Stylistics: Theory and Practice, by Ikenna Kamalu

Abstract

Ikenna Kamalu's book Stylistics: Theory and Practice is a contemporary handbook on modern stylistics. It demonstrates how practitioners of stylistics can effectively identify language patterns and peculiarities of discourse within a given linguistic framework. It opens with a discussion on the subject of language, representation and ideation in discourse, at a multi-level dimension. The book is remarkably alert to the ways in which language in varied discourse modes imbricates the main currents, trends, literary ideals and ideological thrusts prevalent in every society and age. Drawing from the gains of applied sociolinguistics, it extends its analysis to other fields such as literature, text grammar, pedagogy, popular culture, semiotics, rhetoric, metaphor analysis, and jurisprudence. This is to demonstrate that the principles of linguistics are applicable in diverse fields of human endeavour.