ABSTRACT
The theories discussed so far share a common assumption: that the stylistic character of a literary text defines it as literature and distinguishes it from the linguistic rules and conventions of non-literary discourse. The theories are textualist in that they perceive the literary text as a cohesive unity of patterns, structures and effects. Textualists record the ways in which literature borrows features from nonliterary language but maintain that these borrowings are transformed by the literary stylistics of the text.
