THE IMPORTANCE OF GRAPHOSTYLISTIC EXPLORATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY ANGLO-AMERICAN NOVELS

Abstract

Although our previous studies provided valuable insights into the characteristic graphostylemic features of main literary genres in general, the question of adapting to the technological developments in print requires more attention. Not only did the advancements cause considerable changes in writing practice and the perception of the novels, but they also indicated the rise of a new medium – the one between verbal and visual. This has become quite prominent, especially in contemporary novels in English: the possibilities of digital print emphasize the idea of media equality, of the text remaining the same regardless of its form. However, the way we attribute a meaning to a text does not depend solely on its content but its physical form as well. The notion “if a medium is changed, the content of the message also changes” is what nowadays motivates Anglo-American novelists to constantly test the novel’s materiality and us to explore the reasons behind it. This paper identifies all the graphostylemic techniques observed in several paradigmatic examples in English and the subject of our qualitative analysis is the overall significance of authors’ suggested patterns. Since their perspective on the current developments is revealed through the extreme graphostylistic markedness, this type of analysis seems inevitable. The main goal is to describe and classify the graphic devices, determine their functions and the effects they produce. With respect to the extralinguistic constraints of period and genre, the concluding remarks put forward the value of the most common graphostylistic means used by Anglo-American authors and the importance of similar analyses.