Stylistics of Indian English Fiction: With Special Reference to Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy

The book analyzes stylistic features of discourse in Indian English Fiction with special reference to Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. Here the language above the level of sentence in the novel under consideration has been made the object of study in terms of the principles of textual and interpersonal pragmatics. An attempt has been made to investigate how people manage discourse behaviour with respect to their socio-cultural backgrounds and interactive goals at the time of conversation. The main concern of this stylistic exercise is to uncover new insights into the nature of literary communication in fiction  by examining what language establishes, rather than what it communicates, in terms of various role relationships, socio-political and ideological perspectives, operations of power and solidarity, etc. This study will significantly help to better explain the creative aspects of language use in fiction as the strategies and norms of speech act theory, cooperative principle and politeness principle have been analyzed in the novel not only in terms of their observance but also from the point of view of breaches and violations as a result of which a literary artist is able to generate various aesthetically satisfying devices. The book can be of great help and use to the teachers and students of stylistics, discourse analysis and Indian English Fiction as well as to those of socio-linguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, sociology and anthropology.