Noval Square

Stylistics is traditionally approached through the “category of style”:

Le regain d’intérêt dont bénéficie la stylistique n’a rien d’étonnant, dans la mesure où la catégorie du style est incontournable. Elle se trouve à la croisée de l’ensemble des sciences humaines : « Par style, on entend la forme constante – et parfois les éléments, les qualités et l’expression constants – dans l’art d’un individu ou d’un groupe d’individus. Le terme s’applique aussi à l’activité globale d’un individu ou d’une société, comme quand on parle d’un style de vie ou du style d’une civilisation (M. Schapiro, « La notion de style », 1953, repris dans 1982 : 35). C’est ainsi qu’en sciences du langage les sociolinguistes parlent de style articulatoire pour l’ensemble des habitudes articulatoires d’un groupe social. (Maingueneau, dans Charaudeau et Maingueneau, 2002 : 551)

(The resurgence of interest in stylistics is not surprising, given that the category of style is essential. It lies at the intersection of all the humanities: “By style, we mean the constant form – and sometimes the constant elements, qualities, and expression – in the art of an individual or a group of individuals. The term also applies to the overall activity of an individual or a society, as when we speak of a lifestyle or the style of a civilization” (M. Schapiro, “The notion of style”, 1953, republished in 1982: 35). In this way, in language sciences, sociolinguists talk about articulatory style for the set of articulatory habits of a social group [our translation] (Maingueneau, in Charaudeau and Maingueneau, 2002: 551).)

From this perspective, the purpose of stylistic study is to analyze and determine the style of an author, a text, or a discourse, that is, its singularities, its distinctive traits compared to a linguistic norm in order to identify a “constant form” (Id.). This work involves, initially, studying movements of salience, that is, making an inventory of striking elements in relation to “neutral” elements, and then, in a second phase, establishing a constant form from the logical links that unite the salient elements^[1]. These links can be structural, semantic, syntactic, phonetic, etc.

However, this initial inventory work raises the question of the linguistic norm: is it possible to make tangible a “neutral” language, a prerequisite for grasping salient elements? It is observed that each type of discourse, be it political, philosophical, mathematical, etc., creates its own rules of good usage, its own linguistic doxa. Thus, the notion of linguistic norm can only be grasped in context: there are as many norms as there are types of discourse. As we stated in the article “What is Stylistics? (Part I, Theoretical Framework: Language Stylistics and Literary Stylistics)”, the object of study of literary stylistics is literary discourse, or more specifically, “the specific character of literariness of discourse” (Molinié, 1993: 3). We will therefore attempt to define what a “neutral” literary writing is in order to establish a stable base for study.

A « neutral » literary writing tends toward what Roland Barthes theorized as being Le degré zéro de l’écriture (“Writing Degree Zero”, 1953), that is, a writing of “non-style” (Barthes, 1953: 67), devoid of syntactic effects, tropes, and ornamentation (salient elements to the highest degree). The “non-style” is manifested by a writing which, to be literary, to be aesthetic, does not need stylistic effects. We think of the “white writing” (“écriture blanche”) of Albert Camus or the “simple style” (“style simple”) of Annie Ernaux. This writing, this “normal” language characterized by its “neutrality”, that is, by its absence of effects, however, leads to a scientific paradox: it currently arouses a growing interest in stylistic studies. And if the writing of the “non-style” arouses a keen interest in stylistic studies, it may be because to refuse style is to produce style. Thus, when attempts are made to define writings of “non-style”, to explain their essence and their functioning, we determine, to use the two examples previously mentioned, “a white writing” or a “simple style”, that is, a form of style. A writing devoid of style would not exist, even a poor author or a poor work would have a style, which might not motivate study because it is not sufficiently aesthetic, but which would be present nonetheless. A writing that refuses style, like the writing of Annie Ernaux, reveals a style and raises the question of a style without saliences or a style without stylistic effects. Thus, as Roland Barthes highlights in Writing Degree Zero, operating a stylistic revolution through the writing of “non-style” can give birth, if applied on a large scale and over a sufficiently long period, to a stylistic movement and thus, to a new doxa:

Il y a donc dans toute écriture présente une double postulation : il y a le mouvement d’une rupture et celui d’un avènement, il y a le dessin même de toute situation révolutionnaire, dont l’ambiguïté fondamentale est qu’il faut bien que la Révolution puise dans ce qu’elle veut détruire l’image même de ce qu’elle veut posséder. (Barthes, 1953 : 67)

(There is thus in all current writing a double postulation: there is the movement of a break and that of an advent, there is the very design of every revolutionary situation, whose fundamental ambiguity is that the Revolution must draw from what it wants to destroy the very image of what it wants to possess [our translation]. (Barthes, 1953: 67))

Moreover, the extent of stylistic studies of the work of Albert Camus, to a lesser extent today of the work of Annie Ernaux, recent studies on philosophical, advertising, political, journalistic discourse, etc., and on oral statements, show that all types of writing, text, discourse, and, we might add, language can be put to the test of stylistics. This observation challenges the style as an obvious object of stylistics (the multiplication and fusion of types of writing and language make style an increasingly unstable notion; in this sense, Georges Molinié (1986: 9) writes that “on a semblé se perdre parmi les définitions contradictoires du style” ( “we seemed to lose ourselves among the contradictory definitions of style” [our translation]) and the notion of style as a deviation from the norm to make room for other notions, notably those of salience (“saillance”, Bonhomme, 2005) and hyperrelevance^[2] (“hyperpertinence”, Gaudin-Bordes and Salvan, 2010) which shift the question of the linguistic norm and style to the level of intellective dynamics (“dynamique intellective”): language is perceived as a means of accounting for the multiplicity and complexity of reality, thoughts, emotions, and feelings. There would thus be no effect but meaning, or several levels, several strata of meaning according to the complexity of the studied object, the processes used to express it, and the degree of intentionality of that expression. We are here very close to a hermeneutical perspective.

Even if it is reductive to assimilate or subordinate stylistics, an interpretative discipline to “son objet évident : le style” (“its obvious object: style [our translation]”, Molinié, 1986 : 9) and even if the notion of deviation (« écart”) and the existence of a unique linguistic norm, prerequisites for the existence of a style, are challenged or reset by some modern stylistic studies, the question of style remains. When we talk about the style of Proust, the style of Mozart, the style of Rembrandt, we understand what is meant without necessarily being able to explain in a scientific, tangible way, the mechanisms that make them recognizable among thousands. Just as in reading Claude Simon, one might notice that his sentences have airs of those of Proust. This is because style also proceeds by comparison. Comparison to an author, to a work, to another style, to a linguistic norm, a discursive norm, a prescriptive norm… We study style in relation to a referential base, and style itself serves as a referential base. Style thus falls into a particular domain, that of art criticism.

This leads Georges Molinié to assert that the object of stylistics is not primarily style, but, concerning literary discourse, literariness (“la littérarité”), in this passage already cited in the article « What is Stylistics? (Part I, Theoretical Framework: Language Stylistics and Literary Stylistics) » and which we recall:

L’objet de la stylistique n’est pas d’abord le style, contrairement à ce qu’on pourrait spontanément penser, même si, en revanche, le style peut difficilement s’appréhender autrement que comme objet d’étude de la stylistique (on en reparlera) ; l’objet majeur et éminent de la stylistique, c’est le discours littéraire, la littérature. Plus exactement, c’est le caractère spécifique de littérarité du discours, de la praxis langagière telle qu’elle est concrètement développée, réalisée, à travers un régime bien particulier de fonctionnement du langage, la littérature. Ce qui pose évidemment la question de savoir ce que c’est que la littérature, ou peut-être plutôt ce que ce n’est pas. Puisque ici on ne se livre pas à des états d’âme, on se contentera d’opposer deux cas limites : le mode d’emploi d’une chaîne HI-FI ou le discours d’un responsable politique ou syndical sur le déficit de la Sécurité sociale, ce n’est pas de la littérature ; Phèdre de Racine, les Chants de Maldoror de Lautréamont, les Illuminations de Rimbaud ou un roman de Claude Simon, c’est certainement de la littérature, et à très fort régime. On admettra qu’il existe des quantités de degrés intermédiaires, et qu’il puisse également y avoir des jeux en croisant, si l’on ose dire, plusieurs degrés. Donc on a affaire à du plus ou moins littéraire. (Molinié, 1993 : 1-2)

(The object of stylistics is not primarily style, contrary to what one might spontaneously think, even if, on the other hand, style can hardly be apprehended otherwise than as an object of study of stylistics (we will come back to this); the major and eminent object of stylistics is literary discourse, literature. More precisely, it is the specific character of literariness of discourse, of language praxis as it is concretely developed, realized, through a very particular regime of language operation, literature. This obviously raises the question of what literature is, or perhaps rather what it is not. Since we are not engaging in emotional introspection here, we will content ourselves with opposing two extreme cases: the user manual of a stereo system or the discourse of a political or union leader on the deficit of Social Security, that is not literature; Racine’s Phèdre, Lautréamont’s Chants de Maldoror, Rimbaud’s Illuminations, or a novel by Claude Simon, that is certainly literature, and at a very high level. It will be admitted that there are quantities of intermediate degrees, and that there may also be games involving, so to speak, several degrees. So we are dealing with more or less literary [our translation]. (Molinié, 1993 : 1-2))

One of the aims of literary stylistics, therefore, is to study the literariness of a text, or rather its regime of literariness which Georges Molinié indicates is variable, and gradable. To express this dynamic character of style and its variation at reception, Georges Molinié then prefers to speak of literarization (“littérarisation”). In this, literary stylistics is akin to another discipline, literary criticism, and more broadly to art criticism. The critic/the stylistician is above all a reader who casts a critical eye on his object of study. But where criticism aims to judge the work, to produce judgments reportable to a subjectivity, stylistics has an interpretative horizon, independent of subjective evaluation. If stylistics is less interested in user manuals and political discourse – it then rather gives way to its sister, discourse analysis –, it is for reasons that have nothing to do with the interpretative apparatus of stylistics, both powerful and semiotically very adaptable, but with a historical factor (it quickly focused on the literary) and a sociological one (the motivation of the interpreter). It is certain that the degree of literariness and the artistic value of the studied object play on the motivation and on the scientific tenor of such a study. What is the real object of stylistics? In absolute terms, the question remains open. The answer depends on both the object of study and what the interpreter wants to show. What interests us in stylistics is to have an analysis apparatus that is both stabilized and effective that allows us to understand the structural logic, the program of a text, a type of writing, to be able to “dig” into the text to understand and explain its functioning. Stylistics also allows us to trace back step by step to the “creative thought” (see Paul Klee’s approach in The Creative Thought). Thus, the search for a constant form is not “style for style’s sake”, but allows understanding the underlying mechanics, the primary engine of the work and its overall functioning.

The intuitive, universal, referential, and ultimately unstable character of the notion of style means that “la sagesse consiste donc à partir de la stylistique et non du style” (“wisdom therefore consists in starting from stylistics and not from style” [our translation]), “on installe au départ une praxis, et on examine ce qu’on trouve à la fin” (“initially, we establish a praxis, and we examine what we find at the end” [our translation]), (Molinié, 1986: 9).

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^[1] While stylistics is interested in saliences and singularities, it also takes into account regularities to historically and socially determine authorial styles and stylistic communities (see Gilles Philippe’s approach and the notion of stylistic patterns (“patrons stylistiques”), 2008).

^[2] Applied to figures, the notion of hyperrelevance aims to propose, with Marc Bonhomme, an ex positivo approach to the figural dynamics within discourse, which is too often conceived in terms of deviation. It extends and deepens the notion of salience, which is defined as the detachment of the figure from its discursive background. See also Salvan, 2015.

Bibliography

BARTHES Roland, 1953, Le degré zéro de l’écriture, Paris, Seuil.

BONHOMME Marc, 2014 [2005], Pragmatique des figures du discours, Paris, Champion.

CHARAUDEAU Patrick et MAINGUENEAU Dominique (dir.), 2002, Dictionnaire d’analyse du discours, Paris, Seuil.

GAUDIN-BORDES Lucile et SALVAN Geneviève, 2010, « De la non-pertinence à l’hyperpertinence : intrig(u)antes figures dans Voyage au bout de la nuit », dans D. Denis, A. Jaubert et alii (dir.), Au corps du texte. Hommage à Georges Molinié, Paris, Champion, p. 279-295.

KLEE Paul, 1973, Écrits sur l’art I. La Pensée créatrice, textes recueillis et annotés par J. Spiller, traduction de S. Girard, Paris, Dessain et Tolra.

MOLINIÉ Georges, 1993, La stylistique, Paris, PUF.

MOLINIÉ Georges, 1986, Éléments de stylistique française, Paris, LGF.

PHILIPPE Gilles, 2008, « Registres, appareils formels et patrons », dans L. Gaudin-Bordes et G. Salvan (dir.), Les registres. Enjeux stylistiques et visées pragmatiques, Louvain-la-Neuve, Academia Bruylant, collection « Au cœur des textes », n°11, p. 27-37.

SALVAN Geneviève, 2015, « Faute avouée à moitié pardonnée », Pratiques [Online], 167-168. URL : https://pratiques.revues.org/2712