Why write stylistic analyses of Munro’s stories?

What is a stylistic approach to a literary text? It is a textual analysis and a commentary articulated in linguistic terms. It assumes that the descriptive and explanatory systems of one linguistic model or another should be a good way of enhancing our understanding of how the text works. And not just ‘should’ but ‘must’; and not just for a literary text, but any text. As Michael Burke reminds us in his Introduction to the recently-published Routledge Handbook of Stylistics (2014), the origi..

Peter Black, Christopher Stevens, <i>class</i> and inequality in the <i>Daily Mail</i>

This article is part of a larger study of changes in British newspaper representations of wealth inequality in the United Kingdom from 1971 to the present day. Selected findings are reported from a corpus-linguistically based comparative critical discourse analysis of large samples (approximately 55,000 words each) of TV programme reviews that appeared in the Daily Mail, written by the TV critics Peter Black (in 1971) and Christopher Stevens (in 2013). Occurrences of class and its collocates and co-texts are a particular focus of attention. In Black’s reviews, it is a recurrent contemporary concern and recognised as indicative of inequality of opportunity. In Stevens’ much longer stories, class has largely disappeared from the discursive agenda of contemporary Britain and is only mentioned in relation to the past or other countries. By 2013, it seems to have become ‘natural’ not to discuss class and present-day wealth inequality in Mail TV reviews. The part-quantitative, part-qualitative methodology adopted here suggests that the tracing of something as masked as the discursive acceptance of wealth inequality must inevitably be more piecemeal and multi-factorial than other more sharply and overtly categorised forms of discrimination (based on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion, for example). </jats:p

Is Style in Short Fiction Different from Style in Long Fiction?

Is style in short fiction different from style in long fiction? More specifically: are short stories different stylistically from novels (even if we talk only of some types of short stories, vs some types of novels; and differing in degree rather than in kind)? In the context of a symposium on Style in Fiction, this essay makes some points about style in short fiction, and a particular respect in which it may differ from style in novels. I begin with some observations about some domains where it is hard to see a short story/novel stylistic contrast; I then make some points about what are widely accepted as features characteristic of stories; thereafter I focus on the occurrence in some stories (but not, I hypothesize, in novels) of what I call High Emotional Involvement Passages, which are distinct in form and function from ambient story text.Le style des fictions brèves est-il le même que celui des fictions longues ? Plus précisément, les nouvelles diffèrent-elles stylistiquement des romans (même si on ne considère que quelques types de nouvelles et quelques types de romans et que l’écart soit plus une question de degré que de nature) ? Dans le contexte d’un colloque sur le Style dans la Fiction, cet article définit quelques traits spécifiques à la nouvelle, en particulier quand ils diffèrent de ceux que l’on observe dans le roman. L’article débute avec des exemples dans lesquels il est difficile d’observer des différences notables entre nouvelles et romans. Je rappelle ensuite quelques caractéristiques généralement associées à la nouvelle. Enfin, mon étude se porte sur l’utilisation, dans certaines nouvelles (mais pas, telle est ma thèse, dans les romans) de ce que je nomme des passages de Grande Implication Emotionnelle qui diffèrent du reste de la nouvelle d’un point de vue formel et fonctionnel

Girl power in ‘A Trip to the Coast’

Focussing particularly on stylistic tendencies in ‘A Trip to the Coast’, this article situates that story within the collection as a whole, and discusses the interests of the story and the collection in the struggles of girls and women, and of girls against women, in a world often controlled by men. The girl vs woman fights are neo-gothic in intensity, and, figuratively or otherwise, ‘to the death’. For the girl to become a free and independent person, the matriarch’s power must be broken. While there is a mythic or folktale core to this story arc, this is submerged in the absorbing physical and psychological depiction of the girl, her grandmother, and a travelling salesman, and the women’s conversational ‘wrestling’, full of feints and blocks and traps, as they strive to emerge from life’s inconsequentialities unvanquished. My article introduces some simple corpus linguistic methods for extracting, with a degree of objectivity, words and meanings that are prominent in the story text; these stylistically prominent features are then used in story interpretation. Several of the narrative preoccupations of ‘A Trip to the Coast’, which is focalised by the teenage girl, are discussed at length: body shapes and smells, conversational resistance, and uncertainty of narrative interpretation

John McGahern’s stylistic and narratological art

The Irish writer John McGahern is acknowledged as a master stylist in both his novels and his short stories. In this article we discuss the stylistic and narratological factors that contribute to the artistry in McGahern’s short story writing. We analyse three stories: “A Slip-up”, “All Sorts of Impossible Things”, and “Creatures of the Earth”, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The stylistic devices that we concentrate on are speech and thought presentation, negative polarity, lexico-semantic foregrounding, prospection and projection, collocation and semantic prosody, and keyness. We argue that by analysing these devices it is possible to gain an insight into the way in which McGahern draws the reader into his stories and generates empathetic responses to his characters. Consequently, these stylistic techniques may be seen as integral to McGahern’s style as a writer.John McGahern, écrivain irlandais, est reconnu comme étant un styliste d’exception, que ce soit dans ses romans ou dans ses nouvelles. Dans cet article, nous analysons quelques-uns des traits stylistiques et narratologiques qui contribuent à faire de John McGahern un maître de la nouvelle. Nous proposons une étude qualitative et quantitative de trois nouvelles, « A Slip-Up », « All sorts of Impossible Things » et « Creatures of the Earth », fondée sur la présentation des paroles et des pensées, la polarité négative, le foregrounding lexico-sémantique, l’anticipation et la projection, la collocation et la prosodie sémantique ainsi que la fréquence d’utilisation de mots-clés. La thèse défendue ici est que l’étude de ces éléments permet de comprendre comment McGahern parvient à impliquer le lecteur dans ses récits et à générer de l’empathie pour ses personnages. En conséquence, ces traits stylistiques peuvent être perçus comme faisant partie intégrante de l’art narratif de McGahern

Highly Ordered Titanium Dioxide Nanostructures via a Simple One Step Vapor Inclusion Method in Block Copolymer Films

Nanostructured crystalline titanium dioxide (TiO2) finds applications in numerous fields such as photocatalysis or photovoltaics where its physical and chemical properties depend on its shape and crystallinity. We report a simple method of fabricating TiO2 nanowires by selective area deposition of titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) and water in a CVD-based approach at low temperature by utilizing PS-b-PEO self-assembled block copolymer thin film as a template. Parameters such as exposure time to TTIP (minutes to hours), working temperature (~18 to 40 °C) and relative humidity (20 to 70 RH%) were systemically investigated through GISAXS, SEM and XPS and optimized for fabrication of TiO2 nanostructures. The resulting processing conditions yielded titanium dioxide nanowires with a diameter of 24 nm. An extra calcination step (400 – 700 °C) was introduced to burn off the remaining organic matrix and introduce phase change from amorphous to anatase in TiO2 nanowires without any loss in order

Aza-Cibalackrot: Turning on Singlet Fission Through Crystal Engineering

Singlet fission is a photophysical process that provides a pathway for more efficient harvesting of solar energy in photovoltaic devices. The design of singlet fission candidates is non-trivial and requires careful optimization of two key criteria: (1) correct energetic alignment and (2) appropriate intermolecular coupling. Meanwhile, this optimization must not come at the cost of molecular stability or feasibility for device applications. Cibalackrot is a historic and stable organic dye which, although it has been suggested to have ideal energetics, does not undergo singlet fission due to large interchromophore distances, as suggested by single crystal analysis. Thus, while the energetic alignment is satisfactory, the molecule does not have the desired intermolecular coupling. Herein, we improve this characteristic through molecular engineering with the first synthesis of an aza-cibalackrot and show, using ultrafast transient spectroscopy, that singlet fission is successfully "turned on.

Does 1,8-diiodooctane affect the aggregation state of PC71BM in solution?

1,8-Diiodooctane (DIO) is an additive used in the processing of organic photovoltaics and has previously been reported, on the basis of small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements, to deflocculate nano-aggregates of [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM) in chlorobenzene. We have critically re-examined this finding in a series of scattering measurements using both X-rays and neutrons. With SAXS, we find that the form of the background solvent scattering is influenced by the presence of DIO, that there is substantial attenuation of the X-rays by the background solvent and that there appears to be beam-induced aggregation. All three factors call into question the suitability of SAXS for measurements on these samples. By contrast, small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) measurements, performed at concentrations of 15 mg ml−1 up to and including 40 mg ml−1, show no difference in the aggregation state for PC71BM in chlorobenzene with and without 3% DIO; we find PC71BM to be molecularly dissolved in all solvent cases. In situ film thinning measurements of spin-coated PC71BM solution with the DIO additive dry much slower. Optical imaging shows that the fullerene films possess enhanced molecular mobility in the presence of DIO and it is this which, we conclude, improves the nanomorphology and consequently solar cell performance. We propose that any compatible high boiling solvent would be expected to show the same behaviour