ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes a discussion of literature as a 'hypersemanticized' use of language. It explores a review of the relevance of linguistic analysis to understanding of 'how the language of literature works'. The chapter discusses an examination of topicalization as a stylistic mechanism. One of the stylistic mechanisms by which an element is fronted for thematic prominence is called topicalization or thematization. Topicalization may now be defined as a syntactic device which isolates one of the constituents of a sentence as 'topic' and shifts it to the sentence-initial position. Passivization, for example, is a special type of topicalization which moves the 'noun phrase' that is the centre of interest at the moment to the subject position and marks it 'thematic'. The chapter offers a formal analysis of topicalization transformations which can serve as a tool to explain the stylistic variations.
