In one important sense this dictionary then is an archive: a history of stylistics, its interdisciplinary influences and its successive or co-occurring obsessions
and ‘turns’. In so far as it is possible, I have tried to indicate when relevant terms
first came into fashion, or who instigated pertinent fields of investigation. It is
quite remarkable how many relevant terms have endured in the working vocabulary of stylistics into the new millennium, even though some terms I have
decided to ‘retire’. It is an archive, but not one of historical relics. Still, terms can
surprise you. Take bricolage, popular in 1960s structuralism because of the
work of Claude Lévi-Strauss. Now revived in sociolinguistics, it aptly describes
the way young people select items of clothing and ways of speaking to produce
their own personal style. Many terms and ideas have not simply endured, but
have great currency and power, despite tweakings or tinkerings: politeness
theory, Paul Grice’s conversational maxims and speech act theory, for
example. It is hard to believe that J.L. Austin formulated his ideas on speech acts
fifty years ago (published 1962).