DECODING POETIC COLOURING OF DETECTIVE STORIES: PRINCIPLES OF READING

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Style in literature might be defined as a special way a definite author uses different language units in his writing. According to Encyclopedia Britannica it is a technique that an individual author uses while producing a text. It varies from author to author, and depends upon one’s syntax, word choice, and narration. It can also be described as a “voice” that readers listen to when they read a work of this writer. 1 One may distinguish four types of style: expository or argumentative, descriptive, persuasive and narrative. On the other hand, style is, according to N. Chomsky’s nomenclature, the tension between deep structure and surface structure of the text. It can therefore be said that it is a relation between what the text means and what syntactic constructions mean. So, style is understood as a way of expressing a specific content. Authors often wonder how to achieve a good style of writing and whether it is the same as the author’s voice. The novelty here is that the essence of a good style is fluency of the language, correct use of words and grammatical rules, and the ease with which the reader can follow the story. For some time, among the creators of high literature, there was a manner for applying style far removed from the colloquial speech. In the criminal literature this could be a major obstacle in the reception of reading. Complex syntax, sophisticated descriptions, hermetic vocabulary and other author’s performances make it virtually impossible to create a story with the pace that readers expect. Definitions of a good writing style were created in all languages and in every epoch. Seneca believed that: Style has no protracted principles; it changes under the influence of use, it does not remain the same for a moment 2 . Aristotle claimed that: The basis of good style is linguistic correctness 3 . In our century, E. Waugh proposed three goals in order to work out a good style: clarity, which should be developed, elegance to which one should strive and a recognizable voice about which one can at least pray 4 .