LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

The teaching of stylistics

Nigel Fabb - 29 March 2007

Stylistics is the study of linguistic style, whereas (theoretical) Linguistics is the study of linguistic form. The term 'style' is used in linguistics to describe the choices which language makes available to a user, above and beyond the choices necessary for the simple expression of a meaning. Linguistic form can be interpreted as a set of possibilities for the production of texts, and thereby linguistic form makes possible linguistic style.