Style in Fiction Symposium (SIFS)

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Catherine Emmott

University of Glasgow, UK

Stylistics Meets Cognitive Science: Style in Fiction from an Inter-disciplinary Perspective

Abstract

Leech and Short’s Style in Fiction has been highly influential in the development of modern Stylistics and is still as relevant now as it was when first published. In this paper, I suggest that although Cognitive Stylistics is being promoted as providing a radically new approach to stylistic analysis, it is still firmly grounded in the tradition of Style in Fiction. To illustrate this, I look specifically at the work of Glasgow University’s STACS Project, Stylistics, Text Analysis and Cognitive Science, which involves an inter-disciplinary collaboration between Stylisticians and Psychologists. This project draws on Style in Fiction in two key respects: (i) We utilise Leech and Short’s “multi-level” approach to the study of stylistic options, examining foregrounding at several different linguistic levels. Our empirical work studies the extent to which stylistic choices can raise the attention levels of readers, examining syntax, lexis, graphology, and discourse markers. (ii) We draw on Leech and Short’s detailed description of thought presentation. I will show how this is relevant to our current empirical work on under-specification and planned future work on point of view. Overall, I will discuss how Cognitive Science provides a fresh perspective on some of the issues handled by Leech and Short, but also how Style in Fiction is now setting a new agenda for empirical research within Cognitive Science.