ABSTRACT

This collection showcases the unique potential of stylistic approaches for better understanding the multifaceted nature of pop culture discourse. As its point of departure, the book takes the notion of pop culture as a phenomenon characterized by the interaction of linguistic signs with other modes such as imagery and music to examine a diverse range of genres through the lens of stylistics. Each section is grouped around thematic lines, looking at literary fiction, telecinematic discourse, music and lyrics, as well as cartoons and video games. The 12 chapters analyze different forms of media through five central strands of stylistics, from sociolinguistic, pragmatic, cognitive, multimodal, to corpus-based approaches. In drawing on these various stylistic frameworks and applying them across genres and modes, the contributions offer readers deeper insights into the role of scripted and performed language in social representation and identity construction, thereby highlighting the affordances of stylistics research in studying pop cultural texts. This volume is of particular interest to students and researchers in stylistics, linguistics, literary studies, media studies, and cultural studies.

chapter 1|19 pages

Zooming in

Stylistic approaches to pop culture

chapter 3|20 pages

From pop fiction to televisual adaptation

A corpus-stylistic approach to Dead until Dark and True Blood

chapter 5|20 pages

Ideological stance-taking in Jane the Virgin

Stylistic effects of multimodality and code-switching

chapter 6|21 pages

Suspense in film dialogue

Screening Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight

chapter 8|20 pages

The Arctic Monkeys live at the Royal Albert Hall

Investigating Turner's “lounge singer shimmer”

chapter 9|29 pages

“Guess who's back, back again”

Stylistic development in Eminem's lyrics

chapter 11|20 pages

The stylistic journey of a video game

A diachronic approach to multimodality in the Football Manager series

chapter 12|6 pages

Stylistic approaches to pop culture

An afterword