Today we will be looking at the definition and scope of stylistics which have been defined in different ways by various scholars. Different linguists have defined the discipline stylistics in various ways. Nils E Enkvist (1964) have defined stylistics as "the interpretation of literature in the light of linguist structure and its history." in Seboek, T.A ed. (1964) stylistics is defined as being "in some way dependent on linguistics since style cannot clearly be defined without reference grammar... The aim of stylistics is primarily classificatory." Roger Fowler (1975) defines it as something or a discipline that "emphasizes particularity, individuality, concreteness; It makes the individual work more recognizable, more discrete, its physiognomy more salient." The above definitions have been understood in what is today accepted as the definitions of stylistics by linguists. This say that stylistics is:

"a branch of linguistics which studies the feature of the distinctive uses or varieties of language in different situations. It tries to establish principles capable of accounting for the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language."

The Scope Of Stylistics :
            There are many styles that are open to stylistic investigation. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia says stylistics look at language of socialization, the production and reception of meaning, critical discourse analysis and literary criticism. Wikipedia continuing says:

Other features of stylistics include the use of dialogue, including regional accents and people's dialects, descriptive language, the use of grammar such as the active or passive voice, the distribution of sentence lengths, the use of particular language registers, etc.

General stylistics deals with the non-dialectical varieties found within the language. In other words, it deals with situational or contextual use of language, that is, variation according to use. It also includes variation of language according to field of discourse; variation according to mode of discourse and finally, variation according to style of discourse (Ike,2005).

Literary stylistics, on the other hand, deals with language use in literature; that is, variations characteristics of literature as a genre and of the style of individual authors that have made their mark in literature. often you hear people talk about the style of Shakespeare, Milton, Achebe, Soyinka etc.

Stylo-stylistics deals with the qualification of stylistic patterns. It studies the statistical structure of literary texts, often using computers.

Phonostylistics studies is the expressive or aesthetic function of sounds. 

Style is a difficult concept to define accurately because of the different views people have about it. There are linguist that believe the concept of style derives from the distinction made between "langue" and "parole" by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to him, "Langue is the code or system of rules common to the users of a langue; parole, on the other hand, is the particular selections from the system that individuals make on any one occasion"like the choice people make in conversation, official communication or legal procedure. Style pertains to parole and so it essentially the way a speaker or writer selects and employs his words, phrases, and sentences to achieve his desired effect in any given context.

        Crystal (1997:66) sees style as one of the thorniest concepts. He says, "to Samuel Wesley, it was the dress of thought; to Jonathan Swift, it was the proper words in proper places; to W.B Yeats, it was the high breeding in words and argument." According to him, the definition could be considered "adinfinitum." of the many definitions of style, Crystal now makes two broad classifications- the evaluative and the descriptive. The evaluative meaning of style sees style as implying a degree of excellence like the good style of conventional criticism in literature. The second meaning sees style as "a set of distinctive that characteristics that identify objects, persons, periods or places." He says, "in this sense we talk of Shakespearean style...and all the variations in expression that relate to psychological or social states."

          Enkvist (1964:19), even before Crystal, came up with his own classifications of the many senses of style. He looked at various definitions of style like the following:

1. style as set of individual characteristics
2. style as set of collective characteristics
3. style as deviations from a norm
4. style as those linguistic entities that are suitable in terms of wider spans of text than the sentence, etc.

Enkvist discovered that some of the foregoing definitions overlapped while some disqualified others. Base on the features common to some of them, he came up with the following classification -

1. definitions base on the point of view of the writer
2. definitions that deal with characteristics of text itself, attempting analysis entirely in terms of objective investigations of textual features
3. definitions based on the impressions of the reader.

Enkvist stresses that an adequate definition of style should contain aspects of the various classifications taking note of the writer, his choice of words, the effect on the reader and what distinguishes the text from other texts. He tries to achieve the above in his definition of style as "the aggregate of the contextual probabilities of its linguistic items."
He then goes on to explain that the significance of any linguistic item (phonological, morphological, lexical or syntactic) is in relation to other items in the contextual in which it appears.

        Winter (1962), another linguist says:

A  style may be said to be characterized by a pattern of recurrent selection from the inventory of optional features of a language. Specifically, this involves selection from the phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic elements. It includes complete exclusion of an optional element and obligatory inclusion of a feature which is optional elsewhere. It also involves varying degrees of inclusion of a specific variant without complete features.

 From the above quotation, it is clear that Winter sees style as a matter of choice, just like linguist who say that style pertains to parole. Style as a matter of choice can also be discerned in Crystal's classification of style as a "set of distinctive characteristics that identify objects, persons, periods or places...In this sense we talk of Shakespearean style..."This view also comes out of Enkvist's definition of style as "the aggregate of the contextual probabilities  of its linguistic items." Close  to this element of choice in dicussions about style is that of style as deviation from the standard usage,

History of  English
The English language which is used today as a lingua – franca al over Nigeria and other Nations, developed out of Germanic dialect  that were brought to Britain during the course of the  5th and  6th centuries by Angles. The Saxon and the Jutes.  Until the 16000s however, English  remained a language  spoken  by relatively small number of people adn was confined  geographical to the Island of Britain.
The history of English language is divided  into three broad period: old English period (450-  1150) middle English period (1150 – 1500) and modern English period (1500 to date ).

Old English Period  
Old  English is the name used to designate  the language which  the  three Germanic tribes spoke after they settled in the English island.  He  Germanic tribes, the Angles (English ) The Saxons and the Jutes.  The Anges came from modern Demark and settled in North and central English. The land soon got its name from Engla- land and its language was to be Englisc. The Saxons came from modern West Germany, now was to be Englisc. The Saxons came from modern  West Germany,  now  Germany and settled  I n Southern part of the Island. The Jutes came from Jutland and the North  sea Coast around the mouth  of the river Rhine on t heir own part, occupied the South  -Eastern country of  Kent.

The tribes  started getting along  through inter-marriage etc. the  Angles and Saxon were however  the most numerous and persistent perhaps this accounts for the name  Aengle-land   Engle- land and today England. In its grammar, old English  resembled Latin. The nouns and adjectives were inflected for four and sometimes five as the case may be.
Example of old English
Old English Present day
Cytel Pillow
Cycene Kitchen
Cupper Cup
Disc Dish
Bisceop Bishop
The days  of the  week  as we have them today are from these Anglo-Saxon gods.
God of war wooden   Wednesday
God of Thunder Thunor or Thor   Thursday
The  northern venus Frig Friday
The minor war – god   tow Tuesday
A down goddess Eaustra Easter

Phonology is the scientific study of the sound of a particular language with reference to the functions of the sounds in the generation of meaning. Phonology is concerned with the study of speech sounds and it consists of two related discipline, which are phonetics and phonology.
Basically, there are four recognizable phonological units in English, language. There are tone group, the foot, syllable and the phoneme. As non - native speakers, Nigerians have problems with their English at all levels of phonology as well as with Supra segments. The reason for those problems shall be explained after identifying most of the major problems with examples from three major ethnic groups ---- ibo, Yoruba and Hausa.

1.Tone Group: 
This occupies the highest position in the phonological units of English language usually it is made up of one or more feet. Christopherson P (2008) defines tone group as a speech consisting of a Single tone. It is the focus of information in the phonological units. Let us use this example from Christopherson (2006) all they do is to sit back and listen. These utterance could: be one tone group with a high head staring on "all" and a fall on "listen" in a rather slower speech performance we may have a division after "do" turning the utterance into two tone groups.

2. THE FOOT: the foot is made up of one or more syllables. The foot is a totally strange level in most Nigerian language, because it depends on the feature stress. Many of our language have the feature prominence and hot stress such that in most of our language. Each syllable is made prominent, Unlike in English where certain syllables of certain words are prominent in speech because of the degree of stress which they bear e.g. our content words. So many Nigeria speakers transfer this feature of their mother tongue into their English speech, thereby giving syllable which should normally not be prominent or loudly heard in speech it can be illustrate with the following examples: "The lecture ordered; walk out of my class" this sentence above could be two tone groups /The lecturer ordered / walk our of my class/ the first tone group /The lecturer ordered/. Has a primary stress on both `lecturer' and ordered". The first foot is "the lecturer". It contains four syllables, the second is "the lecturer" it contains four syllables, the second is ordered.

3. SYLLABLE: this serves as the basic structure for the organization of segmental unit into combinable patterns, Nigerians have problem at this level because most of our mother tongues have the open - syllable - structure. I.e. they always have a vowel following consonant, such that there are consonant clusters in many languages. Therefore the averages Nigerian, especially the Yoruba, tries to break down English consonant cluster to obey the open syllable structure rule in his mother tongue e.g. instead of , Bread we have Buredi, Milk we have Miliki .Then the Hausa instead of; People we have Fifle
The Ibo's on their part and probably the Hausa's often harmonize the vowels in their English word because Ibo Language for instance has a lot of vowels harmony ( as a phonological process) exhibits in the language.

Onoga (2009) believes that the success of the learning of any subject depends largely on the enthusiasm and resourcefulness of the teachers in organizing learning experiences, all of which is a function of teacher's attitudes towards the subject and the students.
Moreover, Adebayo (2008) is of the view that teachers should be held responsible fog' student performance in examinations either success or failure. This he said because it is the performance of the students in examination that will measure the teacher's level of efficiency.

In support of this, Amin (2009) who observes that the poor performance of students of examination is a communicative effect of the poor reading habit of teachers and the use of non trained or less qualified teachers many of whom he said do not prepare well for what they want to teach the pupil that is, they do not have adequate knowledge of the subject matter.
Griffit  etal (2008) are of the view that "no matter how carefully structured a new course  is and brilliant, the various educational media have to be used. The success or failure of any innovation ultimately depends on the reception and flexibility of the classroom teachers.
Okoson & Agoro (2006) in an interview conducted among some secondary school discovered that student put the blame of poor performance in examination on their teacher who is so remote when in class that they are afraid to ask questions and clarify they are where they are confused.

Method Of Teaching And Instructional Method Of Teaching
Owen et al  {2009) believe that student persistent in errors might be due to teacher-s- methodology, lack of or insufficient exposure to good and consistent model of new forms of pronunciation, lack of penalty or reward ii. Form of communication failure, laziness or some inherent difficulties in the sound the new language which is transferred from the mother tongue.
Taking into consideration the countless importance of the language. The fact that the English language is the Anglophone West African Second language (LZ) and consequently Nigeria Lingua Franca as well as the drastic rate at which oral English is falling (especially at our secondary school level). Also bearing in mind that "what is worth doing at all is worth doing well", the question of effective universal communication correct verbal pronunciation as well as fluency and eloquent speaking English language.

Instructional materials:
Adewonyon (2007) is of the opinion that instructional materials are instrument which facilitate teaching and learning and these assist the teachers as well as the students in the realization of educational objectives. Instructional materials enhance teacher's communication, stimulate learners interest widen their horizon, deepen their knowledge, and diversify their methods and saves time. It makes education more purposeful, individualized and concrete.

In a learned language, interference means a negative effect. It is erroneously believed that mother tongue is the language that one comes in contact with in life.
According to Afolayan (2009) mother tongue is a language in which a person has the greatest linguistic facility, the user of a mother tongue identifies his native culture in the learning language which maybe regarded as foreign language interference comes up as a result of inconsistencies in the target language itself.

ORTHOGRAPHIC IN-CONSISTENCE
The English orthography is not consistent; a sound in the language may be realized by different spelling Examples:
(a) /G/
Spelt "t" as in additional correction Spelt "ss" as in mission, passion
Spelt "sh" as in shake, she.
Spelt "sc" as in schedule, conscious
Spelt "s" as in Asian
Spelt "ch" as in machine
(b) /F/
Spelt "f' as in fact, frame
Spelt "ff' as in off, offend
Spelt "gh" as in cough, laugh
Spelt "ph" as in physics
(a) and (b) are example of how individual phonemic sounds assume different spellings in English words the next examples is the reverse of.
Examples (a) and (b) because it is the instance of how a single alphabet in English is pronounced differently in many different words in the language.
(c)   “S”
Pronounced /s/ as in search, Cuts, Seize
 Pronounced /C/ as In Asian
Pronounced /z/ as in dogs, girls
 Pronounced /3/ as in Measure, Treasure

(d) Some letter is even silent in some English words. Example "b" is silent in Comb, Bomb, and "gh" is silent in daughter. All these may result into linguistic interferences.

 Inter Lingual Interference
This comes about as a result of differences in the linguistics system of two Languages in contact. There would be interlingual interference at all level of language analysis i.e. at all level of phonology lexis, syntax and even semantics, most examples of interference will be taken from English/Yoruba language. According to Weinreich (2006) at the phonemic level of interference four basic types can be discerned thus:
i. Under - Differentiation
ii. Over - Differentiation:
iii. Re - Interpretation of Phoneme
 iv. Actual Phone Substitution .
Under - Differentiation:
Is a case where two or more sounds whose counterparts are not distinguished in the primary system are confused. In the English consonant sound, there are the voiceless palato alveolar fricative /G/ as well as the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/.These two sound of English are distinct sounds in the language. They could therefore form minimal pairs in English as we have in "ship" "sip", "she", "see"
In some dialects of Yoruba however e.g (Ogbomoso) there is the absence of the voiceless palato alveolar fricative /G/. The ogbomoso learner or even speaker of English may therefore have a problem differentiating between the two consonant sound /s/ and /G/in English.
i. Under - Differentiating may often involve more than two sounds in a language. The Yoruba learner of the English language for instance may under - differentiate up to four English vowels, most Yoruba speakers of English collapse the English vowel /3:/, /a/, /D/ and /^/ into one Yoruba vowel /O/.
This is illustrated in the example below
 /wod/ Instead of the RP /w3: d/ for ward
/wod/ Instead of the RP /w:): d / for ward
/bon/ Instead of the RP /b:) : n / for born
/bon/ Instead of the RP /b3: d/ for cod
/kod/ Instead of the RP /kc: d / for cord
/bot/ Instead of the RP / b : t/ for but
/bot/ Instead of the RP / b:): t/ for bought
Thus, he does not distinguish minimal pairs in the language
ii. Over- Differentiation: is a situation where a speaker of language interprets a single phoneme as: two or more separate phoneme in a second language. In other words, he will pronounce a single phoneme in many different ways.
This point will be illustrated with English shuwa sound /a/ which the Yoruba speaker of English substitutes with the Yoruba vowel sounds: /a /, /o/,/I/,/e/,/u/ and /o/.
Examples are given below.
/ 2fod/ Instead of a RP /afo: d/ for Afford
/ Koroson/Instead of a RP /                / for Corruption
/matimatiks/ Instead of a RP/             / for Mathematics
/ Litretso/ Instead of a RP /              / for literature
/control/ Instead of a RP - /             / for control
It could be said from all examples that the replacement of the /    / sound in English by Yoruba vowel sounds is highly unpredictable
iii. Re- Interpretation of a phoneme is a case where the speaker of language "A" gives a sound in language "B" a different interpretation from that, in the language. For examples, aspiration is a marker distinct phoneme in Hindi. The Hindi speaker may therefore realize the aspiration and unaspirated stop as different and distinct phoneme in English.
iv. Actual Phoneme Substitution, as the name implies simply means substituting a phoneme in language "A" for another in language "B" The English language for instance has the voiceless dental fricative /O / which is absent in the Yoruba language. For this sound, therefore, the Yoruba speaker of English simply Substitutes, the voiceless alveolar plosive /t/, thus. The English word theme and thought are realized as /Tim/ and not /tot/ respectively. It is important to note that the interference of any of the four kinds discussed above can result into the obstruction meaning.

Being able to recognize symbols in the language and being able to put down feelings, emotions and messages using symbols are reading and writing. Today, the world is coming increasingly sophisticated that only the highly literate can make success out of it.
In other words, to be seen to be relevant to a modern world. The individual has to know how to read and write and it is the responsibility of the English teacher to impact these skills.

I. READING: Bright and Macgregoar (2008) asserts that reading is a receptive skill. It involves the ability of a learner to recognize and understand material that had been written down.
The essence of speaking skills is aimed at ensuring that the reader reads fluently and smoothly pronouncing the individual words correctly and getting the intonation patterns correctly.
Banjo in a foreword to Unoh's "Reading to Remember" defined reading as "a very precious tool to be used in cutting through the unyielding5 academic Jungle so as to have clear view".
Reading is useful because it entails many complicated processes such as extensive / intensive reading speed reference and study skill, the development etc of these could serve as tool".

A leaner must have had competence in a Language before he can begin to read. This competence may be extensive as in the case of the second Language learner. In both cases, the competence has been developed and is used extensively through the reception and production of Language in its spoken mode. These are two stages of reading. The early stage of reading involves the transfer of an already acquired competence into a different mode of performance. Since pupils are competent in the spoken language, what is expected of the teacher in the reading (either text, newspaper, any printed material) easily, quickly, and intelligently. It will be energy and time wasting after reading for two hours one cannot recall what one has read. Banjo says that reading like is listening involves a lot of mental processing for the reader to be able to grasp what the writer wants to pass across.

ii: WRITING:  Arsposs (2005). In her paper, `writing. A thinking process" says, "writing is much more than an orthographic symbolization of experience." It is purposeful because one does not write without an aim or objective. These experiences have to be organized such that they become meaningful to the leader. This process of learning to write is largely a process of learning to think clearly.

There is no hard and fast rule for teaching, writing other than teacher to teach the pupils how to construct sentences in the language.
To Davies, and Windowson, (2009), it would appear that the most promising way of teaching writing is first to develop in the learner an ability to recognize how written language communicate. This means that pupils knowledge of how to interpret a text, will help him represent graphically his feeling, so there is a direct link between how much one reads and how well one writes.