Article published in:
Functions of Language
Vol. 22:3 (2015) ► pp. 362–399

A corpus-based investigation into key words and key patterns in post-war fiction

| Osnabrück University
This study is an exploratory investigation into lexico-grammatical items specific to a large corpus of English-language post-war novels, as compared to corpora of conversation, news and academic English. Its overall aim is threefold: first, to show how the subjective impression of ‘literariness’ arising from fictional works is at least partly based on the statistically significant use of highly specific words and lexico-grammatical configurations; second, to attempt a broad classification of key words and patterns; third, to illustrate the fiction-specific patterns formed by three key words. Analysis proceeded in three steps. First, a key word analysis was performed. In the second step, all two-to-five word strings contained in the English corpus were generated. In the third step, multi-word strings, collocations and colligations associated with three English key words (‘thought’, ‘sun’ and ‘jerk’) were analysed. Results indicate that post-war fiction is characterized by the dense use of specific sets of key words and key patterns, such as multi-word strings (must have been), phrase frames (like a + NP, there was a + NP) colligations (PossDet thoughts were on NP), collocations (the strengthening sun) and lexically specific narrative patterns (PossDet thoughts were interrupted when/as + time clause). The patterns in question are shown to be interconnected through a complex web of analogical creations. Implications are discussed for theories of literature, lexicology and translation.
Published online: 10 December 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.22.3.03sie
Cited by

Cited by 10 other publications

Denoyelle, Corinne, Julie Sorba, F. Neveu, B. Harmegnies, L. Hriba, S. Prévost & A. Steuckardt
2020. L’approche phraséologique du roman médiéval : une voie de caractérisation générique ?. SHS Web of Conferences 78 ► pp. 05005 ff. Crossref logo
Gonon, Laetitia, Vannina Goossens, Olivier Kraif, Iva Novakova, Julie Sorba, F. Neveu, B. Harmegnies, L. Hriba & S. Prévost
2018. Motifs textuels spécifiques au genre policier et à la littérature « blanche ». SHS Web of Conferences 46 ► pp. 06007 ff. Crossref logo
Gonon, Laetitia, Olivier Kraif, Iva Novakova, Julien Piat, Julie Sorba, F. Neveu, G. Bergounioux, M.-H. Côté, J.-M. Fournier, L. Hriba & S. Prévost
2016. Sur la scène de crime…: Enquête sur les enjeux linguistiques et stylistiques de motifs récurrents dans lethrillercontemporain. SHS Web of Conferences 27 ► pp. 06006 ff. Crossref logo
Gonon, Laetitia & Julie Sorba
2020. Phraséologismes spécifiques dans les romans historiques et les romans de littérature blanche. Journal of French Language Studies 30:1 ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Kraif, Olivier, Iva Novakova & Julie Sorba
2016. Constructions lexico-syntaxiques spécifiques dans le roman policier et la science-fiction. Lidil :53 ► pp. 143 ff. Crossref logo
Legallois, Dominique & Stefan Koch
2020.  In Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel, ► pp. 17 ff. Crossref logo
Novakova, Iva & Dirk Siepmann
2020.  In Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel, ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Novakova, Iva, Dirk Siepmann & Marion Gymnich
2020.  In Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel, ► pp. 47 ff. Crossref logo
Sorba, Julie, Laetitia Gonon, Susanne Dyka & Vannina Goossens
2020.  In Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel, ► pp. 223 ff. Crossref logo
Čermáková, Anna & Michaela Mahlberg
2018.  In The Corpus Linguistics Discourse [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 87], ► pp. 223 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 december 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

References

References

Amossy, Ruth
1982 The cliché in the reading process. Sub-stance 35. 34–45.Google Scholar
Attridge, Derek
2004 Peculiar language: Literature as difference from the Renaissance to James Joyce. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland
1970 S/Z. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Berber Sardinha, Paul
2004 Lingüística de corpus. Sao Paulo: Manole.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas
1988 Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1993 The multi-dimensional approach to linguistic analyses of genre variation: An overview of methodology and findings. Computers and the Humanities 26. 331–345.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan
1999 Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Burton, Deirdre & Ronald Carter
2006 Literature and the language of literature. In Brown, Keith, Anne H. Anderson, Laurie Bauer, Margie Berns, Graeme Hirst & Jim Miller (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Vol. 7. Boston, MA: Elsevier. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Christie, Agatha
1985 Five complete murder mysteries. New York, NY: Random House.Google Scholar
Conrad, Susan & Douglas Biber
(eds.) 2001 Variation in English: Multi-dimensional studies. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Coseriu, Eugenio
1975 Sprachtheorie und allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft. Munich: Fink.Google Scholar
Doyle, Arthur C.
1999 The Hound of the Baskervilles. Ware: Wordsworth Editions.Google Scholar
Dufays, Jean-Louis
2010 Stéréotype et lecture. Essai sur la réception littéraire. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Fletcher, William
2007 KfNgram. Available online at http://​www​.kwicfinder​.com​/kfNgram​/kfNgramHelp​.html. Annapolis, MD: USNA.Google Scholar
Francis, Gill, Susanne Hunston & Elizabeth Manning
1997 Collins COBUILD grammar patterns 2: Nouns and adjectives. London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Gallagher, John D.
2007 Traduction littéraire et études sur corpus. In Michel Ballard & Carmen Pineira-Tresmontant (eds.), Les corpus en linguistique et en traductologie, 199–230. Arras: Artois Presses Universités.Google Scholar
Galsworthy, John
2003 The Works of John Galsworthy. New York, NY: Scribner.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Geoffrey K. Pullum
2002 The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1921 Новейшая русская поэзия. Набросок первый. Prague: Politika.Google Scholar
Kucich, John & Jenny Bourne Taylor
2011 The Oxford history of the novel in English. Vol. 3: The nineteenth-century novel 1820-1880. Oxford: OUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey
2013 A linguistic guide to English poetry. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mahlberg, Michaela
2012 Corpus stylistics and Dickens’s fiction. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Moon, Rosamund
1998 Fixed expressions and idioms in English: A corpus-based approach. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Mukařovský, Jan
1970 Standard language and poetic language. In Donald C. Freeman (ed.), Linguistics and literary style. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Risselada, Rodie & Wilbert Spooren
1998 Introduction: Discourse markers and coherence relations. Journal of Pragmatics 30. 131–133. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sanger, Keith
1998 The language of fiction. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Scholes, Robert
1982 Semiotics and interpretation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, Mike
2008 WordSmith Tools Version 5. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software.Google Scholar
Shelley, Mary
2010 Frankenstein. Red Wing, MN: Cricket House Books.Google Scholar
Siepmann, Dirk
2005 Discourse markers across languages. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2011 Sinclair revisited: Beyond idiom and open choice. In Thomas Herbst, Susen Faulhaber & Peter Uhrig (eds.), The phraseological view of language: A tribute to John Sinclair, 59–86. Berlin: Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
. To appear. Lexicologie et phraséologie du roman contemporain: Quelques pistes pour le français et l’anglais. Cahiers de lexicologie 2015.Google Scholar
Sinclair, John McH.
1991 Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2004 Trust the text: Language, corpus and discourse. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Snell-Hornby, Mary
1983 Verb-descriptivity in German and English. A contrastive study in semantic fields. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Louis Robert
2007 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. San Diego, CA: ICON.Google Scholar
Stubbs, Michael
2005 Conrad in the computer: Examples of quantitative stylistic methods. Language and Literature. 14(1). 5–24. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stubbs, Michael & Isabel Barth
2003 Using recurrent phrases as text-type discriminators: A quantitative method and some findings. Functions of Language 10. 65–108. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tutin, Agnès
2010 Sens et combinatoire lexicale: De la langue au discours. Grenoble: University of Grenoble Habilitation thesis. Available at: http://​w3​.u​-grenoble3​.fr​/lidilem​/labo​/file​/HDR​_Tutin​.pdf. (accessed May 2013).Google Scholar
Tutin, Agnès, Iva Novakova, Francis Grossmann & Cristelle Cavalla
2006 Esquisse de typologie des noms d’affect à partir de leurs propriétés combinatoires. Langue française 150. 32–49. CrossrefGoogle Scholar