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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin.

Previous work in stylistics has concentrated a great deal on theory to the exclusion of practical investigation of styles. The practical investigations deal with Newspapers or Advertising copy. No thorough stylistic analysis has been made of Administrative English. A qualitative analysis of Government Information leaflets, reveals that they are stylistically distinct at all linguistic levels, but that two different types of text emerge, closely linked to the means by which the reader is addressed either personally as 'you' (P.A.) or impersonally as for example in 'the claimant (I.A.). A subsequent quantitative analysis of a selection of the most prominent stylistic features of Government Information Leaflets and their comparison with the leaflets published by financial institutions reveals that whilst most of the variables chosen are stylistic, there is little evidence to assume a single Administrative variety. Checks on the relationship between supposed style categories and the individual texts assigned to than are shown by a Cluster Analysis to be very accurate. Patterning of variables is revealed around 2 stylistic dimensions: Status and Mbdality. leaflets are distinguished from P.A. largely by Status variables. The leaflets of Financial Institutions group with P.A. texts. All three of these styles are grouped together by Modality Variables.

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The Introduction sets out the two major aims of the thesis. The first is to evolve a precise and economical terminology for describing the language of prophetic eschatology and to find objective criteria for description, the problem being how to decide whether such language is intended literally or otherwise. The second aim is to show that and how the prophets use nonliteral poetic imagery, not for comment or decoration, but in attempts to sway their audience, present condensed argument or assertion, and show contemporary situations in a new light. The main lines of approach in subsequent chapters are then sketched out.

附作者簡歷. / Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學敎育學院. / Fu zuo zhe jian li. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-145). / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue jiao yu xue yuan. / Chapter 第一章 --- 導言 / 問題說明 --- p.1 / 有關文獻 --- p.10 / 假設 --- p.31 / 定義 --- p.33 / Chapter 第二章 --- 研究方法 --- p.39 / 研究設計 --- p.39 / 研究對象 --- p.44 / 研究工具 --- p.46 / 實驗程序 --- p.56 / 資料分析 --- p.63 / Chapter 第三章 --- 結果與討論 --- p.69 / 結果 --- p.69 / 討論 --- p.101 / Chapter 第四章 --- 摘要，結論及建議 --- p.127 / 摘要與結論 --- p.127 / 建議 --- p.136 / 參考文獻 --- p.141 / 附錄 --- p.146 / Chapter 一 --- 虛實詞式填字測驗試卷 --- p.146 / Chapter 二 --- 實詞式填字測試試卷 --- p.151 / Chapter 三 --- 虛詞式填字測試試卷 --- p.154 / Chapter 四 --- 多項選擇式理解測驗試卷 --- p.157 / Chapter 五 --- 填字測驗各項平均分、標準差及「兩元次重複測量設計」之電腦計算程序 --- p.174 / Chapter 六 --- 填字測驗成績与理解測驗成績相關係數之電腦計算程序 --- p.178 / Chapter 七 --- 填字測驗中倆種計分法所得成績之相關係數之電腦計算程序 --- p.182

People who match each other’s language styles in dialogue tend to have more positive interactions. A person’s language style is defined by his or her use of function words (e.g., pronouns, articles), a class of short, commonly used words that make up the grammatical structure of language. The language style matching (LSM) metric indexes the degree of similarity between two individual’s patterns of function word usage. Previous research assumes that function word similarity and its positive social correlates, such as liking, result from convergence that occurs within an interaction. However, the link between language style similarity and liking may alternately be explained by two kinds of preexisting similarity. First, people tend to like each other more to the degree that they are similar in terms of attitudes, backgrounds, and personality, and these kinds of interpersonal similarity tend to manifest themselves in similar function word use. Second, processing fluency research suggests that people will process typical language styles—which are by definition similar to most other language styles in a normal population—more fluently and thus will like typical speakers more than less typical speakers. Two studies compared the relationship between liking and three measures of function word similarity (convergence, baseline similarity, and typicality) during brief conversations. Each language similarity variable was hypothesized to positively predict measures of liking individually. However, consistent with the behavior coordination literature, only LSM, a measure of within-conversation language convergence, was expected to predict liking above and beyond the other predictors. Study 1 revealed that both men and women in mixed-sex dyads were more interested in contacting their partners the more that their language styles converged during 4-minute face-to-face conversations. Men were also more interested in contacting their female partners to the degree that women’s baseline language styles matched their own. Study 2 found that men, but not women, were more interested in contacting their partners the more that they matched each other’s language styles during 8-minute online chats. Results support the hypothesis that language convergence, theoretically an index of interpersonal engagement, positively predicts quasi-behavioral measures of liking. / text

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Twentieth-century writers, scholars and critics have formulated explicitly and illustrated systematically the doctrine that literary language is autonomous. The aim of our thesis is to analyse the scope and implications of this now widespread view of literary language, which we examine here with particular reference to twentieth-century French literature. Our study follows three main lines of inquiry: In the first part we analyse how-the belief in the autonomy of literary language came to be formulated. We then try to envisage such an autonomous literary language in practical terms. Finally we outline some of its broader implications for our understanding of literature. An analysis of the scattered doctrines of the Tel Quel group, dedicated to bringing about the semiotic autonomy of the literary text," reveals the existence of a philosophy of literature based on the premise that, in its very essence, the literary text is not meant to communicate or to transmit an intelligible message and is, in fact, not dependent on any pre-established norms. Since full consideration of a theoretical view involves as well an appreciation of its applicability to the real world, we examine in the second part of our study the theory of an autonomous literary language from a pragmatic point of view. Linguists will readily admit that, in a theoretical sense, every individual is free to create his own independent linguistic code; but they will also maintain that, in realistic terms, the utilization of such a freedom is "absurd," since the process of communication per se can exist only at a socialized level. One must therefore conclude that any theory which propounds the practice of an autonomous literary language is not meant to be taken literally but calls for a metaphorical interpretation. We have searched out this metaphorical meaning by attempting to determine at what precise level, the literary proponents of this doctrine depart, in their own writings, from what linguists have defined as the normal process of communication; in other words, at what level do their writings become incomprehensible to, for example, the educated French reader? It becomes clear in the process that if such literary works in fact need to be "deciphered" it is not because they possess their own private phonological, lexical and syntactical systems but rather because they do not rely on the conventional coherence of traditional narrative. Instead of deriving from a subordination of events in a hierarchy of causal relations, this "new coherence" presents the reader with no more than a simple juxtaposition of semantically related narrative elements. The subordination of narrative units in a cause/effect hierarchy is not essential to the reader's understanding of the linguistic code of a particular novel or work. It is, however, clearly an essential element of the process of communication for without it the reader cannot objectively perceive the context to which the work refers. But what we have labelled a "new coherence" implies the very absence of such a hierarchy essential to the process of communication. Consequently we are forced to the conclusion that the doctrine of an autonomous literary language is significant enough to require new definitions of some fundamental aspects of narration, as well as a radical change in our perception of the historical development of literature and in our cognition of the individual literary text. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate