“Principles of Stylistic Analysis,”
in Y. L. Arbeitman and A. R. Bomhard, Bono homini Donum: Essays in Historical Linguistics in Memory of J. Alexander Kerns.
Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Vol. 4, pp. 807-836.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V.
This paper deals with a theoretical insight into the main principles of stylistic analysis of ancient texts, namely those written Akkadian. The starting point of the discussion moves from a precise statement on the definition of the term ‘style’: “It is a standard joke among archaeologists that whatever remains functionally unexplained in a given assemblage of material culture comes to be called, and considered, ‘cultic’ . Much the same could be said, on the formal level, of the way the term ‘style’ is often used” (p. 807).
The definition of the topic continues stressing how “at its vaguest, style is conceived as some sort of limbo to which anything formally bizarre in culture may be relegated” (p. 807). The author aims to determine the term and the concept of ‘style’ as a diachronic system, opposing to any kind of synchronic notion.
Therefore, a clear definition of the term ‘style’ is stated: “A recurrent selection of relatively idiosyncratic features” (p. 808). The stylistic analysis is based on a selection of “;patterns of occurrence as they are found in the text“ (p. 808) and “either a single feature or a cluster may be the object of selection” (p. 809); then, it is required these features to be recurrent, forming a specific pattern. And last but not least, the features must be idiosyncratic being “ identifiable on the basis of their distinctiveness within a given assemblage vis-à-vis other assemblages” (p. 809).
This basic definition is than followed and complemented by some corollaries about the concepts of textual assemblage, of selection (choice) and equivalence, of paradigm of alternants; a further discussion about diachronic vs. synchronic approaches is then presented, followed by a section on the distinction between stylistic and linguistic development.
The last part of the paper is devoted to the definition and analysis of stylistic features (providing an explanation of segmentation and composition mechanisms), of stylistic patterns and of stylistic factors.
In sum: “style, far from being an ill-defined limbo, can be assigned its own very specific place in the configuration of cultural assemblages; and stylistic analysis, by articulating explicitly the modalities and conditions of this particular cultural dimension, comes to play a unique and powerful role in our growing understanding of culture” (p. 835).