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Sofar, I have been playing on the notion of style as a matter of degrees of formality or informality, and perhaps of politeness. The idea of 'styles of discourse" might also be thought broad enough to include a "literary style", where this could encompasses not only variations along a formal—informal axis, but also such things as archaic, poetic, and generally recognized "literary" expressions. Dictionary entries accompanied by the labels "poetic", "chiefly in poetry", "literary", or "literature" might then be thought of in this way, rather than as belonging solely to a particular subject sub-class. The same might also be said of words whose dictionary definitions are accompanied by such subject or field labels as "medical", "anatomical", "chemical", etc., where characterization in terms of a specialist's manner of speaking might not be amiss.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137263544_14

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