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15 Stylistic Profiling 15 Stylistic profiling DA YID CR YST AL 15.1 Background Fruitful analytic concepts have unpredictable futures. This paper reports on the possibilities and problems encountered in extending one such concept from its original domain, clinical linguistics, into an area of inquiry for which it was never intended, stylistics. The early 1970s saw the development at Reading University of an approach to the study of language disability which came to be called grammatical profiling. This was simply an extension of the everyday use of the term. In the same way that one can identify people by singling out their distinguishing features, and presenting them in a coherent manner, so it was thought possible to identify the most salient features of emerging grammatical structure in a language• handicapped person, and to present these also in a systematic and clinically illuminating way. The LARSP profile (Language Assess• ment, Remediation and Screening Procedure; Crystal, Fletcher and Garman 1976), as it eventually transpired, was a single A4 chart on which were located four main kinds of information. (1) Developmental information was given about the order of emergence of grammatical structures, presented vertically as a series of seven 'stages'. (2) Structural information was given about the range of connectivity, clause, phrase and word constructions thought to be relevant to diagnosis as well as to the other clinical tasks of screening, assess• ment and remediation; this was presented horizontally, using the notational conventions and analytical approach - with slight modifi• cations - of Quirk et al. (1972). (3) Discourse information was given about the nature of the gram• matical interaction between T (the teacher or therapist) and P (the 221 222 Exploration of corpora Stylistic profiling 223 patient' or pupil), such as the types of response to a question sources of input to statistical or computational procedures. In a stimulus; this was presented in a separate section towards the top of subject where numerical precision is rated highly, profiles have a the chart. natural place. (4) Various kinds of procedural and clerical information were given, When a concept becomes so fruitful, it makes sense for any field relating to the patient and the sample, presented at the top and which has not hitherto made use of it to probe its potential also. bottom of the chart. Stylistics is one such field. I have come across the term profile used The approach proved to be fruitful in that it was successfully in an ad hoc way from time to time in stylistic discussion, and the applied to a wide range of patients in speech therapy clinics and in a concept seems to inform, implicitly, a great deal of analysis; but I variety of educational settings (e.g. language units, schools for the have not found its use as part of an explicit, principled approach to deaf), and was quickly extended to other domains of clinicallinguis• the study of style. Yet there is an immediate, intuitive plausibility tic inquiry. Profiles were devised for segmental phonology, prosody, about the idea of a 'stylistic profile', and the possibility of devising a . grammatical semantics and lexical semantics (Crystal 1982). At the single procedure for explicating the notion of stylistic identity ought same time, other scholars were making use of the profile concept in to be explored. independent ways, such as in phonology (e.g. Grunwell 1985) and But, it might be argued, is such an exploration necessary? If the pragmatics (e.g. Dewart and Summers 1988). It also continued to be primary focus of stylistics is linguistic distinctiveness, is not the widely used in the field of psychological and clinical testing, where whole subject, almost by definition, an exercise in profiling • an analogous concept has a long history as a way of presenting sets whether it be the style of an individual or of a social group? To of test results. In the 1980s the term profile came to be encountered answer this objection, a distinction needs to be drawn between in a prodigious number of linguistic contexts, especially in foreign means and ends. It is indeed the case that the goal of stylistics is the language teaching and the first language curriculum. For example, explication of linguistic distinctiveness, but this leaves open the in the new approach to English studies advocated as part of the question of how this goal might be achieved. To arrive at statements British National Curriculum (Department of Education and Science of linguistic identity (profiles), a profiling procedure must be 1989), the three main areas of language teaching (speaking/listening, adopted, and it is this which has so far been lacking. reading, writing) are dubbed profile components, and the concept I should rephrase this: it is rather that we have too many pro• of profile emerges as central to the whole teaching and assessment cedures. Each stylistics article develops its own approach, which is task. often as idiosyncratic as the characteristics of the style it investigates. Why do linguistic profiles help? They are, firstly, conveniences: As a result, it proves extremely difficult to make comparisons their design enables the user to bring together into a single place a between different analyses. Article A might provide a fascinating great deal of relevant data which would otherwise be fragmented on insight into the use of noun phrases in Dylan Thomas's poetry; cards, notes or the like. Secondly, the data are organized in such a Article B also provides a fascinating insight into the use of noun way that significant patterns emerge quickly. Thirdly, when infor• phrases in T. S. Eliot's poetry. It ought to be possible to carry out a mation from a sample is plotted on a profile chart, it is immediately comparative analysis - how similar, how different, are the two apparent (in terms of the categories represented on the chart) not authors in this respect? But it has never been possible to do this. only what is in the sample but also what is not - in clinical terms, The only meaningful comparative studies I know are those where an often a more significant factor. Fourthly, the fact that an attempt individual scholar has set up a specific framework of comparison for has been made to choose and grade only the most important a single study. Inter-study comparisons, even of studies by the same features makes the task of learning to use a profile relatively easy • author, are conspicuous by their absence. Stylistics is a world of some training schools, in fact, eventually used the procedure as a single-subject (author, variety) case studies, with as yet little pro• way of introducing students to English grammar. 1 And fifthly, gress made towards the goal of increasing the descriptive generality profiles have a clear numerical dimension, which makes them good of the subject. There is no stylistic typology of authors, or of 224 Exploration of corpora Stylistic profiling 225 vane tIes (though the use of multivariate analysis to provide a graphologically distinctive (e.g. the reduced use of punctuation), has description of the variation between speech and writing is an a distinctive use of noun phrase cross-reference instead of pronouns extremely promising development - see, for example, Biber 1988, (e.g. repeating the Life insured instead of using he or she for second Biber and Finegan, this volume). mention), and has distinctive legal vocabulary (e .g. hereinbefore, But again, it might be argued, is not your own stylistic work, whereof). But no attempt is made to evaluate these features. notably Crystal and Davy (1969), such a typology? Not a bit. The Looking at legal English from the viewpoint of English as a whole, aim of that work was to devise a single procedure which could be which of these features is more and which less distinctive? Is legal used for the investigation of all varieties. It took samples and English unique in its avoidance of punctuation (thus giving this identified the linguistic features of these samples, enabling us to feature a high rating, in any typology)? How distinctive is legal develop our awareness of how a particular text 'worked'. But it was vocabulary, in fact? Is it more distinctive than, say, the specialized no typology. It was too selective (in terms of the varieties chosen) vocabulary of religion or science? What does this question mean, and too comprehensive (in terms of the linguistic features described) anyway? How does one evaluate 'distinctiveness'? Is it an important to be a typology. And even though a single linguistic procedure was goal of stylistic inquiry? used for all the varieties examined, the distance between the indi• I do not know the answer to any of these questions except the vidual descriptive accounts and the demands of an illuminating last, where my response is an emphatic 'yes'. A major aim of any typology remained very great. For example, there are chapters on theory of style must be to explicate the notion of distinctiveness • journalese, legal language and religious language, and in each and not only within a single language, but across languages. Is legal chapter information is given about the types of noun phrase and French more or less distinctive than legal English? Does it make use verb phrase which are used. But what if you were to ask such of the same devices and principles? Several illuminating studies in questions as: What are the differences in noun phrase use between comparative stylistics have shown the kind of personal insight which legal and religious English? Are legal and religious English closer can be obtained (notably Ullman 1964). Can we move, from such together, in terms of verb phrase complexity, than either of these to foundations, towards a general stylistic theory? How can we begin journalese? Or (to broaden the point), are the spoken varieties to make really powerful comparative descriptions? This is where a analysed in this book distinguishable from the written varieties in profiling procedure may be of value - in bridging the gap between terms of noun or verb phrase complexity? Does variation in formality detailed description and typology.
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