On Stylistics (in response to S E Fish)
This article was written as a commentary on the article "What Is Stylistics and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things About It?" by Stanley E Fish. I wrote it while I was studying for a general diploma at Ain Shams University in 2006.
Works of art are not created in a vacuum. They signify a specific meaning the writer has in mind which s/he tries to convey through language. Language form is not a conveyor of meaning unless contextualized. The choices the writer makes from among the different linguistic forms available to him/her are deliberate – unless otherwise stated by the writer him-/herself – on the belief that they help him/her in getting his/her message through. Even if this selection is not deliberate, it comes by naturally and is therefore an evidence of a deep linguistic understanding that has become so natural as to be recalled unconsciously to express specific meanings. As we have learnt from sociolinguistics, no single linguistic form is restricted to conveying a single meaning. Similarly, no one meaning is restrictively assigned to a specific form. The determining factor is context. The practice of stylistics is objective insofar as it excludes interpretations which do not have formal evidence. It can work as a filter to put literary criticism on scientific and objective bases not allowing any interpretation to be just as good as any other interpretation. Readers can interpret a single text differently according to their individual background knowledge and experience. Yet, this reader’s interpretation or that does not necessarily have to be the meaning intended by the writer. In my opinion, this is perhaps what gives a literary work viability over the years. Readers’ interpretation, as far as they are non-specialists, remain bound by what they can infer from lexical items, in the main, and what they can understand from formal features such as verb tense, aspect and modality –which carry meaning in themselves that varies according to predictable possibilities. The business of stylistics, then, is not to restrict readers’ interpretations of what they read, but rather to try to validate, as far as possible, an interpretation as the writer’s actually intended meaning.
Works of art are not created in a vacuum. They signify a specific meaning the writer has in mind which s/he tries to convey through language. Language form is not a conveyor of meaning unless contextualized. The choices the writer makes from among the different linguistic forms available to him/her are deliberate – unless otherwise stated by the writer him-/herself – on the belief that they help him/her in getting his/her message through. Even if this selection is not deliberate, it comes by naturally and is therefore an evidence of a deep linguistic understanding that has become so natural as to be recalled unconsciously to express specific meanings. As we have learnt from sociolinguistics, no single linguistic form is restricted to conveying a single meaning. Similarly, no one meaning is restrictively assigned to a specific form. The determining factor is context. The practice of stylistics is objective insofar as it excludes interpretations which do not have formal evidence. It can work as a filter to put literary criticism on scientific and objective bases not allowing any interpretation to be just as good as any other interpretation. Readers can interpret a single text differently according to their individual background knowledge and experience. Yet, this reader’s interpretation or that does not necessarily have to be the meaning intended by the writer. In my opinion, this is perhaps what gives a literary work viability over the years. Readers’ interpretation, as far as they are non-specialists, remain bound by what they can infer from lexical items, in the main, and what they can understand from formal features such as verb tense, aspect and modality –which carry meaning in themselves that varies according to predictable possibilities. The business of stylistics, then, is not to restrict readers’ interpretations of what they read, but rather to try to validate, as far as possible, an interpretation as the writer’s actually intended meaning.
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