Stylistics and ideological Perspectives

The stylistic analysis can direct attention to specific linguistic features in a text and so provide textual substantiation for the different kinds of literary effect it might have on the reader .This results as an individual interpretation of literary texts. This literary effect is a matter of realizing the potential in the text for creating new contexts and representing alternative realities.

We bring to this process of realization the cognitive and emotive experiences we have built up in the course of our personal lives, which in turn generates an individual and thereby always divergent reading. Individuality is also a social construct: it develops in response to, or in reaction to, various sociocultural influences. Their response to literary texts is necessarily influenced by the socicultural values, and beliefs that define these groups according to their ideologies.

This is a shift from an individual to a social reading. Consider ,for example, the poem by John Betjeman: She puts her finger on his as, loving and silly. At long-past Kensington dances she used to do 'It 's cheaper to take the tube to Piccadilly There is a dominant ideologies about the role of women in the society of the time. (the poem was published in 1954) She is the only one who does anything ( the rest of the poem is about the man's state of mind) but her her only action is ' She puts her finger on his' . Her superficiality seems to be further borne out by what she says.

In the poem there are two examples of speech and thought representation. It is clear that the first expresses not what the man actually says, but the kinds of thoughts that are running through his head: 'Oh merciless, hurrying Londoners!.Why was I made For the long and painful deathbed coming to me?'

The second example appears contrastively The second example appears contrastively. This is an direct speech which gives the direct trivial speech of the wife: 'It 's cheaper to take the tube to Piccadilly And then we can catch a nineteen or a twenty-two' The wife stands timidly by ,not involved, but marginalized. It is the man 's sensations and emotions that are represented. She ,on the contrary, seems to be capable of a superficial response. This shows an ideological perspective.

How far is a literary work to be preferred or rejected on the grounds of the kind of reality it represents? To what extent should a commitment to a particular sociopolitical position explicitly inform stylistic analysis and the critical evaluation of literary works? Incorporation of literary criticism into linguistic criticism: Literary texts can be construed as verbalizations of sociocultural and political values.

All texts are verbalizations of this kind: Advertisements, newspaper reports, guidebooks, and so on. All of them can be construed as social documents in which ideological positions are implicitly or explicitly expressed.

Critical discourse analysis (CDA): The process of activation on a text by relating it to a context of use is called discourse. Then the discourse is politicized by assuming that linguistic choices in texts are consciously or unconsciously motivated by particular value systems and beliefs. The resulting discourses are therefore always presented from some ideological perspective. This politicization is the business of what is called Critical linguistics, or Critical discourse analysis.

British newspapers are also a source of political ideologies. A critical linguistic might be intrigued by the following headlines: Wake up you lot PM's modernize or fail ultimatum to fellow leaders (The Sun ,July 31, 2001) REFORM OR EUR DOOMED BLAIR tells EU to get in shape for euro ( The Mirror, July 31,2001)

* These headlines are not so much with Blair 's plea for economic reforms in the European Union as with the emotional and divisive issue of Britain signing up to the single currency ,the euro. *Both headlines appeal to the reader's awareness of sound association: both exploit phonetic similarities, 'EUR' and 'you 're', and ' EU' and 'you ' respectively. * Both headlines represent a speaking voice. This raises the question of : - Whose voice we are hearing , and therewith -Whose perspective adopted. -Who is being addressed.

The question who is being addressed is highly ambivalent *The question who is being addressed is highly ambivalent. The actual addressees are the readers ,but that they will interpret the message of the headlines as being aimed at the European Union. - The phonetic ambiguity of 'EUR' and 'you 're', and ' EU' and 'you. - REFORM OR EUR DOOMED - Wake up you lot May be interpreted as an urgent appeal to the readers to think before they say yes to an euro-put their trust in a government that will make Britain join the Euro- zone.

* CDA's commitment to expose the way in which language in use mediates a hidden ideological representation of the world. * In CDA, (1) Are readers just passive receptacles? , Or (2) Are they active agents, producing their own representations? The latter is the way in which readers are regarded in literary stylistics.

Concluding Remarks: Specific linguistic features of a text can serve not only to substantiate an impressionistic sense of meaning , but also to suggest the possibilities of reading different interpretations into a text, of both an individual or social significance. Stylistics shows up how the very richness of languages a source for making meaning makes this meaning unstable, uncertain, and elusive.