Dr Urszula Kizelbach had the honour of presenting her latest book, (Im)politeness in McEwan’s Fiction: Literary pragma-stylistics (2023), during a series of annual lectures organised by the Aston Stylistics Research Group at Aston University in the UK.
The Aston Stylistics Research Group consists of researchers who specialise in interdisciplinary studies at the intersection of language, literature, and style, bringing together experts and enthusiasts to explore the rich connections between form and meaning in various texts.
In her lecture, Dr Kizelbach presented a pragma-stylistic analysis of Ian McEwan’s fiction, focusing on selected novels from the perspective of (im)politeness theory. The analysis examined two levels of literary communication: the intradiegetic level, which describes the communication of characters and the story world presented in the literary work, and the extradiegetic level, which describes the communication of the implied author with the reader. The study aimed to utilise the pragmatic theory of (im)politeness for a fuller characterisation in fiction. Additionally, the author introduced the concept of the “impoliteness of the literary fiction”, referring to communicative situations in which the implied author expresses their impolite beliefs, potentially leading to face-threatening reactions from readers, such as moral shock or discomfort while reading. Dr Kizelbach argued that extradiegetic impoliteness is a key feature of McEwan’s writing style. The book aims to encourage literary scholars and linguists to discuss the benefits of incorporating pragmatics and stylistics into literary studies.
The monograph was very well received by British scholars during the lecture, which concluded with a question-and-answer session.
