Being a branch of Linguistics Stylistics is closely connected with all its branches, as the subject matter of the stylistic analysis is the language in all its aspects (lexical, grammatical, phonetic, etc.); but stylistics differs from other branches of Linguistics by its tasks and approaches.

 Stylistics and Phonetics. Phonostylistics deals with peculiarities of the sound arrangement of speech for creating a stylistic effect (onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhyme, rhythm), i.e. it studies the way the sound system of the language becomes an expressive language means.

E.g. She was immediately shushed. (Её тут же попросили замолчать)

Phonostylistics also studies the usage of non-standard pronunciation with comic or satiric effect to show social inequality. The majority of scientists consider that the graphic expression of Phonetics is also the subject of Phonostylistics; though of late, some authors have begun to speak of a separate branch of Stylistics called Graphical Stylistics. It studies the expressive potential of punctuation marks, different types of prints, capitalisation, hyphenation, multiplication, etc. But this branch has not been thoroughly studied yet.

Stylistics and Lexicology. Lexicological Stylistics studies words, but from the viewpoint of their stylistic functions, their stylistic colouring. It takes into account expressive, emotive, evaluative potentials of words, belonging to different layers of vocabulary, their interaction with different conditions of communication. It studies all those stylistic devices, which are based on the simultaneous realization of different types of word meaning.

E.g. The loud ocean was all around us. /epithet/

Stylistics and Grammar. Morphological Stylistics considers only those morphological forms, which help to render expressiveness and thus can be stylistically marked; i.e. it studies stylistic potential of various grammatical categories.

E.g. You can be deader than the dead. /adjective/

Syntactic Stylistics analyses the expressive potential of various sentence patterns, of peculiar arrangements of sentence elements and of various interactions of adjacent sentences.

E.g. I have to beg you for money. Daily. /segmentation/

Stylistics is not only connected with different branches of Linguistics, but also with such disciplines as Literature, Psychology, Logics, the Theory of Information, the Theory of Euphemisms, the Theory of Sound Symbolism and others.

Stylistic functions

Stylistics does not study linguistic elements as such, it studies their expressive potential in contexts, i.e. it deals with their stylistic functions. By function, following the American linguist Michael Holliday, we mean a role played by this or that class of words in the structure of a higher linguistic plane.

Stylistic function is an expressive potential of linguistic element interaction in the context, which enables the author to render alongside with the subject logical content of the text its expressive, emotive, evaluative and aesthetic information.

As to the question of classification of stylistic functions, the majority of linguists speak of descriptive, emotive and evaluative functions, but the problem demands further investigation.

Irene Vladimirovna Arnold speaks of some peculiarities, typical of stylistic functions:

· Accumulation – one and the same mood, idea, feeling, etc. Is rendered in the text by a number of stylistic devices. A group of stylistic devices fulfilling one stylistic function forms convergence.

· Implication arises due to connotation.

· Irradiation, which is opposite to accumulation. For example, a long utterance may contain only one or two high-flown words, but due to them the whole text will sound high-flown, and vice versa.

Stylistic function shows the stylistic significance of linguistic elements in their interaction in decoding the author’s intentions. It should not be confused with stylistic devices.