Stilologie

Stilologie is the study of style in language and text, focusing on how linguistic choices shape meaning, tone, and social voice. It covers both literary stylistics and the broader analysis of language style in speech, writing, and various media. Stilologie seeks to describe how authors and speakers select words, syntactic structures, rhythm, and rhetorical devices to achieve particular effects, such as persuasion, humor, or authority.

The field examines a range of concepts, including register, genre, narrator or authorial voice, and audience design. Key elements often analyzed in stilologie include diction (word choice), syntax (sentence structure), cohesion and coherence, figurative language, tone, and the use of stylistic devices such as metaphor, alliteration, or irony. Researchers may study how style varies across contexts, communities, time periods, or genres, and how it signals roles, identity, or stance.

Methods in stilologie blend linguistic description with literary and discourse analysis. Approaches can be qualitative, relying on close reading and interpretive frameworks, or quantitative, using corpora and stylometric techniques to identify patterns of style across texts or authors. Interdisciplinary by nature, it draws on linguistics, literary theory, rhetoric, and, in some traditions, philology or cultural studies.

Historically, stilologie overlaps with stylistics and has been developed in various linguistic traditions. In some languages, the term is used interchangeably with stylistics, while in others it may emphasize historical or comparative aspects of textual style. Applications include literary criticism, translation studies, forensic linguistics, and media analysis.