stylistics

American  

[stahy-lis-tiks] / staɪˈlɪs tɪks /

noun

(used with a singular verb)

1. the study and description of the choices of linguistic expression that are characteristic of a group or an individual in specific communicative settings, especially in literary works.

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stylistics British  

/ staɪˈlɪstɪks /

noun

1. (functioning as singular or plural) a branch of linguistics concerned with the study of characteristic choices in use of language, esp literary language, as regards sound, form, or vocabulary, made by different individuals or social groups in different situations of use

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Other Word Forms

• stylistician noun

Etymology

Origin of stylistics

First recorded in 1840–50; stylistic, -ics

Example Sentences

Personally, I liked her marriage of vintage Hollywood noir stylistics and dour millennial attitude right away, but did feel her pastiche-based approach sometimes yielded uneven writing.

From Slate • Dec. 10, 2019

Showing “Breathless” with John Cassavetes’s “Shadows,” a contemporaneous American exercise in new-wave stylistics, is a lecture in itself on what was innovative and dynamic in late-1950s cinema.

From New York Times • Aug. 16, 2016

Despite the overdone stylistics in the film’s final third, Sen-Gupta’s dark dreamscape distills notions of vulnerability with gritty power.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 23, 2016

It also mimics the distancing stylistics of manga comics as well as suggesting the short-circuitry of the psychopath.

From The Guardian • Sep. 28, 2012

During this Khalifate were also produced the earliest germs of stylistics, epistolography and mysticism, all of which were more fully developed under the Abbasides.

From Arabic Authors A Manual of Arabian History and Literature by Arbuthnot, F. F.