As speakers, we call on our unique physiological senses of phonology to produced a wide array of sounds. In linear secession, these sounds create small meaningful units called morphemes. Morphemes are categorically lent to the formation of a stream words that fill our lexical inventories. The words are given order—syntax, which allows for variation with which to formulate complex clauses and sentences. This backlog of lexicon and syntax grows and evolves from the time we acquire our first words. When we speak, we are granted a multitude of courses for grammar and word choice.
As interlocutors, we are constantly and actively (consciously and unconsciously) using linguistic resources to exercise stylistic variation in our speech. (Jose, B. Stylistic Variation, 2011) Consider some examples of variation. In the English language, there are dozens of words to describe happiness: {joy, jubilance, beatitude}. Similarly, there are many words analogous with the meaning of the word sorrow : {depression, despondency, grief} Likewise, there are numerous ways to compose sentences, like the question: ‘what time is it?’, “what is the time?’: ‘can you please tell me the time?’. (Jose, B. Stylistic Variation, Politeness and Pragmatics [PDF document] Retrieved from Fall 2011 Lecture Notes https://resources.oncourse.iu.edu/) It is in the veritable manifestations of speech events that the basis for stylistic variation can be observed.
It is difficult to consider the “whys” and “hows” of linguistic style