ABSTRACT
Stylistics has proved to be an important tool for the description and classification of texts and has provided literary studies with perceptive analyses of the function of language in literature. Now with the advent of a reader-oriented criticism, stylistics can be propitiously applied to the study of transactions between reader and text. 2 A multitude of new questions clamour for attention. For instance, do textual language-patterns direct reader attention? What cues are picked up by readers and why? Literary education assumes that student readers can improve, but as researchers we need to determine more precisely the nature of the skills we wish to promote.
