Critical Stylistics

Perfectly pitched to meet the needs of students in courses such as English functional grammar, discourse analysis, stylistics, advanced composition and critical discourse analysis. Jeffries's book is a long needed synthesis of linguistic stylistics and critical discourse analysis; it provides excellent background reading for advanced research on such issues as negation, speech and thought presentation, systemic grammar, and presupposition.'- Donald E. Hardy, University of Nevada, USA

How does language affect us? Critical Discourse Analysis provides a general theory of the impact that texts can have on readers. Stylistics provides detailed tools of analysis for understanding how texts work. This book combines these strengths to uncover the deep-seated ideologies of everyday texts.

This original and engaging textbook is concerned with stylistic choices, and the textual analysis which can illuminate the choices that a text producer has made. It combines the strengths of two approaches – critical discourse analysis and stylistics – to uncover the deep-seated ideologies of everyday texts. In so doing, it introduces a comprehensive set of tools which will help readers to explain and analyse the power of written texts. Each chapter focuses on a particular linguistic feature – such as naming and describing, prioritizing, negating, and hypothesizing – gives an overview of its argument and then explains the technical aspects of the feature along with a wealth of examples.

This book will be ideal reading for students on a wide range of courses, including stylistics, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, English functional grammar and advanced composition.