Stylistic Portrait of English Fantasy Texts (Based on Jordan’s The Eye of the World, Martin’s A Game of Thrones, Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

Abstract

The paper is focused on stylistic features of English fantasy texts. The research materials include four fantasy novels written by British and American authors of the late 20th century: Jordan's The Eye of the World, Martin's A Game of Thrones, Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The research question of the study lies in need to systematize expressive means and stylistic devices used in the texts and distinguish the common stylistic features of English fantasy texts. To do this, the researchers implement the notion of a stylistic portrait of English fantasy text, and the main aim of the paper is to provide its definition and description. The study employed the complex of linguistic research methods, including analysis and generalization of theoretical sources, contextual analysis and the elements of quantitative analysis of linguistic units used in the texts. Based on three essential aspects of a stylistic portrait, the paper shows that the English fantasy texts are characterized by the dominance of expressive means and stylistic devices at the syntactic level of language. In addition, the researchers identified the most productive stylistically marked linguistic units at each level of language correlated with the semantic field within which they functioned, and studied connotative dominants in these texts.