Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Critical Stylistics'

Includes bibliographical references.
The thesis - which locates itself at the interface between linguistic and literary studies - explores the possibility of developing a ‘Marxist- stylistic’ method of text interpretation, which primarily proceeds from Althusserian Marxist Criticism, but which also incorporates salient elements of Critical Discourse Analysis. In construction of the method, the thesis first investigates the need for Althusserian Marxist criticism to be mediated, and more specifically, the areas in which this mediation is required. The thesis then crosses over to the field of Critical Discourse Analysis where it identifies relevant theoretical and methodological resources that are capable of mediating the ‘gaps’ identified in Althusserian Marxist criticism. The construction of the Marxist stylistic method is then effected through the transfer of germane theoretical and methodological resources from Critical Discourse Analysis to Althusserian Marxist criticism. The distinctive properties of the emergent Marxist-stylistic method are delineated before the method is practically applied to the interpretation of at least four fictional texts – all written and set in Zimbabwe. The key outcome of the thesis is that a distinctive method of text interpretation, which meaningfully separates itself from Althusserian Marxist criticism, on the one hand, and Critical Discourse Analysis, on the other, emerges. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the application of the method and makes some suggestions for further research and development in the area herein labelled as ‘Marxist stylistics.’

Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees (2002) tells the story of a motherless fourteen-year-old Lily Owens, raised by a cruel father, who desperately searches for clues to unlock her mother’s past. Kidd’s bildungsroman reveals the incredible power of black women, particularly a group of beekeeping sisters and a black Mary, to create a safe haven where Lily can examine her fragmented life and develop psychologically, finally becoming a self-actualized young lady. Lily’s matriarchal world of influence both compares and contrasts with the patriarchal world represented in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, exposing the matriarchy’s aptly structured ways of providing a more healing environment than is Huck Finn’s. Kidd’s novel also showcases the stylistic strategies of first person narrative point of view, language, dialect, and the motif of place in order to contextualize the social awareness and psychological development Lily gains through her journey.

This thesis conducts a Critical Stylistic Analysis of Sherko Bekas’ The Small Mirrors, with the help of metaphor analysis. Five textual conceptual functions (Jeffries, 2010): Naming and Describing; Equating and Contrasting; Representing Processes/Events/States of being; Assuming and Implying and Prioritizing are used to analyse the poems. I also analyse the connotations of metaphor. These functions and metaphor analysis show how the texts construct the speaker and the fictional world in Bekas’ The Small Mirrors and the ideologies behind such constructions. The ranges of ideation – ideology in Bekas’ poetry identified by these tools are: 1. Suffering and survival are inexorable 2. Martyrdom is positive 3. Valuing one’s nation and identity is positive 4. The speaker and the people lack control over the situation My thesis aims to create a version of the Critical Stylistic model that helps me to show the depiction of the speaker and the fictional world in The Small Mirrors. I argue that Critical Stylistics is applicable to the Kurdish poetry, but it needs modifications and that the tools might work in hierarchical ranks meaning that some tools are given primary focus over others because of the difference between English and Kurdish. I use Jeffries’ (2010) Critical Stylistics and add any required modification for the textual conceptual functions to get a complete model for the analysis of The Small Mirrors. The model can show how the speaker and the fictional world are constructed which I aim to reveal. The textual conceptual functions construct a coherent perspective of the reality of the fictional world in Bekas’ poetry. The linguistic images of the fictional world of Bekas’ poetry are repetitions that become part of the naturalised ideologies of the writer.

Despite the diversity of research on the Libyan Revolution across a spectrum of academic fields, very little work has focused on the representation of this event in media discourse. More specifically, no studies have approached this topic from a critical linguistic perspective using a large corpus, focusing on the qualitative analysis of the corpus findings. The overall aim of this thesis is therefore to investigate linguistically how the Libyan Revolution of 2011 is constructed within a corpus of British broadsheet newspapers. The focus of this study was to explore linguistic evidence to substantiate the claim that British newspapers are biased in their coverage in favour of anti-Gaddafi forces. The investigation of textual bias was guided and assisted by tools and methods from corpus linguistics. In particular, the keyword linguistic tool in WordSmith (Scott, 2004) was utilised as an entry point to the data to provide potential foci for further analysis. The findings of the corpus analysis revealed that keywords referring to the participants involved in the conflict during the Libyan Revolution and action-related words are the dominant lexical items in the coverage of this event in British newspapers. These corpus findings are further studied in context using the concord function in WordSmith, and then interpreted using the tools offered by Critical Stylistics (Jeffries, 2010). The occurrence of different nominal choices referring to the key participants in the Libyan conflict in the keyword list also led me to focus on investigating how those participants have been named and referred to linguistically. The analysis reveals linguistic evidence and discursive strategies showing a biased representation of the Libyan Revolution in the British newspapers in favour of anti-Gaddafi forces. This study has shown that the UK broadsheet newspapers represented a negative stereotypical image of Gaddafi’s side, while simultaneously presenting a neutral and at times even a positive portrayal of the opposition side. Specifically, the choices of linguistic structures result in the legitimation of Gaddafi’s opponents and, conversely, the delegitimisation and suppression of Gaddafi and his government. Finally, it was also observed that the language of British newspapers was highly ideological in representing this event despite British news outlets endorsing the values of democracy, freedom and universal rights. It is important to also recognize that the wider social context influences the processes of production and interpretation of news discourse and helps to explain the reasons behind giving Gaddafi and his government the worst negative image. Considering the socio-political contexts and the close examination of the relation between Libya and Britain reveals that Gaddafi’s negative representation could be seen as a reflection of the excesses of his dictatorship over his own people during his years in power as well as a reflection of his accumulated stock of past wrongdoings and tense relations between him and Britain. Therefore, this representation could be taken as a fact, given Gaddafi’s historical background. However, the analysis reveals that there was unequal treatment of the two sides in the conflict. There was a complete lack of any mitigation on the description of Gaddafi’s side, whereas the rebel side are treated in an apologetic manner. The British newspapers are biased in covering up the violent actions that were committed by the opposition and their violation of human rights. It was obvious that British newspapers act as a dominant source of hegemony by deciding what and how to report. The analysis reveals that the British newspapers tried to support their government in their leading role in the military intervention in Libya. This confirms that news reporting is not free from the subjective interpretation of events, rather it constructs them in a way that reflects their ideological and political viewpoints. Overall, the positive representation of the opposition could be seen as a problematic, as the political consequence of overthrowing Gaddafi results in plaguing Libya in chaos and violence with internal wars run by rebels who were described as good during the revolution.

This thesis reports on a Critical Stylistic analysis of representations of men in a corpus of women’s magazines, with the aid of corpus linguistic methods. Focusing on four ‘textualconceptual’ (Jeffries, forthcoming) functions of text; Naming and Describing, Equating and Contrasting, Representing Processes/Events/States, and Assuming and Implying, it shows how the texts construct ideologies of masculinity that constitute the magazines’ performances of masculinity for a female audience. I identify five central ideologies of masculinity, and gender more broadly, that occur across all four of the tools: • Men are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ • Men are driven by their carnal instincts • Men are naturally aggressive • Men and women are essentially different • Heterosexuality is normative These unifying themes are shown to be consistent with the forms of masculinity associated with the New Lad figure, linked to representations of masculinity in the ‘lads’ mags’ of the men’s magazine market. Alongside these unifying themes, I also show how different kinds of masculine identity are emphasised depending on the kind of text they appear in, and in which genre of women’s magazine they feature. These differing representations are interpreted in terms of the flexibility of gender performance. This thesis argues that Butler’s theory of performativity can be applied to texts such as women’s magazines in two ways: women’s magazines form part of the “rigid, regulatory frame” (Butler, 1990: 33) which determines what constitutes acceptable performances of gender for society, and that they are also in themselves performances of gender. They are also “a set of repeated acts [...] that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance of a natural sort of being” (Butler, 1990: 33). The linguistic images of men inscribed in the pages of women’s magazines are repetitions that have become part of the naturalized, accepted performances of masculinity. The ideologies of masculinity discussed here are potentially harmful from a feminist perspective, because if men are consistently shown to be aggressive or sexually driven, women may come to expect men to behave in this way.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has in its collection eleven ancient West Mexican ceramic sculptures. Given that the VMFA's West Mexican Ceramic figure collection has not been included in any extensive study, this thesis serves to provide a critical analysis of these figures through a formal and stylistic approach. These analyses are preceded by a brief history of the West Mexican cultures and highlight the artistic similarities and differences between each region. The primary regions under discussion are Colima, Nayarit, and Jalisco which correspond to modern geopolitical boundaries. Primary sources for these discussions are the figures themselves, while various published catalogues serve as comparative sources. Where applicable, iconographical theories are introduced and discussed in conjunction with the formal and stylistic analysis.

This thesis is a critical stylistic analysis of the meanings of the lexemes 'feminism', 'feminist(s)' and 'feminist' in UK national newspapers, 2000-2009. It uses the textual-conceptual functions set out in Jeffries (2010a) to investigate the linguistic contexts in which these lexemes occur within the data in order to assess to what extent the movement, the people who represent it, and things that are described as feminist are imbued with different textually constructed meanings. The analysis tests previous studies' findings concerning portrayals of feminism and feminists in the media. Expanding on and responding to this research, this study reports on five main findings: • 'Feminism', 'feminist(s)' and 'feminist' have positive, as well as negative, meanings. • 'Feminism' and 'feminists' are a western phenomenon, with different types in the past and present. • 'Feminism' has a complex meaning, with no single, universal definition and a variety of types. • 'Feminism' is presented as having undergone changes in meaning, as antonymous to other ideas and containing opposed meanings. • Portrayals of 'feminism' are complex, with articles recognising and contesting different meanings of the lexemes. These findings both confirm and question previous studies, which have argued that feminism and feminists are portrayed negatively in newspaper texts. It provides linguistic evidence to support claims made by other non-linguistic studies of the same genre and time period: that portrayals of feminism are 'fragmented' (Mendes, 2011a, p. 49) and that they present feminism as consisting of approved and disapproved types (Dean, 2010). I also discuss the lexemes 'feminism', 'feminist(s)' and 'feminist' in with regard to contested meaning, using critical stylistic tools to analyse how newspaper articles textually construct different meanings of the lexemes, and explicitly discuss and compare different definitions. The thesis argues that the analysis of textual meaning can be used to explore how the meanings of a lexeme or set of lexemes that 'involve ideas and values' (Williams, 1983, p. 17) are constructed in a variety of ways through the linguistic context in which they occur. I also reflect on the usefulness of the textualconceptual functions in the manual analysis of a large dataset, identifying ways in which an analysis that seeks to provide as full as possible an account of the textual construction of meaning can produce findings not possible through other means of analysis.

Cette recherche porte sur l'évolution de la critique poétique arabe moderne, elle combine deux volets, l'un diachronique et l'autre analytique. D'une part, elle exAmīne l'histoire de cette évolution qui en l'espace d'un siècle a été impressionnante et d'autre part elle analyse ce phénomène qui dans l'histoire littéraire mondiale ne s'est jamais produit sur une durée aussi courte. La période de la nahḍa a commencé durant la deuxième moitié du XIXème siècle et a duré jusqu'aux années trente du XXème siècle. La littérature arabe a été ébranlée par une multitude de mouvements à la fois conservateurs et modernistes , mouvements qui ont tantôt cohabité et tantôt se sont opposés ; la poésie, en particulier a comblé un retard de cinq siècles, comme en témoignent le nombre de poèmes et de recueils publiés et la multiplication des styles et des écoles littéraires.Durant un siècle et souvent pendant la même période, nous pouvons découvrir des poètes classiques, néoclassiques, romantiques, symboliques et réalistes. La production poétique a aussi été très variée et a respecté les règles classiques relatives à la mesure et aux rimes tout en affichant un retour vers la forme classique pour affirmer la maîtrise. Puis, l'inspiration du "muwaššaḥ" a fait son apparition et s'est détourné de l'exigence de la forme traditionnelle avec quelques tentatives pour écrire de la poésie libre et en prose avec de nouvelles mesures et enfin l'arrivée de la poésie blanche...etc.Toutes ces tentatives pour se rattacher à un courant n'ont pas échappé à la critique qui a parfois ouvert la voix aux poètes et a parfois précédé la production poétique et qui a subi la pression moderniste en essayant de la rejoindre; la critique a puisé dans les écrits anciens et en même temps une ouverture sur la critique occidentale. La révolution contre le traditionalisme est lancée avec des écoles qui ont revendiqué une coupure avec l'héritage des classiques. D'autres courants vont résister à l'influence européenne en prenant pour prétexte le combat contre le colonialisme occidental. Ces courants très résolus ont défendu l'attachement à l'ancienne école en invoquant la pureté de la langue du Coran, la richesse de cet héritage et le fait que cette modernisation peut susciter des théories inadaptées à la réalité sociale et culturelle. Nous tentons dans cette étude de présenter et d'analyser les quatre étapes que la poésie et la critique poétique ont traversées durant cette période :- L'étape de l'imitation médiocre. - L'étape de l'imitation cohérente et éloquente.- L'étape de l'innovation liée à la ferveur nationaliste.- L'étape de l'innovation liée à un sentiment de liberté individuelle
The research work presented in this manuscript focuses on the evolution of the modern Arab poetry critic. The work is two fold: one diachronic and the other analytical. We detail on one hand the history of such evolution, which, in the space of a century, has been quite impressive, and on the other hand,we analyze this phenomenon, which has never occurred in the world literacy history over such a short time span. The period of the nahda started in the second half of the XIXth century and lasted up to the last years of the XXth century. The history of the Arab literature has been shattered by numerous events, at the same time conservative and modernist. Those events were at times contiguous and at times opposite: poetry in particular, has caught up with a major delayof nearly five centuries, as witnessed by the number of poems and collections published,and as well asby the multiplication of styles and literacy schools.Over the span of a century, and often within the same period, one may discoverand study classical, neoclassical, romantic, symbolic as well as realist poets. Furthermore, the poetry production has also been diversein styles, but at the same time addressed the classical rules related to the measure and the rhymes, while displaying a reversal movement towards the classical form, mainly to show and prove mastering skills. Then, the inspiration of the "muwaššaḥ" appeared and has strayed away from the requirements of the traditional form, with a few attempts to write free poetry as well as prose with new measures, and eventually came to the birth of white poetry,… etc.All those various efforts attempting atreclaiming a main historic literacy flow has definitely not been overlooked by the critic, which at times has brought forward poets, and at times has even preceded the poetic production which has undergone through the modernistic pressure by trying to join that same flow; the critique has drawn in the ancient scripts and at the same time in the opening into the occidental critic. The revolution against traditionalism has been launched with various schools who have claimed a split with the inheritance of the classics.Other currents have resisted to the European influence by pretexting a fight against occidental colonialism. These very resolute currents have defended the attachment to the ancient school by invoking the purity of the language of the Koran, the richness of this heritage and the fact that this modernization can produce ill-adapted theories to the social and cultural reality.We attempt in this work to present and analyze the four stages, through which poetry and the poetry critic have gone through during the past century:1) The stage of mediocre imitation 2) The stage of coherent and eloquent imitation, 3) The stage of innovation linked to a nationalist fervor4) And eventually the stage of innovation linked to a feeling of individual freedom

Cette thèse vise à procéder à une analyse minutieuse de la transformation de la forme et du sens dans la traduction des Robâïât de Omar Khayyám, dans quatre importantes traductions – deux en anglais et deux en français, des XIXe et XXe siècles. Les traducteurs des traductions sélectionnées sont Edward FitzGerald, Arthur John Arberry, Jean-Baptiste Nicolas et Gilbert Lazard. Les traductions réalisées par ces traducteurs ont offert des possibilités d’investigation dans un cadre linguistique donné. En effet, on peut se demander si les traducteurs ont transformé la signification et la forme des quatrains perses. Si oui, quelles procédures ont-ils utilisées ? Plus précisément, comment les réseaux signifiants sous-jacents ont-ils été rendus par les plus importants traducteurs anglais et français des XIXe et XXe siècles ? Par ailleurs, il s’agira d’essayer d’évaluer la qualité de l’écriture dans la langue cible de chaque traduction. En somme, cette thèse cherche à comprendre si les traducteurs sont parvenus à saisir l’importance de la signification du sous-texte et l’élégance de la forme poétique des Robâïât. Cette thèse propose une application scientifique des concepts théoriques de différents chercheurs en traductologie, linguistique et littérature. Les théories dominantes utilisées dans la présente étude sont celles d’Antoine Berman, de Henri Meschonnic, Peter Newmark, Eugene Albert Nida, Susan Bassnett, Mona Baker, Geoffrey N. Leech, I.A. Richards, Roger T. Bell, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Michael Hanne, et Max Black. En outre, il doit être indiqué que cette thèse vise à créer un équilibre entre deux pôles de la traductologie, à savoir celui qui s’intéresse aux traductions orientées vers la langue cible et celui qui s’intéresse aux traductions orientées vers la langue source.La traduction des Robâïât dans les langues germaniques et romanes est un sujet digne d’intérêt et propice à la discussion. Cette recherche vise à montrer que l’étude des traductions des Robâïât pourrait contribuer à mettre en évidence les difficultés et même l’impossibilité qu’il y a à rendre certaines caractéristiques de l’original persan en anglais et en français
This thesis aims to carry out a meticulous analysis of the transformation of form and meaning in the rendition of the Rubáiyát in four significant 19th and 20th-century translations—two in English and two in French. The translators of the selected translations are Edward FitzGerald, Arthur John Arberry, Jean-Baptiste Nicolas, and Gilbert Lazard. The translations produced by these translators have offered opportunities of investigation within linguistic boundaries. In fact, one may wonder if the translators have transformed the meaning and the form of the Persian quatrains. If so, which procedures have they employed? More precisely, how are the underlying networks of signification rendered by the most significant English and French translators of the 19th and 20th centuries? Furthermore, what is the quality of the writing in the target language in each translation? On the whole, this thesis seeks to appreciate whether the translators have been successful in understanding the significance of the subtext and the elegance of the poetic form of the Rubáiyát.This dissertation provides its readers with a scientific application of the theoretical concepts of different theorists in translation studies, linguistics, and literature. The most salient theories employed in the present research are those of Antoine Berman, Henri Meschonnic, Peter Newmark, Eugene Albert Nida, Susan Bassnett, Mona Baker, Geoffrey N. Leech, I.A. Richards, Roger T. Bell, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Michael Hanne, and Max Black. In addition, it must be indicated that this thesis sets out to create a balance between two poles in translation studies, i.e. target-oriented and source-oriented translations.The translation of Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát into Germanic and Romance languages is an interesting and controversial subject to discuss. This research seeks to prove that the study of the translations of the Rubáiyát can contribute to highlighting the difficulties and the impossibilities of the rendition of certain issues from Persian into English or French

This thesis investigates possible connections between the music of Erik Satie (1866-1925) and the later surrealist movement, turning to Parade (1917) in a case study that seeks to understand surrealism in music through the idea of self-exploration, a well-established interpretive approach in studies of surrealism in the visual arts. This thesis seeks to redefine surrealism in music not as a set of concrete musical characteristics, but as a collection of techniques meant to evoke subconscious turbulence by blurring the boundary between the "outside" and "inside," between conscious and subconscious, leading to a new discovery of higher or deeper truth. Satie's music aligns with the psychoanalytic elements of the discourse on surrealism. Psychoanalysis, pioneered by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his followers in the 1890s in Vienna, permeated France around the time of the creation of the work. It inspired early surrealist techniques like automatism, illusory formal structures, collage, and stylistic allusion. This thesis demonstrates that such techniques can be discerned throughout Parade, not only in Satie's music, but also in its scenario, staging, costumes, and choreography. As such, Parade was a foundational work for the surrealist movement, with Satie's music contributing with the other media equally to the emotional and psychological impact of the ballet.

The prevalence of social media in political campaigns are changing the face of politics in the United States and abroad. The rapid pace at which this change is occurring demands inquiry into the previously unexplored area of unconventional political campaign messaging practices on social media. Investigation of Donald Trump’s use of tweets as rhetorical strategy in the discursive space of Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign revealed a bypass of traditional media and its source verification processes. This circumventing of mainstream media channels facilitated Trump’s deployment of an unchecked ‘broken system’ narrative alleging government corruption

and a rigged system. Trump’s tweet discourses tapped into existing feelings of disenfranchisement and disaffection felt by a self-identified politically marginalized segment of society. This study

investigates how social media use in political campaigns can serve as a public sphere for contestation of social and political norms. An interdisciplinary theoretical frame comprised of Feenberg’s critical theory of technology, McLuhan’s media ecology, Fraser’s counterpublic spheres, and Iser’s implied reader offer new understandings about the power of anti-establishment discourses and a hybrid discursive space to destabilize governing institutions and redefine social and political identities. Study of Trump’s tweets as rhetorical strategy granted insights into the social and political capacity of alternative truth to undermine the political process. Further, it uncovered the power of social media to awaken and leverage existing political identities for personal political gain.

полный текст
Кваліфікаційна робота присвячена порівняльному критичному аналізу лінгво-стилістичних засобів роману «Троє в човні (якщо не рахувати собаки)» на матеріалі перекладів Р. Доценко та Н. Філімонової. Актуальність обраної теми дослідження зумовлена постійними змінами в сучасних тенденціях перекладу, модернізаційними підходами до імплементації порівняльного аналізу в навчанні, а також тим, що критичний лінгво-стилістичний аналіз розвиває не тільки академічні знання, а й сприяє розвитку міжкультурної фахової компетенції перекладачів. Мета дипломної роботи полягає у проведенні критичного та порівняльного аналізу перекладів художнього твору, ідентифікації перекладацьких технік, використаних для відтворення гумору та лінгво-стилістичних засобів оригіналу, визначенні переваг та недоліків обох варіантів перекладу, а також розгляді колаборативних методів роботи в рамках навчання іноземної мови.
Квалификационная работа посвящена сравнительному критическому анализу лингво-стилистических средств романа «Трое в лодке (если не считать собаки)» на материале переводов Р. Доценко и Н. Филимоновой. Актуальность темы исследования обусловлена постоянными изменениями в современных тенденциях перевода, модернизационными подходами к имплементации сравнительного анализа в обучении, а также тем, что критический лингво-стилистический анализ развивает не только академические знания, но и способствует развитию межкультурной профессиональной компетенции переводчиков. Цель дипломной работы заключается в проведении критического и сравнительного анализа переводов художественного произведения, идентификации переводческих техник, использованных для воспроизведения юмора и лингво-стилистических средств оригинала, определении преимуществ и недостатков обоих вариантов перевода, а также рассмотрении коллаборативних методов работы в рамках обучения иностранному языку.
The graduation thesis is devoted to a comparative critical analysis of the linguistic and stylistic means of the novel “Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” based on translations by R. Dotsenko and N. Filimonova. The relevance of the research topic is due to constant changes in modern trends of translation, modernization approaches to the implementation of comparative analysis in teaching, as well as the fact that critical linguistic and stylistic analysis develops not only academic knowledge, but also contributes to the development of intercultural professional competence of translators. The goal of this work is to perform a critical and comparative analysis of translations of a novel, identify translation techniques used to reproduce humor and linguistic and stylistic means of the source text, name the advantages and disadvantages of both translations, and consider collaborative methods of work in teaching a foreign language.