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EL4222
Stylistics and drama
You can consult
Katie Wales, A Dictionary of Stylistics (London: Longman, 1989) or,
better, use the second edition (
I can recommend two general textbooks:
Those interested in reading more widely can also consult:
All items in
the reading list should be available in the Recommended Book Room of the Main
Library. (Shaw’s Pygmalion is easily available – even from the Web – eg the Columbia University Bartleby Library, the URL
is http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/shaw/.
I will not give ‘critical’ views of Shaw or Shaffer or Shakespeare until
perhaps towards the end of the module. This is to encourage students to come to
their own readings of the plays. If students want some sort of ‘background’
reading to the plays, there is a range of critical essays on Shaw, Shakespeare
and Shaffer, and fairly easy to find using the library catalogue.
In the following, I give fuller
citations the first time; these will be abbreviated in subsequent mentions.
In all of these, you will be
expected to be selective in your reading, and you might even want to venture
beyond these suggestions.
Session 1
Ronald Carter and Paul Simpson (1989) (eds), Language, Discourse and Literature (London:
Routledge), ‘Introduction’ — this provides a good summary of the history of the
development of stylistics.
Ronald Carter and Peter Stockwell (2008)
(eds), The
Language and Literature Reader (London: Routledge), Chapter 28
(‘Stylistics: retrospect and prospect’)
Lesley Jeffries and Dan McIntyre (2010),
Stylistics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), Chapter 1 (‘Language and style’)
Geoffrey N Leech (2008), Language in Literature: Style and
Foregrounding (London: Longman), Chapter 4 (‘Literary criticism and
linguistic description’)
Paul Simpson (1993), Language,
Ideology and Point of View (London: Routledge, 1993), Chapter 1 — although
the focus is on ‘point of view’, there is a quick and clear introduction to
stylistics and critical linguistics
Peter Tan (1993), A Stylistics of
Drama (Singapore: SUP), pp. 1–13.
Session 2
Keir Elam (1980), The Semiotics of
Theatre and Drama (London: Routledge), Chapter 3 — this is a fairly long
chapter (about 60 pages); skim through it quickly.
Mick Short (1995), ‘Discourse Analysis
and the Analysis of Drama’, in Carter and Simpson, Language, Discourse and
Literature, pp. 138–68 — you may ignore the discussion on speech acts and
the co-operative principle for the moment.
§ (1998), ‘From
dramatic text to dramatic performance’, in Jonathan Culpeper, et al., Exploring
the Language of Drama (London: Routledge), Ch. 2
Peter Tan, A Stylistics of Drama,
Chapter 2 — again, be prepared to skim through the chapter.
Willie van Peer (1989), ‘How to do
things with texts: Towards a pragmatic foundation for the teaching of texts’,
in Mick Short (ed.), Reading, Analysing and Teaching Literature, Chapter
11 — see especially pp. 272–80.
Sessions
3 and 4
Keir Elam (1980), The Semiotics of
Theatre and Drama, pp. 156–170
Vimala Herman (1995), Dramatic Discourse
(London: Routledge), Ch. 4 – a long chapter, parts are relevant
Valerie Lowe (1998), ‘
“Unhappy” confessions in The Crucible’, in Culpeper et al.,
Exploring the Language of Drama, Ch. 10
Walter Nash (1995), ‘Changing the Guard
at Elsinore’, in Carter and Simpson, Language, Discourse and Literature,
pp. 23–41 — focus on how he labels the speech acts being performed at each
turn.
Stephen Levinson (1983), Pragmatics
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press), Chapter 5 — don’t be daunted by this
chapter, which is theoretical in nature; skim through it and get as much as you
can.
Jenny Thomas (1995), Meaning in
Interaction (London: Longman, 1995), Chapter 2
Sessions
5 and 6
Marilyn M Cooper (1998), ‘Implicature, convention and The Taming of the Shrew’,
in Culpeper et al., Exploring the Language of Drama, Ch. 5
Keir Elam (1980), The Semiotics of
Theatre and Drama, pp. 170–78 — a quick treatment.
Lesley Jeffries & Dan McIntyre
(2010), Stylistics (Cambridge: CUP),
section 4.2.2.
Stephen Levinson (1983), Pragmatics,
Chapter 3 — another long and detailed chapter (70 pages!); skim through it, and
ignore the bits that get very technical.
Vimala Herman (1995), Dramatic Discourse
– Ch. 4, here and there.
Peter Tan (1993), A Stylistics of
Drama, pp. 56–61.
Jenny Thomas (1995), Meaning in
Interaction (London: Longman, 1995), Chapter 3
Sessions
7 and 8
Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson
(1987), Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press), Chapter 3.
Jonathan Culpeper (1998), ‘(Im)politeness in dramatic dialogue’, in Culpeper et al.,
Exploring the Language of Drama, Ch. 7
Lesley Jeffries & Dan McIntyre
(2010), Stylistics (Cambridge: CUP),
section 4.2.3.
Geoffrey N. Leech (1983), Principles
of Pragmatics (London: Longman), Chapters 5, 6.
Paul Simpson (1995), ‘Politeness
Phenomena in Ionesco’s The Lesson’, in Carter and Simpson, Language,
Discourse and Literature, Chapter 9 (pp. 170–93).
Peter Tan (1993), A Stylistics of
Drama, pp. 61–78.
Jenny Thomas (1995), Meaning in
Interaction (London: Longman, 1995), Chapter 6.
Sessions
9 and 10
Anna-Brita Stenström
(1994), An Introduction to Spoken Interaction (London: Longman, 1994),
Chapter 2 — concentrate on exchanges and moves.
Deirdre Burton (1980), Dialogue and
Discourse: A sociolinguistic approach to modern drama dialogue and naturally
occurring conversation (London: Routledge), Chapter 7 — a lot of rather
tedious detail; for our purposes, concentrate only on her discussion of the exchange
structure, particularly on supporting and challenging moves;
ignore the level of act.
Joanna Gavins
(2008), ‘ “Too much blague?”:
an exploration of the text worlds of Donald Barthelme’s Snow White’, in Carter & Stockwell, Ch. 25
Walter Nash (1995), ‘Changing the Guard
at Elsinore’, in Carter and Simpson, Language, Discourse and Literature,
pp. 23–41 — there is some discussion of the exchange structure in Nash’s
analysis.
Michael Toolan
(1995), ‘Analysing Conversation in Fiction: an Example from Joyce’s Portrait’,
in Carter and Simpson, Language, Discourse and Literature, Chapter 10
(pp. 194–211) — although Toolan deals with fiction,
his approach treats the passage like a dramatic passage, and therefore relevant
to our purposes
Session
11
Geoffrey Leech, A Linguistic Guide to
English Poetry, Chapter 4.
Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson (1993), A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary
Literary Theory, 3rd edn. (Brighton: Harvester),
Chapter 2.
Session
12
David Birch (1991), The Language of
Drama (London: Macmillan, 1991), Chapter 1
Raman Selden and
Peter Widdowson (1993), A Reader’s Guide, Chapter
3 — skim through to get a ‘feel’ of the concerns in literary theory.
Anthea Fraser Gupta, ‘A Framework for the
Analysis of Singapore English’, in S. Gopinathan et
al. (eds), Language, Society and Education in
Singapore: Issues and Trends, 2nd edn (Singapore:
Times), pp. 119–132.
Carter & Stockwell (2008), Ch. 28
again.