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ALLS 7(4):95-112, 2016

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Corpus stylistics, though grounded in computer programming and advanced technology, is not the only stylistic 
discipline that underpins frequency of the language variations in literary texts. The application of statistical techniques 
in linguistic theory and description has come to be labeled as 
Statistical linguistics
: the study "includes the analysis of 
frequency and distribution of linguistic units in texts with the aim of identifying the distinctive characteristics of the 
speaker or writer as (in 
Stylostatistics
)" (Crystal, 2003: 432). These techniques have proven their validity in analyzing 
the products of literature from a statistical angle.
v.
Pragmatic stylistics
. Since the structural turning-point in the very early of the twentieth century, the linguistic lesson 
in its subfields has been dealing with the problem of meaning. So, language philosophy, semantics, pragmatics, 
discourse analysis, stylistics and semiotics, ( if the latter is considered as a structural strand), all deal with meaning 
proper. If stylistics mainly investigates meaning potential in a literary structure, then, pragmatics studies meaning in 
context, with much attention to the social context. In everyday life, we normally use language to communicate our 
individual ideas and to maintain social roles. The environment in which meanings are exchanged is referred to as 
Context of situation
. The ways our real world knowledge and beliefs affect language use and structure are explored in 
the discipline known as 
Pragmatics
(Jacobs, 1995); but whether in stylistics or pragmatics, our main concern is 
language as a vehicle to transmit our mental products as forms of meaning. The possible connection of stylistics to 
pragmatics has been referred to as 
Pragmatic stylistics
. In her (2006) book 
Pragmatic Stylistics
, Elizabeth Black 
postulated the term to stress the contribution of pragmatic dimension to the interpretation of literary texts. The 
illocutionary and perlouctionary acts operate forcefully in the speaker's language choices, whether in spoken utterances 
or invented ones uttered by the dramatic or fictional characters. Black believes that the gap between the literary and 
non-literary language should be bridged, since the same sources of language are used in spoken or written languages, 
including the classical figures of style(i.e., metaphor, simile, synecdoche, etc.), which are the brand mark of literary 
texts. A mutual area of concern that both stylistics and pragmatics deal with is 
metaphor
. Whether in classical rhetoric 
or modern stylistics, whether being viewed as an ornament or an affective and expressive power in style, metaphor has 
no more been the prerogative of widely quoted example of literature. The notion of 
Conceptual metaphor
, postulated by 
Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) outstanding monograph, brings stylistics closer to pragmatics, since metaphor is a sort of 
speech act. So, instead of being an extra beauty, metaphor becomes a crucial part of a human cognitive network, and is 
currently used in everyday situations. This new conceptualization is not without relevance to the culture code in which 
metaphors are germinated. Hence, the gap between human sciences is dramatically bridged due to the evolution of 
human cognitive patterns. In this light," the models of pragmatics and discourse analysis," as Simpson (2004:39), has 
put it, " had become a familiar part of the stylistic arsenal since the 198s." One significant point we would like to point 
to, here, is that the sophisticated view that tries to position 
Literary criticism 
in direct counterpart to 
Cultural criticism
has no ground in the domain of cultural studies, simply because the data to be investigated in both disciplines are the 
same: they are the forms of meaning, the forms of culture products, and ultimately the forms of human mind.
Cognitive stylistics
. Inspired by 
Cognitive science
and 
Cognitive linguistics
,
 
the last decade of the twentieth century and 
the early decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed the circulation of 
Cognitive stylistics
or 
Cognitive poetics 
which stressed the growing interest of cognitive scholars in the interpretation of literary stylistic patterns of expression. 
This is simply because the literary text lends itself to scientific analysis, whether linguistic or non-linguistic. The 
ostensible view of 
Cognitive stylistics
delineates the study of cognitive structures and processes that forcefully operate 
in the production of literary artifacts. The human mind products in the literary code have been given a new vision in this 
modern stylistic pathway. So, while traditional stylistics has focus upon the formal levels or strata of language, this 
approach has insight into the factors of cognition in the literary-meaning perception and production. Take, for instance, 
Prometheus
in the Western culture. Prometheus was imaged as the culture hero who brought fire from the heaven for 
the prosperity of mankind. As a redemption, he was destined for a perpetual suffering by Zeus, the god of gods. 
Stylistically, the image of Prometheus was envisaged by Aeschylus in his classical drama, 
Prometheus Bound
, and by 
Shelley in his 
Prometheus Unbound. 
But in spite of the difference of styles in the two works of art, "we can form a 
mental representation which will specify what a certain entity is, what it is for, what it looks like and so on" (Simpson, 
2004; 40). In this stance, "this image has been rendered down from multiple experience onto a kind of idealized 
prototypical image, an image which we might term an 
idealistic cognitive model
'(ibid). The model is idealized, and "an 
idealized cognitive model (ICM) contains information about what is typical (for us) and it is a domain of knowledge 
that is brought into play for the processing and understanding of textual representations."(ibid).
 
Such an outstanding 
view may interlink, not only the language of literature to the cognitive psychology of reading or the cognitive theory of 
linguistics, but Cognitive stylistics might be interrelated to semiotics of myth: if semiotics of myth explores the 
structural patterns that underlie the mythic patterns, then these structural patterns are cognitive- they reveal the ways of 
thinking of pre-historic man. The validity of Cognitive stylistics in textual analysis might be anticipated in Semio and 
Jonathan's world view (2003::ix) when they say that "what is new about cognitive stylistics is the way in which 
linguistic analysis is systematically based on theories that relate linguistic choices to cognitive structures and processes. 
This provides more systematic and explicit accounts of the relationship between texts on the one hand and responses 
and interpretations on the other." This may sustain the assumption that the intersection of human sciences seems 
inevitable in the world of advanced contemporary technology. The epistemic interconnection of style to other human 
fields will be clearly illustrated in Figure 1.

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