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The Principle of Moments

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Pedagogical Stylistics in the 21st Century

Abstract

This chapter offers a redefinition of text in terms of its moments and momentum. Beginning with assumptions about the experiential and readerly basis of the nature of a text, the discussion draws on earlier work in text linguistics and discourse analysis which argued for the centrality of dynamism in stylistic analysis. An example of an analysis of moments is offered from Romeo and Juliet. The ways in which the reader’s experience of moments is perceived as narrative momentum is schematised into a principled model which can be used for classroom exploration. This draws partly on Sinclair’s proposed notion of prospection, as well as later insights from cognitive poetics. The result is a working model of moments and momentum that is briefly illustrated with a passage from an Evelyn Waugh novel. The chapter claims that experiential matters of textuality such as pragmatic knowledge, memory, feeling, and anticipation are also the proper domain of linguistics and also that discourse and readerly experience are at the heart of a stylistic exploration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Peter Stockwell

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  1. Peter Stockwell
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Correspondence to Peter Stockwell .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Sonia Zyngier

  2. University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Greg Watson

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Stockwell, P. (2022). The Principle of Moments. In: Zyngier, S., Watson, G. (eds) Pedagogical Stylistics in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83609-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83609-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-83608-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-83609-2

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