This second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics provides a comprehensive introduction and reference point to key areas in the field of stylistics. The four sections of the volume encompass a wide range of approaches from classical rhetoric to cognitive neuroscience. Issues that are covered include:

• historical perspectives, centring on rhetoric, formalism and functionalism.


• the elements of stylistic analysis, including foregrounding, relevance theory, conversation analysis, narrative, metaphor, speech and thought presentation and point of view.


• current areas of influential research such as cognitive poetics, corpus stylistics, critical stylistics, multimodality, creative writing and reader response.


• four newly commissioned chapters in the emerging fields of cognitive grammar, forensic linguistics, the stylistics of children’s literature and a corpus stylistic study of mental health issues. All of these new chapters are written by leading researchers in their respective fields.

Each of the 33 chapters in this volume is written by a specialist. Each chapter provides an introduction to the subject, an overview of its history, an instructive example of how to conduct a stylistic analysis, a section with recommendations for practice and a discussion of possible future developments in the area for readers to follow up on.

The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics, second edition is essential reading for researchers, postgraduates and undergraduate students working in this area.