Linguistic Concepts and Literary Analysis Methods
Core Linguistic Concepts
Linguistic Transformations
Thematization: It is a strategy that moves a statement to a thematic position. Constituents that are not in the final position become the subject.
Passivization: Is the conversion of a transitive sentence. From a communication perspective, it is an organizational process of the message that responds to a newsworthy loss by the agent of the action and is used to remove relevant information about the agent.
Nominalization: Is a transformation that reduces an entire sentence into a substantive (noun or noun phrase). It has intentionality because its objective is to hide the identity of the author.
Literary Forms and Devices
Monologue and Soliloquy
The terms monologue and soliloquy have similar meanings and, in most cases, can be used interchangeably. The word ‘monologue’ has more senses. It may have the same meaning as soliloquy, or it can be applied to an extended speech uttered by a single speaker who attempts to monopolize or exclusively control a conversation. In a third sense, a monologue is a form of dramatic entertainment—a composition or a poem—in which there is only a single speaker, such as a comedian’s monologue. When there is a second person addressed, the monologue is called a dramatic monologue.
In narrative discourse, the term interior monologue refers to the endless mental activity of characters, consisting of the flow of visual, auditory, olfactory, physical, or even subliminal impressions that impact their consciousness, along with their rational thoughts, feelings, and volitions.
The English Sonnet
The English sonnet is composed of three quatrains, each with an independent rhyme scheme, and ends with a rhymed couplet. The rhyme scheme of the English sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg. The typical Elizabethan use of the sonnet was in a sequence of love poems, in the manner of Petrarch. Although each sonnet was an independent poem, partly conventional in content and partly self-revelatory, the sequence had the added interest of providing a narrative development.
The Spenserian sonnet follows the English quatrain and couplet pattern but resembles the Italian in using a linked rhyme scheme: abab bcbc cdcd ee. Elizabethan sonnet sequences were generally in some kind of narrative order. Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella and Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti each tell a reasonably well-authenticated story. Shakespeare’s sonnets, however, do not give the impression of an ordered sequence as it exists in Sidney, Spenser, and others.
Linguistic Theories in Literary Study
Structuralism: Connotation & Choice
The analysis put forth by Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss, “Les Chats” de Charles Baudelaire, is considered an exemplary investigation into linguistic poetics—that is, into the verbal structure of a literary composition. This research is a typical sample of the taxonomical methodology of structuralism, which tackles all sorts of units and components across a wide range of linguistic levels:
- The rhyme pattern (masculine or feminine) of the sonnet;
- The link between rhymes and selected words;
- The syntactic parallelism between pairs of quatrains and tercets;
- The semantic aspect of grammatical animate subjects;
- The structure of nominal groups with determiners;
- The use of epithetical adjectives;
- The stylistic effects of the liquid consonants /l/ and /r/;
- And a lengthy characterization of all the categories present in the sonnet, which we are unable to list here.
Generativism: Stylistics of Deviation
Generativism also cultivates and develops poetics, but this time the theoretical sources of investigation are found not in the study of structural features, attributes, and relationships, but in the celebrated Chomskian dichotomy called grammaticality/acceptability. It goes without saying that any deviation from the norm implies the existence of some kind of structural regularity, which must be outlined before we can explain what the deviant language consists of. The study of these linguistic deviations has brought forth a new line of stylistic research, stylistics of deviation, which is concerned with differentiating between literary and non-literary language.
Pragmatics: Language in Context
Pragmatics is also known as ‘suprasentential linguistics,’ since discourse is considered a linguistic unit that extends beyond the boundaries of the sentence. Pragmatics has captured the attention of many scholars, who have found it very attractive for at least three reasons:
- The importance it assigns to language use, that is, discourse, or to language in action or language in context.
- The outstanding role given in the analysis of the communicative event to its participants, especially the receiver of the message. This is why it has also been called ‘the other’s linguistics.’
- Its interdisciplinarity, as it derives a good number of its insights from other disciplines, especially cognition, sociology, psychology, and computer science.