The Contextualization Theory

Abstract

Formalist Stylistics adheres strictly to a text. This stance is inspired by the theory of textualism, which emerged in the second half of the 1970s and was in the spotlight in the 1980s. Textualism maintains that the interpretation of a text is primarily based on its ordinary meaning, without taking into account any external influence. It examines a text as a self-contained object—merely identifying its features without attempting to relate them to the message. Precisely, it ignores the role of context in the analysis. It reduces the importance of a text’s pragmatic, social, and situational contexts. Within the text, the focus is restricted to formal linguistic features, including phonology, lexicology, syntax, and a few literary devices which characterize imaginative writing. It does not deal with the thematic concerns and artistic significance of a text. In sum, it is a stylistic approach in which only the text is in the limelight. In contrast to this theory, Cognitive Stylistics assigns primacy to contextualization and non-textual sources such as world knowledge.