaller ones
4.5 Levels and functions:

Style, like language itself, is multileveled; therefore, the model of style adopted is 'pluralist' as it
allows stylistic choices to be made through three distinct levels: semantic, syntactic and
.graphological

The pluralist view of style is associated with the plurality of language functions which are introduced
.by Halliday

In brief, we have two different kinds of plurality with regard to style. They can be diagrammed as
.follows

Plurality of coding levels (B) plurality of functions )A(

Ideational Semantic

Interpersonal Syntactic

Textual Graphological

There is no one-to-one correspondence between levels and functions. The levels belong to language
as a cognitive coding system, whereas the functions are concerned with how this system is used for
communicative purposes. It is worth mentioning that stylistic variation is concerned with the three
.coding levels while stylistic value is concerned with the three functions

:Style and qualitative foregrounding 4.6

In the foregrounding model, stylistic value has a different meaning from that which it has in 'stylistic
variants' model: it refers to our interpretation in order to make sense of what may appear as
strange. Qualitative foregrounding raises the question: why does the writer decide to express
himself in this exceptional way? Like stylistic variants, foregrounding features include sense
.deviations as in tropes and also exceptional patterns of structure