style and pseudonymity in pauline scholarship 121
matthew Brook o’donnell’s treatment of style bases its definitions exclu-
sively on linguistic research done in the 1960s.26 Previous analysis tends
to limit style to co-textual factors without properly situating the role of
extralinguistic dimensions in their analysis.27 the problem with these
assessments is: “there is no necessary link of microstyle (on the linguis-
tic dimension) with micro-extralinguistic variables, or of macrostyle with
macro-extralinguistic variables.”28
By contrast, sociolinguists helpfully provides us with carefully thought
through definitions of style based on rigorously constructed linguistic
frameworks applied to and refined by field studies in the form of con-
trolled linguistic experimentation (i.e., we know all of the factors involved,
including a single author). the common denominator in their definitions
of style involves orientation of language to a specific social context, includ-
ing especially addressor-addressee relations.29
particularly observed, in order to investigate the ways in which the dialect or variety of
greek found here is distinctive from the main stream of the language.” a conflation of
bilingual interference with co-textual phenomena hardly seems adequate. moisés Silva’s
work offers no improvement as his section devoted to style is underdeveloped, falling into
the same error as turner in defining style as a strictly linguistic (non-contextual) phenom-
enon that “cuts across all levels of language: phonology, vocabulary, syntax and discourse”
(moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning An Introduction to Lexical Semantics
[grand rapids: Zondervan, 1995], 115–17 [117]).
26 o’donnell, Corpus Linguistics, 85, leans on John Spencer, nils erik enkvist, and
michael gregory, Linguistics and Style (london: oxford university Press, 1964); roger
fowler, Essays on Style and Language: Linguistic and Critical Approaches to Literary Style
(london: routledge, 1966); and david crystal and derek davy, Investigating English Style
(Bloomington: indiana university Press, 1969).
27 this treatment of style conflicts with halliday’s notion of style as register, a linguist
o’donnell depends on heavily. nevertheless, extralinguistic factors do get raised and
emphasized thoroughly in his analysis, even though they do not function as part of the
“definitions” of style that he provides.
28 allan Bell, “language Style as audience design,” Language in Society 13 (1983): 145–
202 (147).
29 for example, milroy and gordon affirm that style should be viewed “explicitly as a
response to persons.. .” (lesley milroy and matthew J. gordon, Sociolinguistics: Method
and Interpretation [malden, ma: Blackwell, 2003], 204). Similar assessments are made
in Penelope eckert, “Style and Social meaning,” in eckert and John r. rickford (eds.),
Style and Sociolinguistic Variation (cambridge: cambridge university Press, 2001), 119–26;
William labov, “field methods of the Project in linguistic change and Variation,” in John
Baugh and Joel Sherzer (eds.), Language in Use: Readings in Sociolinguistics (englewood
cliffs, nJ: Prentice-hall, 1984), 28–53 cited in ellen hurst, “tsotsitaal as Performed discur-
sive identity: the impact of Social context on Stylect” (paper presented at the conference
for the german association for african Studies, 2010), 6; nikolas coupland, Style: Language
Variation and Identity (Key topics in Sociolinguistics; cambridge: cambridge university
Press, 2007), 1; norma mendoza-denton, “individuals and communities,” in ruth Wodak,
Barbara Johnstone, and Paul Kerswill (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Sociolinguistics
(london: Sage, 2013), 181–91 (186). But cf. Sali tagliamonte, Variationist Sociolinguistics:
Change, Observation, Interpretation (malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 25, who sees