ABSTRACT
As I noted in Chapter 1, in feminist stylistic analysis, it is necessary to analyse the text using a model of meaning and reference quite different from that which is conventionally used in traditional stylistics. In feminist stylistics, stress is laid on the interaction between the text and the reader in the production of interpretations, and there is an emphasis on the factors beyond the conscious control of both writer and reader in the analysis. For example, the author is seen as someone who is writing within a set of discursive parameters which are not of her own making or of which she is not even necessarily consciously aware. Similarly, the reader is subject to many discursive pressures which lead her to read in particular ways. Furthermore, the notion of linguistic features being ‘in’ the text, a staple claim of stylistics, is finally laid to rest, since it is impossible in this more complex view of the text simply to assume that every reader will be able to understand the same message from the same set of linguistic signals.1
