Topic 6 (session A) - Style and Style variation > Authorial and text style

Authorial and Text Style

In this section, we will compare three short descriptions of people by three different novelists: John Steinbeck, Jane Austen and D. H. Lawrence. These short passages are reasonably representative of the typical styles of writing associated with the three different novelists, and so by comparing them we will in effect be comparing their writing styles. What we discover can only be indicative, of course. The passages are very short indeed, and in order to be sure that what we find is truly representative of a particular writer, we would really need to compare much larger samples than we have time for here. Nonetheless, our comparison will help us to understand what is involved in the characterisation of styles, and, as the passages are typical of the three writers, it will also show us quite a lot about the different qualities of those writers.

On the 'Style: what is it?' page we pointed out that the linguistic features which contribute towards a particular authorial style will, at the same time, contribute towards the meaning and effects of the particular text being examined, i.e. its text style. So, when we make the comparisons below we will look at authorial style and text style simultaneously.

We have selected three passages describing characters, in order to hold what is being written about reasonably consistent (it is very difficult to find examples of two authors writing about exactly the same thing). Note, though, that features which contribute to authorial style will tend to turn up reasonably consistently in an author's writings, whatever particular writing activity is being undertaken, just as the driving style of the golfer Tiger Woods "shines through" every driving activity he is involved in, no matter what country or tournament he is playing in, what club he uses, what weather conditions pertain at the time, and so on.

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