Decoding stylistics investigates the same levels as linguistics – phonetic, graphical, lexical, grammatical. The basic difference: it studies expressive means of each level not as isolated devices but as a part of the whole text on lengthy segments of text. One of the fundamental concepts of DS is foregrounding. F-g means a specific role that some lang-ge items play in a cert. context when the reader's attention cannot but be drawn to them. DS laid down a few principle methods that ensure the effect of F-g. They are: convergence of expressive means, irradiation, defeated expectancy, coupling, semantic fields, semi-marked structures, strong position, salient feature. Convergence – denotes a combin-n of styl.devices promoting the same idea, emotion or motive; any type of exp.means will make sense styl-ly when treated as a part of the whole unit (the context, the whole text). Defeated E-y. may be found on any ling.level. It may be expressed by unusual suffix, zeugma, oxymoron, paradox…. Coupling. Provides cohesion, consistency & unity of the text form & content. It may be found on any ling.level. The affinity may be phonetic (alliteration, assonance, rhyme, rhythm..) & semantic (use of synonyms, antonyms, root repetition, paraphrase..) & structural (all kinds of parallelism, syntactical repetition- anadiplosis, framing). Semantic field. It identifies lex. elements in text segments and the whole work that provide its thematic and compositional cohesion. Lex. ties relevant to this kind of analysis will include synonymous and antonymous relations, morphological derivation, relations of inclusion (various types of hyponymy and entailment), common sense in the denotative or connotative meanings of different words. Semi-marked structures is associated with the deviation from the grammatical and lexical norm. It's an extreme case of defeated expectancy much stronger than low expectancy encountered in a paradox or anti-climax, the unpredictable element is used contrary to the norm so it produces a very strong emphatic impact.
