122 andrew w. pitts
in Pauline studies, luke timothy Johnson comes the closest to this
account of style when he criticizes modern anachronistic definitions and
seeks to replace them with an understanding that parallels ancient rhetor-
ical and epistolary standards.30 Johnson points out that the ancients had
an understanding of style not entirely dissimilar to modern sociolinguists,
in which style functioned more as a way of catering one’s language to an
audience rather than as a distinctive feature of an individual’s linguistic
expression. Shifting situations and addressees are often characterized by
linguistic stability, but just as often by versatility. audience design models
of style provide a further way of clarifying this relation. i think we need
these linguistic diagnostics, in addition to Johnson’s helpful but highly
underdeveloped cultural analysis, to provide an account of what changes
in style within a corpus of literature reveal to us.
Allan Bell on Audience Designed Style-Shift
as noted above, sociolinguists prefer to speak of style in relation to audi-
ence and other contextual constraints.31 in the paradigm shifting work
the research being initiated primarily with labov: “the lVc [language Variation and
change] approach to analyzing language in use began in the 1960s. Substantial research
has emerged over the intervening decades yet little of these important developments have
made their way into sociolinguistic textbooks.” these developments proceed from or can
in some way be traced back to the audience design model engineered by allan Bell. as
mendoza-denton sees it, after Bell’s significant contribution, “the study of the individuals
and their stylistic dimensions became a productive new area that allowed varying com-
binations of coupland’s social-psychological approach of accommodation with in-depth
case study methods that were more reminiscent of anthropology than the sociologically-
oriented random sample urban studies that had been dominant through the 1970s and
1980s” (mendoza-denton, “individuals,” 186).
30 Johnson, 1&2 Timothy, 60. i note one other potential exception, but one with sev-
eral shortcomings: aída Besançon Spencer, Paul’s Literary Style: A Stylistic and Historical
Comparison of II Corinthians 11:16–12:13, Romans 8:9–39, and Philippians 3:2–4:13 (lanham,
md: university Press of america, 2008). a few things should be noted here. first, the sus-
tained attention to the issue of style and stylistics as it relates to Pauline style is welcome.
Second, although an improvement in some ways, even acknowledging the crucial role for
sociological variables in stylistics, Spencer restricts this study to a very limited range of
data (really, just a few passages) and so one wonders whether we can really detect style
within this small set of materials. the social framework is also far from rigorous and the
study delineates no formal social parameters for weighing the level of linguistic impact
a particular social variable might have. third, while the book was published in 2008, the
research was done as a doctoral dissertation in the 1980s and the bibliography reflects this,
almost exclusively drawing on work prior to the late 1970s. this research should have been
significantly updated, especially in areas of relevant linguistic theory, before publication
in 2008.
31 e.g., William labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City (cambridge:
cambridge university Press, 1966).