The scientific and pedagogical

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T.Khalilova 
 
the past tense ('...his hands dropt he.'); only to hold him again, this time with his 
‘glittering eye’, in the present. (Widdowson. 1992, 41) 
The point of poetry 
Widdowson notices that when the content of poetry is summarised, it often refers 
to very general and unimpressive observations, such as ‘nature is beautiful; love is 
great; life is lonely; time passes’, and so on. (Widdowson. 1992, 9) But to say: 
 
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, 
So do our minutes hasten to their end ... 
William Shakespeare, ‘60’. 
Let’s talk about other aspects and objectives of stylistics: 
Stylistics is close to literary and practical criticism: 
The material studied is literary, attention is largely text-centered, intuition and 
interpretive skills are important. 
The goal of most stylistic studies –  to describe the formal features of texts  in 
order to show their functional significance  for the interpretation of the text. 
Stylistics is close to literary and practical criticism: 
The material studied is literary, 
attention is largely text-centered, 
intuition and interpretive skills are important.The goal of most stylistic studies – 
to describe  
the formal features of texts in order to show their functional significance  
for the interpretation of the text. 
Stylistics draws on the models and terminology provided by all aspects of 
linguistics: 
trends in literary theory; 
the late 60s – generative grammar; 
the 70s-80s - discourse analysis and pragmatics (shift away from the text itself to 
the reader and his or her responses => affective stylistics:  
text is an event, which comes into being as it is read). 
 
 
 
Stylistics of the author and of the reader.  
The notions of encoding and decoding 
Decoding stylistics is the most recent trend in stylistic research that employs 
theoretical findings in such areas of science as information theory, psychology, 
statistical studies in combination with linguistics, literary theory, history of art, literary 
criticism, etc. 
Decoding stylistics makes an attempt to regard the esthetic value of a text based 
on the interaction of specific textual elements, stylistic devices and compositional 
structure in delivering the author’s message. This method does not consider the stylistic 
function of any stylistically important feature separately but only as a part of the whole 
text. So expressive means and stylistic devices are treated in their interaction and 
distribution within the text as carriers of the author’s purport and creative idiom. 
 
 

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T.Khalilova 
 
Decoding stylistics helps the reader in his or her understanding of a literary work 
by explaining or decoding the information that may be hidden from immediate view in 
specific allusions, cultural or political parallels, peculiar use of irony or euphemy, etc. 
The term ‘decoding stylistics’ came from the application of the theory of 
information to linguistics by such authors as M. Riffatrre, R. Jacobson, P. Guiraud, F. 
Danes, Y. Lotman, I. V. Arnold and others. 
In a rather simplified version this theory presents a creative process in the 
following mode. The writer receives diverse information from the outside world. Some 
of it becomes a source for his creative work. He processes this information and recreates 
it in his own esthetic images that become a vehicle to pass his vision to the addressee, 
his readers. The process of internalizing of the outside information and translating it into 
his imagery is called ‘encoding’.. The reader is supposed to decode the information 
contained in the text of a literary work. 
However to encode the information does not mean to have it delivered or passed 
intact to the recipient. There are more obstacles here than meet the eye. In contrast to 
the writer who is always concrete the reader who is addressed is in fact an abstract 
notion, he is any of the thousands of people who may read this book. This abstract 
reader may not be prepared or willing to decode the message or even take it. The 
reasons are numerous and various. 
In M. Tsvetaeva’s essay «Poets on Critics» in which she maintains that reading is 
co-creative work on the part of the reader if he wants to understand and enjoy a work of 
art. Reading is not so much a hobby done at leisure as solving a kind of puzzle. What is 
reading but divining, interpreting, unraveling the mystery, wrapped in between the lines, 
beyond the words, she writes. So if the reader has no imagination no book stands a 
chance. 
From the reader’s point of view the important thing is not what the author wanted 
to say but what he managed to convey in the text of his work. 
That’s why decoding stylistics deals with the notions of stylistics of the author 
and stylistics of the reader. 
 
 
Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis and types of 
foregrounding(highlight) 
 
Decoding stylistics investigates the levels phonetic, graphical, lexical, and 
grammatical. It studies expressive means provided by each level not as isolated devices 
that demonstrate some stylistic function but as a part of the general pattern on the 
background of relatively lengthy segments of the text, from a paragraph to the level of 
the whole work. The underlying idea implies that stylistic analysis can only be valid 
when it takes into account the overall concept and aesthetic system of the author 
reflected in his writing. 
Ideas, events, characters, emotions and an author’s attitudes are all encoded in the 
text through language. The reader is expected to perceive and decipher these things by 
reading and interpreting the text. Decoding stylistics is actually the reader’s stylistics 
that is engaged in recreating the author’s vision of the world with the help of concrete 
text elements and their interaction throughout the text. 
 

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