ABSTRACT

The primary focus and interest of stylistics has been the analysis of style in any instance of language use, it examines both oral discourse and written text in order to ascertain the form and effect of choices and to determine essential linguistic properties, structures and patterns influencing perception of oral and textual discourses. This research work provides a literary stylistic analysis of LaboYari’sA Day Without Cockcrow. As a way in which literary appreciation is being made, the major aspects investigated include: the writer’s use of language, stylistic devices, narrative techniques and figurative expressions. These formed the basis of analysis in the course of the study.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Stylistics is the study and interpretation of text with regard to its linguistic and literary style. It is the study of styles in language that accounts for how meanings are projected in literary works. Its central concern is the way in which communicative effects are achieved by means of linguistic choices and how linguistic elements act in a text to communicate the author’s message. Stylistic study therefore, serves as a means by which ideas and meaning in literary texts are interpreted and conveyed. Thus, it elucidates pattern in styles that influence and clarifyreader’s perception of a given literary piece.

However, Stylistics facilitates the understanding of literary texts by examining in detail the linguistic choices and styles adopted by writers in conceptualizing thoughts, ideas, meaning and reality in any artistic work. Such detailed examination of a text often aids reader’s comprehension of the author’s message. Stylistics generally employs literary analysis to provide organization of the devices and techniques that characterize a particular literary work. Hence, stylistic study has become an established discipline that approaches literary texts through linguistic frame work that explicitly communicates meaning entrenched in literary works. And so, stylistics remains a useful tool in analyzing literary text from any stand point by exploring the writer’s overall use of language in creating both aesthetic and artistic effect in a text.