We currently have both a style tag and a language tag.
The language tag currently has one question, namely about whether the language used by a 15-year old character intentionally represents the language of a 15-year old (Kafka in Kafka on the Shore).
The style tag currently has four questions:
- When did the perspective-switching trend begin? talks about style in the same way that the Kafka question talks about language.
- Can absence of information be considered a stylistic choice? asks whether a specific literary device (not providing the names of the characters) is a stylistic aspect.
- What did Wodehouse say about writing in the first-person? is about a certain character's distinctive "voice" (Bertie Wooster) or style (similar to "language" in the Kafka question).
- What is the origin of including formulas in a literary text? seems to assume that the inclusion of mathematical formulas is an aspect of style.
For additional background:
- Wheeler defines style as
The author's words and the characteristic way that writer uses language to achieve certain effects. An important part of interpreting and understanding fiction is being attentive to the way the author uses words. What effects, for instance, do word choice and sentence structure have on a story and its meaning? How does the author use imagery, figurative devices, repetition, or allusion? (...)
- For "voice", Wheeler refers the reader to poetic speaker:
The narrative or elegiac voice in a poem (such as a sonnet, ode, or lyric) that speaks of his or her situation or feelings. It is a convention in poetry that the speaker is not the same individual as the historical author of the poem. (...)
Language (in literature) is more than just "style" (Dickensian style, journalistic style, ...), it also encompasses tone and mood:
- According to Wheeler, tone is
The means of creating a relationship or conveying an attitude or mood. By looking carefully at the choices an author makes (in characters, incidents, setting; in the work's stylistic choices and diction, etc.), careful readers often can isolate the tone of a work and sometimes infer from it the underlying attitudes that control and color the story or poem as a whole. The tone might be formal or informal, playful, ironic, optimistic, pessimistic, or sensual. (...) Note that in poetry, tone is often called voice.
- He defines mood as
In literature, a feeling, emotional state, or disposition of mind--especially the predominating atmosphere or tone of a literary work. Most pieces of literature have a prevailing mood, but shifts in this prevailing mood may function as a counterpoint, provide comic relief, or echo the changing events in the plot. The term mood is often used synonymously with atmosphere and ambiance. (...)
Based on this, I would retag the Kafka question with the style tag. At the moment, I don't see why any of the above questions would need a language tag. The language tag can be re-introduced later, should the need occur.
