Stylistics in China in the new century

Abstract

The new century has witnessed the fast development of both ‘traditional Chinese stylistics’ and ‘westernized stylistics’ in China. This article points out that the term ‘style’ (‘wenti’) has drastically different senses in the two different analytical contexts, and that the two stylistic approaches have very different concerns. With this distinction and clarification paving the way, this article goes on to review the development of ‘westernized stylistics’ in China in the new century, focusing on functional stylistics, cognitive stylistics, pragmastylistics, corpus stylistics and pedagogical stylistics. In China, westernized stylistic research is often carried out in connection with interlingual translation, either to shed new light on the stylistic choices through interlingual contrast, or to provide a new way for translation criticism. The fast development of westernized stylistics in China has to do with the EFL context, where it has attracted a large number of practitioners in the English department. Moreover, the thriving development of westernized stylistics in China in the new century testifies to the increasing international remit Language and Literature and PALA have achieved since more modest beginnings in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s.