Abstract
Applying a stylistic analysis on certain texts refers to the identification of patterns of usage in writing. However, such an analysis is not restricted just to the description of the formal characteristics of texts, but it also tries to elucidate their functional importance for the interpretation of the text. This paper highlights complexity as a hallmark of a stylistic analysis in A Rose for Emily , a short story by William Faulkner (1897-1962). The analysis is done by adopting Halliday's (1985) approach to analyzing complexity in sentence structure; and Lauer, et al's (2008) approach to analyzing narrative from a macro perspective in relation to the story acts. The analysis rests upon the assumption that since form conveys meaning, Faulkner's multilayer usage of complexity is extremely functional. This paper tries also to detect and prove that stylistic complexity is manipulated to convey the main themes, events, and successfully leads to identify the distinctive structure of this story. Keywords: Style, Stylistic Complexity, Hypotactic, Paratactic, Functional
Highlights
Stylistics in literature is the study of the writer's style, i.e., the use of language in literature to examine the general features of language as a medium of literary expressions
It is a branch of general linguistics that focuses on style, in works of literature (Leech, 1969:1)
Jucker (1992: 99) believes that stylistic complexity might result from sentence length which results in turn from pre and post modifications represented in the form of noun phrases
Summary
Stylistics in literature is the study of the writer's style, i.e., the use of language in literature to examine the general features of language as a medium of literary expressions. Stylistic analysis in literary studies is usually made for the purpose of commenting on quality and meaning in a text It is the study of style used in literary language and the effect the writer wishes to communicate to the reader. Another work is that of Fabb's (2004) in dealing with linguistic complexity represented in recursion- or narrative embedding as he calls it, in Margaret Elphinstone's 2001 novel The Sea Road He states that knowing the text structure- sentence structure, acts structure, and the relation between them as a whole, makes the analyst more sensitive to the theme the writer wants to convey; to the nature of the characters; or to main structure of the literary work. This reflects one of the most basic themes of the story: the unspeakable secrecy of aristocratic conservative class women
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