Textual Stylistic Variation: Choices, Genres and Individuals

T his chapter argues for more informed target metrics for the statistical processing of stylistic variation in text collections. Much as operationalized relevance proved a useful goal to strive for in information retrieval, research in textual stylistics, whether application oriented or philologically inclined, needs goals formulated in terms of pertinence, relevance, and utility—notions that agree with reader experience of text. Differences readers are aware of are mostly based on utility—not on textual characteristics per se. Mostly, readers report stylistic differences in terms of genres. Genres, while vague and undefined, are well-established and talked about: very early on, readers learn to distinguish genres. This chapter discusses variation given by genre, and contrasts it to variation occasioned by individual choice. 1.1 Stylistic variation in text Texts are much more than what they are about. Authors make choices when they write a : they decide how to organize the material they have planned to introduce; they select amongst available synonyms and syntactic constructions; they target an intended audience for the text. Authors will make their choices in various ways and for various reasons: based on personal preferences, on their view of the reader, and on what they know and like about other similar texts. These choices are observable to the reader in the form of stylistic variation, as the difference between two ways of saying the same thing. On a surface level this variation is quite obvious, as the choice between items in a vocabulary, between types of syntactical constructions, between the various ways a Swedish Institute of Computer Science Box 1263, S–164 29 Kista, Sweden [email protected]