This second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics provides a comprehensive introduction and reference point to key areas in the field of stylistics. The four sections of the volume encompass a wide range of approaches from classical rhetoric to cognitive neuroscience. Issues that are covered include: * historical perspectives, centring on rhetoric, formalism and functionalism. * the elements of stylistic analysis, including foregrounding, relevance theory, conversation analysis, narrative, metaphor, speech and thought presentation and point of view. * current areas of influential research such as cognitive poetics, corpus stylistics, critical stylistics, multimodality, creative writing and reader response. * four newly commissioned chapters in the emerging fields of cognitive grammar, forensic linguistics, the stylistics of children’s literature and a corpus stylistic study of mental health issues. All of these new chapters are written by leading researchers in their
