What are Types of Stylistics?

Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own. Types of Stylistics:

1. Computational Stylistics: Study of patterns formed in particular texts, authors, genres, periods via computational methods. Through the use of computers, it should be possible to achieve more accurate detection and explanation of such linguistic patterns. 2. Linguo-Stylistics: Linguo-stylistics studies of literary discourse from a linguistic point of view; studies the linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language, their character and functions. 3. Literary Stylistics: The composition of a work of art various literary genres the writer’s outlook. 4. General Stylistics: This is stylistics viewed from the broad notion of the linguistic study of all types of linguistic events from different domains of life. It is used as a cover term for the analysis of non-literary varieties of language, or registers. 5. Textualist Stylistics: This type of stylistics is engaged in ‘empty technology’ of a text. This approach was popular in the early stages of evolution of stylistics. Linguistics here viewed the linguistic text merely and paid no heed towards the literary interpretation, themes or artistic significance. 6. Interpretative Stylistics: This is the practice engaged in by most stylisticians nowadays.

It involves the analysis of the linguistic data in a (literary) text, the unraveling of the content or artistic value of the text and the marrying of these two. 7. Cognitive Stylistics: Cognitive stylistics combines the kind of explicit, rigorous and detailed linguistic analysis of literary texts that is typical of the stylistics tradition with a systematic and theoretically informed consideration of the cognitive structures and processes that underlie the production and reception of language. 8. Decoding Stylistics: 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. 9. Reader-Response Stylistics: It examines the reader’s response to a text as a response to a horizon of expectations. By horizon of expectations means that there are various interpretations of a text and reader access them according to their level. 10. Expressive Stylistics: Expressive stylistics is writer/speaker oriented. It represents the personality of the author. 11. Affective Stylistics: Its focus is on the consumers and it is reader/hearer oriented. 12. Pragmatic Stylistics: It focuses on how pragmatic resources, such as performative and speech acts can be employed to achieve stylistics effects. 13. Forensic Stylistics: It is a part of forensic linguistics. Through the stylistic analysis of language use, it is possible to determine the author of text.