Talbot Taylor's engagement with stylistic theory

Abstract

I review Talbot Taylor’s rigorous critique of stylistic theory (begun as early as his first book in 1981 and resumed periodically, at least implicitly, in the decades since), and speculate as to why it appeared to have little impact on the practice of literary stylistics. Are stylisticians simply too engrossed in the practical and pedagogical commitments of stylistics to be embarrassed by the deep theoretical contradictions Taylor identified? Or perhaps the appearance of disregard is deceptive; perhaps some contemporary stylisticians have accepted the Taylorian theoretical critique, and tacitly recognise that literary stylistics is in essence a highly specialized form of the normative metadiscourse, applied to literary texts, that Taylor has argued lies at the heart of lay linguistics.