Lakhasly

Functional Stylistics
Functional styles, according to Esser (1993:32), belong to the category of objective style in Prague-School terminology. Objective style recognizes the recurrence of situational factors that have led to norms in certain areas of communication and thus opposed to individual style. Esser regards the classic distinction between poetic and prose language – a distinction which goes back to Aristotle and was confirmed by Wilhelm von Humboldt, as the forerunner of functional stylistic differentiation. This distinction proceeds from the assumption or general dictum that “form follows function” (the ends- and- means model). Esser sees Havránek‟s 1932 (translated and edited in 1964 by Garvin) influential article on the functional differentiation of standard language as a positive statement in the study of functional stylistics. In fact, Esser describes Havránek, a member of the Prague School, as “one important authority in functional stylistics” (33). Havránek describes the difference between standard language and folk speech and recognizes the four functions of standard language on the basis of three general stylistic devices: intellectualization, automatization, and foregrounding. Esser (1993:34) describes these as functional goals that determine the choice of concrete linguistic entities such as the pronunciation of a word, a lexical item or a syntactic construction. Havránek explains the three terms as follows: “By the intellectualization of standard language, which we also call its rationalization, we understand its adaptation to the goal of making possible precise and rigorous, if necessary abstract, statements, capable of
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Stylistics Issues in the Study of Language and Literature: Theory and Practice
expressing the continuity and complexity of thought, that is, to reinforce the intellectual side of speech.” Intellectualization manifests itself more clearly in scientific language. According to Havránek; “By automatization we thus mean such a use of the devices of the language, in isolation or in combination with each other, as is usual for certain expressive purpose, that is, such a use that the expression itself does not attract any attention” and “By foregrounding, on the other hand, we mean the use of the devices of the language in such a way that this use itself attracts attention and is perceived as uncommon, as deprived of automatization, as deautomatized, such as a live poetic metaphor (as opposed to a lexicalized one, which is automatized.” The devices of automatization and foregrounding work in a complementary fashion (Esser, 1993: 35). The distinction between the two echoes, in fact, reflects the old bipartition of prosaic and poetic language. Everyday communication is determined to a high degree by automatization, particularly in the case of phatic communion where language has the function of maintaining contact with the communication partner. The theory of foregrounding has been widely accepted, particularly in the area of poetic language. Thus, foregrounding has become the central concept in a functional poetic theory. Esser contends that foregrounding may be regarded as a sideline of functional stylistics which narrows its interest down to the definition and description of poetic language. Ian Mukarovsky and Roman Jakobson are the two most important representatives of the theory. While Mukarovsky was interested in the interpretation of poetic and standard language Jakobson was interested in demonstrating that in a general framework of six language functions (emotive, referential, conative, phatic, metalingual, poetic) the nature of poetic language could be explained by one relatively simple principle, that is, parallelism of linguistic forms and structures. It operates on equivalences of sound, stress, rhythm, images, syntactic structures, etc.