English

The generative grammars, which appeared as a reaction against descriptive linguistics, have confirmed that the task of any grammar is to limit the scope of investigation of language data to sentences which are con-sidered well-formed. Everything that fails to meet this requirement should be excluded from linguistics. But language studies cannot avoid subjecting to observation any language data whatever, so where grammar refuses to tread stylistics steps in. Stylistics has acquired its own status with its own inventory of tools (SDs and EMs), with its own object of investigation and with its own methods of research.

The stylistics of a highly developed language like English or Rus-sian has brought into the science of language a separate body of media, thus widening the range of observation of phenomena in language. The significance of this branch of linguistics can hardly be over-estimated. A number of events in the development of stylistics must be mentioned here as landmarks.

The first is the discussion of the problem of style and stylistics in “Вопросы языкознания” in 1954, in which many important general and particular problems were broadly analyzed and some obscure aspects elucidated.

Secondly, a conference on Style in Language was held at Indiana University in the spring of 1958, followed by the publi-cation of the proceedings of this conference (1960) under the editorship of Thomas Sebeok. Like the discussion in “Вопросы языкознания” this conference revealed the existence of quite divergent points of view held by different students of-language and literature. Thirdly, a con-ference on style and stylistics was held in the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages” in March 1969.

At this conference lines were drawn along which studies in lingvo-stylistics might be maintained. An interesting symposium was also held in Italy, the proceedings of which were published under the editorship of professor S. Chat man in 1971. A great number of monographs, textbooks, articles, and dissertation papers are now at the disposal of a scholar in stylistics. The stream of information grows larger every month. Two American journals appear regularly, which may keep the student informed as to trends in the theory of stylistics.

They are Style issued at the Arkansas University (U. S. A. ) and Language and Style published in Southern Illinois Uni-versity (U. S. A. ) (See also the bibliography on p. 324). It is in view of the ever-growing significance of the exploration of language potentialities that so much attention is paid in lingvo-stylistics to the analysis of expressive means (EMs) and stylistic devices (SDs), to their nature and functions, to their classification and to possible interpretations of additional meanings they may carry in a message as well as their aesthetic value.