Secondly, there is the style of stylistics in relation to peculiar use of language and the analytical procedure here leads us to what is popular known as language varieties in a circle of language experts.
Principles of Stylistics
There are three major principles of stylistics they are: foregrounding, Norm and Deviation. We shall begin to explain them one after the other.
FOREGROUNDING
This term was first used by a man called Jan Mulcanovsky. By the way, foregrounding refers to the factors of deviating from linguistic and literary norms. Deviation itself is a de-automatisation of familiar linguistic and literary pattern. It means there are certain words we use everyday as if automatic. Foregrounding will then do reversal i.e. de-automatise such automatic words, e.g. University students are unbeautiful.
Again foregrounding is used to thematise certain words or linguistic item. In this case, a structure or words foregrounded acquire prominence or significance in a text as a result of making use of certain aspect of the language. Thus, if a writer or a speaker frequently uses adjectives that indicate or suggest vibrancy, and analyst would see this as an attempt to mimic or ape a particular situation being described or presented. In similar manner, the prepondance of lexical item may be deployed to paint an atmosphere of serenity or calmness. In the same vein, sounds can be repeatedly use for the same purpose.
It should be noted that there are two forms of foregrounding. They are:
- Deviational foregrounding
- Non-deviational foregrounding
The non-deviational type of foregrounding is a structure that acquires a prominent significance in a text as a result of making use of certain aspect of language. Example is such a systematic repeated/or prepondent manner that attracts the attention of a reader; Dr Fatunsi is a lion-hearted chief, Dr Fatunsi is a dogged fighter who never discourages until victory is attempted, Dr. Fatunsi ……, Dr Fatunsi ….., whereas, the deviational type draws its own attraction if the readers attention is drawn by a way of violating the rules and norms of the pattern.
In foregrounding there is also what is called prominence. Michael Halliday observes that foregrounding is prominence, that is motivated. So we can have motivated and unmotivated prominence. It is the motivated prominence that goes with foregrounding. If a linguistic item is motivated we say it is significant for meaning and if not, it is not significant for meaning. Therefore, before a particular item/unit can be considered as foregrounding, it needs to be firstly analysed so as to find out the norms in order to discover a prominence or foregrounded structure. Lexical items can only be foregrounded.
Norms
Norm is an established pattern within a text. The norm of language as a whole is solely concerned with linguistic levels of language, such as the grammar, phonology, lexical structure and graphology.
There are different types of norms. They are: General norm, authorian norm and lexical norm.
General norm:
This means in effect when writing we must observe the norms that relate to that type of text. If you are writing a poem, certain norms must be observed e.g. using verses, starting each line with capital letter, rhyming pattern especially in conventional writing. The Sonnets has a norm that it has to be fourteen lines divided into octave and sestet. In drama, we have characters engaging in dialogue, the dialogue may be spoken or unspoken.Authorian norm:
This is the norm the author has created by himself. Example is E. E. Cummings does not use capital letter at all and he does not use punctuation marks. George Benard Shaw has his own norms and one of such is his lengthy stage directions which can go into stages before the real action.Lexical norm:
This is a situation where a writer creates a norm for himself in a particular work. It is almost the same as authorial norm. The has to do with/way the writer uses words.
Deviation
Deviation is the breaking of rules which others obey. Poetry as a genre is a deviation from the ordinary language, though, despite the poetic deviation, poetry skill has its own rules and norms which separate it from ordinary language and therefore creates its own pattern. In literary circle, deviation is taken as poetic license or writer's license and it should be noted that deviation could occur at various linguistic level. We can have grammatical lexical, phonological, semantic and textual deviation.
At the graphological deviational level, we focus on the breaking of rules relating to punctuation marks on starting a proper name with a small letter e.g. E.E. Cumming's work:
"spoke joe to jack
leave her alone
she is not your gal"
At the level of phonology, deviation can also occur when you use the sound patterns of language which deviate from the ordinary language sound patterns. It may be to attract attention e.g. instead of girl, you say gal.
Rhymy scheme can also be a form of deviation from the ordinary language e.g. Rime of the ancient manner” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Lexical deviation - At the lexical level, deviation occur when a word is over-use in a line or when there is collocation clash or when a strange lexical item is brought in. for example, the item or lexical item such as "allow" "pirate" are peculiar to a particular setting and are used in deviation to the normal use of the word.
Deviation can be in form of introduction of new words into the language e.g.
"If you like her so much why don"t you “kuku” marry him', "se you hear her".
What happen here is called macaronism which means put in more than one language.
The deviation could be grammatical i.e. deviating from the rule of the grammar of a language e.g. instead of saying
"Mad don" you say "Don mad". This is for the purpose of the matisation. This grammatical deviation is also called syntactic deviation.
Semantic deviation operates at the level of meaning e.g. "Three hearty cheers to our eighty year Abiku". The deviation here is semantic because an Abiku is not supposed to live that long (80 years).
We also have dialectal deviation e.g. if you put the dialect of Akure into the mouth of an Hausa, then there is a dialectual deviation. Some people can not articulate well such speech sounds as /S/ /tS/. This is provincial.
