语言学,文学术语

语言学、文学术语

September, 2009 1.style（风格），any specific way of using language, which is characteristic of an

author, school, period, or※genre. Particular styles may be defined by their※diction,※syntax,※imagery,※rhythm, and use of※figures, or by any other linguistic feature. Different categories of style have been named after particular authors (e.g. Ciceronian), periods (e.g.※Augustan), and professions (e.g.

journalistic), while in the※Renaissance a scheme of three stylistic ‘level’was adopted, distinguishing the high or ‘grand’ style from the middle or ‘mean’ style and the low or ‘base’ style. The principle of※decorum held that certain subjects required particular levels of style, so that an epic should be written in the grand style whereas※satires should be composed in the base style. Since the literary revolution of※Romanticism, however, this hierarchy has been replaced by the notion of style as an expression of individual personality.

2.stylistics（文体学）, a branch of modern linguistics devoted to the detailed analysis

of literary style, of the linguistic choices made by speakers and writers in non-literary contexts.

3.diction（措词）, the choice of words used in a literary work. A writer’s diction may

be characterized, for example by archaism, or by※Latinate or Anglo-Saxon derivations; and it may be described according to the oppositional formal/colloquial, abstract and/concrete, and literal/ figurative.

4.syntax（句法）, the way in which words and clauses are ordered and connected so

as to form sentences; or the set of grammatical rules governing such word-order.

Syntax is a major determinant of literary style: while simple English sentences usually have the structure ‘subject-verb-object’ (e.g. Jane strangled the cat), poets often distort this syntax through inversion, while prose writers can exploit elaborate syntactic structures such as※periodic sentence.

5.imagery（意象，意象的运用）, a rather vague critical term covering those uses of

language in a literary work that evokes sense-impressions by literal or figurative reference to perceptible or ‘concrete’ objects, scenes, actions, or states, as distinct from the language of abstract argument or exposition. The imagery of a literary work thus comprises of a set of images that it uses; these need not be mental ‘pictures’, but may appeal to senses other than sight. The term has often been applied particularly to the figurative language used in a work, especially to its※metaphor and※similes. Images suggesting further meanings and associations in ways that go beyond the fairy simple identifications of metaphor and simile are often called※symbols. The critical emphasis on imagery in the mid-20th century, both in※New Criticism and in some influential studies of Shakespeare, tended to glorify the supposed concreteness of literary works by ignoring matters of structure, convention, and abstract argument: thus Shakespeare’s plays were read as clusters or patterns of ‘thematic imagery’according to the predominance of particular kinds of image (of animals, disease, etc.) without reference to the action or the dramatic meaning of characters’ speeches.