STYLE

STYLE A general term that primarily means a way of doing things, with additional senses such as doing them appropriately, doing them well or badly, doing them in a distinctive way, or doing them in one of a number of ways.

Linguistic style

Someone may write in an ornate style, speak in a laconic style, and have an aggressive style when arguing. In all such cases, the way in which people do things can be seen to vary: from one medium to another (speech to writing), from one situation to another (formal to informal, legal to journalistic), and from one period or genre to another (Elizabethan to Romantic, prose to poetry, sonnet to ode). Yours faithfully is recognizably a formula of writing, He's kicked the bucket is a slangy equivalent of the euphemism He's passed away. Although stylistic variation can be discussed in terms of groups, generations, movements, and the like, it is most apparent in terms of individuals. No two people have the same style in writing or playing a game; as Sir Thomas Browne put it in the 16c, stylus arguit hominem (style maketh the man). In the same way, for such 20c structural linguists as Ferdinand de Saussure, style in language was a matter of parole (individual performance) rather than langue (the collective system). Readers recognize distinctive authorial styles (the loose sentence structures and grotesque metaphors of Charles Dickens, the periodic sentences and abstract diction of Henry James) and also differences between the styles of writers at different points in their careers (the play of sound in Shakespeare's ‘early style’ in his comedies as distinct from the richly figurative style in his last plays).

Appropriateness

The definition of lingusitic style as a ‘way’ or ‘manner’ implies distinctiveness, that there are phonetic, grammatical, and lexical features which mark out a text, register, genre, or situation: for example, legalisms like the BrE m'lud (my lord: said to a judge); the often ambiguous ellipses of headlinese (Defence cuts off agenda); and the ways in which a secretary on the telephone handles different callers. In the study of literature, style is a matter principally of design and theme, but in the works of writers of usage manuals and style guides, it is a matter principally of layout and the physical appearance of a manuscript, typescript, or printed text. In both areas, however, a sense of appropriateness or appropriacy is crucial: that choices have been made or must be made that take into account situation, occasion, subject matter, and audience (readers, listeners, viewers).

The idea of appropriateness has its origins in the canon of classical rhetoric known as elocutio. The three ways of speaking or writing were the high or grand style, the middle style, and plain or low style, all three of which were carried over into the European vernaculars. The grand declamatory style was associated with epic poetry and had Homer and Virgil as its models; it is well illustrated in English by Milton's Paradise Lost (1667). The restrained middle style was used in the main for education and edification; it was the basis of the English tradition of sermons from Aelfric in the 10c to Sir Thomas More in the 16c. The plain or low style was close to colloquial speech, used relatively simple vocabulary and syntax, and was the medium of popular entertainment in ballads and folk-tales. By and large, in both classical and English literature and oratory, the three styles have been points of reference rather than dogmatic categories, allowing for what 20c linguists call style-switching.

Good style, bad style

Jonathan Swift's definition of style as ‘proper words in proper places’ suggests approval, that styles can be evaluated, prescribed, and proscribed. In the 18c, the leaders of literate opinion were interested in elevating the literary language and promoting elegant and refined everyday usage among the upper and middle classes. They were by and large prescriptive, laying the foundation of attitudes to grammar, style, and usage which were not significantly questioned, particularly in educational institutions, until after the Second World War. Style in the evaluative sense tends to fall into two broad groups: ‘good’, ‘rich’, ‘elegant’, ‘refined’, ‘careful’, and ‘precise’ style and usage on the one hand, and ‘bad’, ‘poor’, ‘crude’, ‘vulgar’, ‘sloppy’, and ‘slovenly’ style and usage on the other. The latter has tended to be associated with colloquial, especially dialect, speech.

To be said to have ‘style’ is a high compliment similar to having ‘class’; to be said to have ‘no style (at all)’ is a serious adverse judgement. The precise social, cultural, and psychological bases for such assessments of speech and writing (especially if part of a consensus) are by no means clear. They appear, however, to involve a mixture of criteria associated with status (usually educational, often social, sometimes economic), ability (in such matters as selection, structure, clarity, delivery, and wit), and AESTHETICS (in such matters as balance, elegance, and euphony). Literary and other critics of the use of language generally agree that ‘good style’ is difficult to describe and by no means a matter of general agreement, yet there is often something on which wide agreement is possible, with regard to the style and success of a writer or speaker, just as there is often a consensus about the style and success of an athlete or musician.