Subodh Bhattarai (English & Communication Notes - BBA/BBS/BBBS/BHM/BIM//MBA/MBS & +2)

Chapter 5: Stylistic Applications to Drama Introduction  A play exists in two ways— on the page , and on the stage ; this presents something of a dilemma for the literary critic since the two manifestations are quite different and need different analytic approaches. When stylistics has focused on drama , it has almost invariably been concerned with the text, rather than the performance. The text, after all, is static and unchanging , (although different editions of a play might contain textual variations). The stylistician may easily turn back the pages to a previous scene, and make comparisons between speeches in different parts of the play, or even reach for another book, and make comparisons between different plays.   The (live) performance of a play , on the other hand, is transient (short-lived). A speech only partially heard through inattention cannot be heard again on that occasion.   Actors may differ in their performances from one night to the next, and a half-empty house mi

 Chapter 4: Meaning 1.     Introduction The concept of ‘meaning’ is difficult to define or explain. It has been approached from many very different angles by linguists, by literary theorists and by philosophers. Theories of meaning can be very complex and are often hotly disputed. If meaning is complicated in language which is primarily concerned with transmitting information or establishing social relations (writing in a scientific journal, or greeting a friend, for example) then it is inevitably going to be very complicated in literary uses of language, where writers may deliberately explore the edges of possible meanings in a language and try to push them a bit further to see what kind of effect they can get.   2.     Semantics When we want to know the meaning of an unfamiliar word, we look it up in the dictionary. Discussions of meaning at the level of single words usually come under the scope of semantics, the study of word meaning. Semantics considers how the meanings of words in