A Stylistic Study of Information Packaging Constructions in T.S. Eliot’s Poem “The Waste Land”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1602.04Keywords:
information packaging constructions, non-canonical constructions, canonical constructions, stylistics, rhymeAbstract
Information packaging constructions are complex and controversial structures. Sometimes there is no clear-cut difference between these types of constructions where they overlap. Almost all previous studies address such constructions syntactically, ignoring the study of these constructions stylistically. The present study tries to be an attempt to investigate and analyze T.S. Eliot’s (1922) poem “The Waste Land” stylistically in terms of information packaging constructions. It seeks to explore how these non-canonical constructions are employed for achieving some stylistic devices of deviation and phonological rhyme. The study analyzes the lines of this poem in which information packaging constructions occur, determining their types. In addition, the study specifies the types of deviation and the phonological rhyme and how they are created through the use of such constructions. For achieving these objectives, the study develops an eclectic model for analyzing a poem like this that integrates two approaches. The first one is Huddleston and Pullum's (2002) model of information packaging constructions, and the second one is Short's (1996) model of stylistic deviation and phonological rhyme. The study concludes that the poet employs six types of such constructions. They are preposing, postposing, inversion, existential, left and right dislocation, and passive. Preposing is the most employed type of these constructions. It is mostly employed for its important task in linking the meaning of the lines of the poem. Such constructions create and maintain stylistic deviation and phonological rhyme for poetic purposes.
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