Stylistika

Stylistika, or stylistics, is the study of how linguistic choices produce meaning, effect, and authorial voice in texts. It analyzes the relationship between form and content, focusing on the stylistic resources that shape interpretation, tone, and audience response. The field spans literary stylistics, which examines poetry, prose, and drama, and general stylistics, which analyzes language style across genres and registers.

Key topics include diction, syntax, phonology, figurative language, tone, point of view, and narrative voice; stylistic devices such as metaphor, metonymy, alliteration, and parallelism; and the organization of discourse, coherence, and texture. Styles are studied diachronically (historical change) and synchronically (in a given text or genre). Methods range from close reading and qualitative analysis to corpus-based and quantitative approaches in cognitive and functional stylistics.

Historical development: stylistics has roots in the Praguian and Russian formalist traditions, as well as in modern linguistic approaches that separate style from grammar and semantics. Contemporary stylistics often integrates pragmatics, discourse analysis, literary theory, translation studies, and media studies.

Applications include authorial attribution, translation strategy, reception studies, and critical analysis of advertising and political rhetoric. While closely related to linguistics and literary studies, stylistics emphasizes the purposeful use of language and its interpretive effects rather than prescriptive rules.