Edinburgh Textbooks on The English Language - Advanced
Series Editor: Heinz Giegerich

Books in this series provide readers with a detailed description and explanation of key areas of english Language study. The authors presuppose a basic working knowledge of the topic and explore aspects of the linguistics of english for an intermediate or advanced student readership.

'Gibbons and Whiteley present an elegant and usable guide to current stylistics in all its disciplinary richness. They demonstrate the appeal of the field with brilliantly creative analyses of a wide range of literature. Any literary criticism of any literary text will be richer with this book to hand.'
Peter Stockwell, University of Nottingham

How do texts create meaning? how do we arrive at our textual interpretations? Why do we become 'lost in a book' or feel deep emotion in response to a literary character? Through close attention to the way texts are written and the language they use, as well as what we know about the human mind, Contemporary Stylistics: Language, Cognition, Interpretation provides readers with the tools to begin answering these questions. In doing so, it introduces the theoretical principles and practical frameworks of stylistics and cognitive poetics, supplying the practical skills to analyse your own responses to literary texts. including innovative activities for students and with case studies of work by writers like Dylan Thomas, E. l. James and Kazuo Ishiguro, this is a detailed analysis of contemporary stylistics that offers both historical contextualisation of the discipline and points towards its possible future direction.

Alison Gibbons is Reader in Contemporary Stylistics at Sheffield Hallam University.
Sara Whiteley is Senior Lecturer in Language and Literature at the University of Sheffield.

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ISBN 978-0-7486-8277-5
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