Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students by Paul Simpson (review)

Simpson’s textbook, rightly the best-selling international pedagogical primer for the subject, is back in an expanded, updated, and improved second edition (313 pages against previous 247). In line with the series in which it appears, Stylistics is structured into four major sections, Introduction, Development, Exploration, and Extension. These sections are carefully sequenced and include helpful cross-references to other sections of the book, with clearly signaled indications of additional Internet support materials. The exercises are in many cases revised, but as engaging and provoking as ever, and can easily be used or adapted by the classroom teacher or for self-study by students as well as curious teachers and researchers who need to clarify or update their understandings of areas not quite within their usual specialism. The sections tackle, respectively, key concepts, developments (i.e., some examples of how the key concepts might be explored and issues they raise), then exploration (where more hands-on work by the reader is called for), and finally extension, where a published research reading central to the strand is reproduced or extracted, again with thoughtful questions and prompts to critical appreciation of the piece. These sections work a little more smoothly than in the first edition since material on satire and humor, interesting in itself but not fully integrated, is now moved for the most part to the Internet, while newer topics, in particular corpus stylistics, are given systematic and thorough consideration and descriptions; exercises and reading related to cognitive stylistics are also usefully updated. Multimodality and stylistics of drama are similarly brought up to the present and covered well. Reading of any titles in the Routledge series can be more linear (A1, A2, A3 . . .), opportunistic according to reader interest, or by topic (A4, B4, C4 . . .), and again these possible variations in reader approach and motivation are particularly well catered for by this update. This is a valuable reference book as well as a pedagogical text to help you out next time you are teaching this module or any particular concept covered. It is indeed a fully useful “resource book.” There is no glossary as such, though there is an adequate index with glossed references emboldened. A valuable feature is a further reading section with 34 individual headings approximately following the topic strands of the main text, and suggested readings with comments under each for those who want to pursue a more advanced understanding, or indeed to check that they have read all they ought to have in each area!

Another leading stylistician, Michael Toolan, in his recent review of “The Theory and Philosophy of Stylistics” (16), regrets that no writer of stylistics is ever likely to “produce an introduction half as entertaining” as Terry Eagleton has done. One of the great strengths of Simpson’s text is that he does manage to reproduce the humor and wit that makes his own teaching and lecturing so engaging, as those who have had the privilege of hearing him speak will attest. The book is rich in examples that engage and help with explanations while communicating an authorial personality. The exercises and questions through the book are clearly informed by Simpson’s many years as a leading teacher and practitioner of stylistics.

Using the text with students has proven fruitful. The book’s structure gives teachers a lot of choices. Prior to using it in a class introducing students to Literary Linguistics for the first time, covering a strand during the three hours of each week seemed a reasonable expectation. In practice, this expectation held, although the book always left us with many more possible areas for exploration, and trying to cover all twelve strands in twelve weeks would be a daunting proposition, leaving time for little else. As with other volumes in this series, it is easy to imagine using the book first with an introductory module and then again at an intermediate level. Doing so would allow one...