Textual Stylistic Variation: Choices, Genres and Individuals
It addresses the problem of improving stylistic analysis for researchers and practitioners by shifting focus from textual characteristics to reader experience, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing concepts.
The chapter argues for using reader-centric metrics like pertinence, relevance, and utility to better measure stylistic variation in text collections, contrasting genre-based differences with individual choices.
This chapter argues for more informed target metrics for the statistical processing of stylistic variation in text collections. Much as operationalised relevance proved a useful goal to strive for in information retrieval, research in textual stylistics, whether application oriented or philologically inclined, needs goals formulated in terms of pertinence, relevance, and utility - notions that agree with reader experience of text. Differences readers are aware of are mostly based on utility - not on textual characteristics per se. Mostly, readers report stylistic differences in terms of genres. Genres, while vague and undefined, are well-established and talked about: very early on, readers learn to distinguish genres. This chapter discusses variation given by genre, and contrasts it to variation occasioned by individual choice.