The Cambridge Introduction to Applied Linguistics

Once upon a time… If a text starts like this, you will immediately have specific expectations as to how it will continue. While Once upon a time is a typical beginning for a fairy tale or children’s story, it would not normally work as an opener for a chapter in a textbook. The phrase is an example of how linguistic features are associated with particular texts, and how language creates effects and expectations in the reader. There are many ways in which the choice of words shapes a text. Stylistics is the study of linguistic features that make a text distinctive. And style, as Wales (2001, p. 371) puts it, is “the set or sum of features that seem to be characteristic: whether of register, genre, or period, etc.” Which linguistic features we select in a stylistic analysis depends on what we want to capture. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter starts: “Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits…” The Tale of Two Bad Mice starts in a similar way: “Once upon a time there was a very beautiful doll’s-house…” Both are stories for children and begin in a conventional way. Although both texts are by Beatrix Potter, and she begins several of her tales with once upon a time, this is not the only characteristic of her style. To describe the style of an author it is important to compare their writing to that of other authors.