Stylistics from Traditional to Cognitive Approaches A Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

Stylistics is constantly undergoing significant evolution since its classical origin in poetics and rhetoric. It is an interdisciplinary field that can bridge the gap between linguistics and literary studies. Based on the formalist traditions of the Russian formalists and Prague structuralists, stylistics has gradually expanded to incorporate cognitive sciences as analytical tools, maintaining empirical precision at its heart. The paper endeavours to highlight the preliminary concepts in stylistics, namely literariness and foregrounding, before charting the developmental pathway that the discipline has followed to finally become a fully-fledged discipline, including linguistic and literary stylistics. The methodological eclecticism this field exhibits is also highlighted, throwing light on its aptitude to embrace both computational development and cognitive models. The paper also offers insights into cognitive stylistics alongside other closely aligned fields, such as cognitive poetics and cognitive rhetoric, to account for textual engagement and mental processes involved in reading literature. The dual focus on both linguistic precision and the experiential parameters of cognitive stylistics is examined, with a particular emphasis on both traditional and cognitive approaches, highlighting the pivotal roles of the author, text, and reader in generating meaning. The paper finally offers two key conclusions: firstly, stylistics can best work as an operable tool based on replicable methodologies, coupled with its eclectic potential, and secondly, it highlights the essential role of cognitive stylistics in accounting for the close link between readers’ engagement and the textual structures that evoke it.