ABSTRACT
A full stylistic analysis of a given spoken or written text would describe the text at all the traditional levels of linguistic description, i.e. sound, form, structure, and meaning, but it will not typically look at patterns created by long stretches of text (see DISCOURSE AND CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS and TEXT LINGUISTICS). In stylistic analysis, items and structures are isolated and described using terminology and descriptive frameworks drawn from whatever school of descriptive linguistics the stylistician subscribes to or finds most useful for a given purpose. The overall purpose, of course, will also vary according to the linguistic affiliations of the stylistician. For instance, to linguists of the London School (see FUNCTIONALIST LINGUISTICS), the immediate goal of stylistic analysis ‘is to show why and how the text means what it does’ (Halliday, 1983, p. x).
