STYLISTICS. The branch of LINGUISTICS that studies STYLE in language and especially in works of LITERATURE. It is less orientated towards writer (or speaker) than is literary (and dramatic) criticism and more towards TEXT, reader, and linguistic form. The advent of the computer has given rise to computational stylistics, which seeks to establish the distinctive patterns within texts and has been used to help establish the authorship of texts.

sty·lis·tics / stīˈlistiks/ • pl. n. [treated as sing.] the study of the distinctive styles found in particular literary genres and in the works of individual writers.