An Overview of Research Findings in Stylistics: A Critical Study of Morphological Layer

Numerous studies in the last decade that have investigated the stylistic features of literary works in morphological layer do not help much in advancing stylistic studies and historical behavior of Persian language. In the present study, which evaluates the literature of stylistics in morphological layer, twenty-seven research papers and dissertations written in the Iranian departments of Persian language and literature of academia have been reviewed and critiqued. Numerous studies in the last decade that have investigated the stylistic features of literary works in morphological layer do not help much in advancing stylistic studies and historical behavior of Persian language. In the present study, which evaluates the literature of stylistics in morphological layer, twenty-seven research papers and dissertations written in the departments of Persian language and literature in Iran have been reviewed and critiqued. The findings indicate that these studies suffer several shortcomings, including: misunderstanding the basic morphological concepts, defining overlapping morphological categories, misreading texts and misidentifying the grammatical role of words, neglecting the diachronic behavior of Persian language, confusing research strategies and introducing unnecessary and redundant models and some other common mistakes. These problems are serious hurdles in the way of stylistic studies in morphological layer and also understanding Persian language changes. Finally, some suggestions have been made to address the aforementioned problems.