A stylistic study of the language of Joseph Conrad's novels.

In this pragmatic approach to Conrad's style emphasis is placed as much on the way Conrad uses certain stylistic features as on the reasons behind his ‘ideolectal’ use of language. That is because I take stylistics to be the means of bringing about the much-needed rapprochement between linguistics and literary criticism. With this in mind, my main interest is in the permanent and non-casual features of Conrad's style, though there may be incidental comments regarding other aspects. The study falls into ten chapters. Chapter I surveys some of the theories of style-study from the ancients to the present time. It also lays down the lines along which my pragmatic approach to Conrad's style is conducted. Chapter II discusses the three elements making up Conrad's linguistic background, emphasising, in the process, the importance of the English linguistic and literary tradition on his style. Chapters III, IV and V. deal with speech in Conrad. Chapter III sees punctuation mainly as an aid towards a more realistic transcription of speech. Chapter IY examines the reasons behind I the limited range of the varieties of English in Conrad, while Chapter V treats of Conrad's methods of reporting fictional speech. Chapters VI, VII, VIII and. IX deal with Conrad's use of language for purposes of evocation and evasion. Chapter VI is concerned with Conrad's modifiers. 33 a means of evocation; Chapter VII sees Conrad's comparisons as agents of uncertainty or obfuscation; Chapter IX shows the verb phraso to partake of both functions, while Chapter VIII examines Conrad's connectives and their impact on the movement and tempo of his prose. Chapter X points out the implications of the study and highlights those specific fields of enquiry where more research is needed in so far as Conrad's style is concerned. The assumption underlying the investigation that follows is that Conrad's stylistic strategy is in keeping with his artistic credo as propounded in the Preface to The Nigger, and elsewhere, which is, "by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel it is, before all to make you see."