IT is heartening to note that our young researchers and critics are now turning towards modern themes and are analysing our literature from different angles. One such angle is stylistics.
Though stylistics is not quite new and it was introduced in the West in the early 20th century, in Urdu it emerged rather late and it was only after the 1950s that some scholars, such as Masood Hussain Khan, began discussing Urdu literature from a stylistic point of view.
Stylistics is a branch of applied linguistics and it tries to understand and analyse a text on the basis of its linguistic and stylistic features. Stylistics relies basically on four branches of linguistics: phonetics, semantics, morphology and syntax. In other words, stylistics — while analysing linguistic forms — connects literary criticism with linguistics. But a very valid objection raised against stylistics is that it takes into account only the linguistic and stylistic characteristics of a text and does not, or cannot, evaluate other significant aspects of literary pieces, such as, aesthetic, ideological, cultural, social and psychic facets of literature. But stylistic studies are regarded valuable for their different approach as they consider linguistic attributes of texts that are generally ignored in traditional critical approaches.
Most of the stylistic criticism in Urdu was written in India. But during the last few years some young Pakistani researchers and critics, too, have come up with their PhD or MPhil dissertations written on the ideas based on stylistics. The latest among them is one by Dr Aamir Suhail, a scholar and teacher from Abbottabad. Titled Jadeed Lisanyati Aur Usloobiyati Tasavvuraat, or modern linguistic and stylistic concepts, the dissertation is subtitled Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder ki novel nigari par sauti, sarfi, nahvi, m’anyaati Itlaaq, or phonetic, morphological, syntactical and semantic application on Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder’s novels. Mansehra’s Hazara University has conferred a doctoral degree on Aamir Suhail for his thesis.
Published in book form by Faisalabad’s Misaal Publishers, the dissertation’s first chapter summarises what linguistics is and how stylistics fits in this backdrop. The next four chapters analyse Ms Hyder’s novels and the parlance used in them.
In chapters, some different and new tools have been used to analyse Ms Hyder’s novels. For instance, the last chapter discusses the role of foregrounding, slang and semantic paradigms to refer to some religious and political connotations as they occur in her novels.
Foregrounding is a term used in stylistics and, according to David Crystal, an authority on linguistics, “it often involves deviation from a linguistic norm, as when a line of poetry is given a distinctive rhythm, or an author radically alters the word order of a sentence. In advertising, a brand name might be foregrounded by being given a special spelling”. Because of this ‘deviation’, perhaps, the term has been translated into Urdu as lisani inhiraaf, or, literally ‘linguistic deviation’. The author has given some examples of foregrounding in Ms Hyder’s novels.
As for semantic paradigms, she has abundantly used political and mystical motifs to emphasise some historic or logical notions. She has certain moral and ideological elements and on such times her style drastically changes and she seems to be firmly grounded in facts, using certain words with optimal effects. Though stylistic theorists do not favour such judgemental ideas that conform to social values, we are not bound to follow these theorists as it results in denying certain aspects of society as well as literature, says Dr Aamir Suhail while appreciating Ms Hyder’s semantic paradigms and views.
Another interesting aspect is the study of the use of slangy expressions in Ms Hyder’s novels. Dr Suhail seems quite surprised that how a creative writer like Ms Hyder, who is deeply seeded in the classics and has a predominantly classical temperament, can use slang so masterfully with the standard language she is known for. But he then concludes that since she had a profound sense of language as an organic entity, she knew sometimes slangy parlance could convey a specific aura or connotation so well when standard language felt dumb. Other linguistic attributes discussed include numeration, alliteration, use of English words and technical terms in Urdu, use of poetic lines in prose and peculiar vocabulary. Other chapters have reproduced examples from Ms Hyder’s novel that involve some specific phonetic, morphological and syntactical aspects.
India’s prominent stylistic critic Prof Dr Mirza Khalil Ahmed Baig in his foreword has appreciated Dr Aamir Suhail’s work and is of the view that Dr Suhail has successfully traced Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder’s unique style. Dr Baig has noted with satisfaction that now Pakistani universities are turning towards the linguistic studies and the work under review is a good example of that tendency.
Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2021
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