Article published In:
Register StudiesVol. 2:1 (2020) ► pp.72–101
Fiction – one register or two?
Speech and narration in novels
In this paper our focus is on analyzing register variation within fiction, rather than between fiction and other
registers. By working with subcorpora that separate text within and outside of quotation marks, we appromixate fictional speech
and narration. This enables us to identify and compare linguistic features with regard to different situational contexts in the
fictional world. We focus in particular on the novels of Charles Dickens and a reference corpus of other 19th-century fiction. Our
main method for the register analysis is Multi-dimensional Analysis (MDA) for which we draw on altogether four dimensions from two
previous MDAs. The linguistic distinctions we identify highlight similarities between fictional speech and involved registers such
as face-to-face communication, and between narration and more informational and narrative prose. In addition to the detailed
information on register features that characterize speech and narration, the paper raises more general questions about the ability
of register studies to deal with situational contexts within fiction.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Fiction: Variety and variation in corpus linguistics
- 3.Methododolgy
- 3.1Corpus
- 3.2Data analysis
- 4.Results and discussion
- 4.1Linguistic differences between quotes and non-quotes
- 4.2Similarities with other registers
- 4.3The detail of fictional features
- 5.Conclusions
- Funding
- Notes
-
References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].
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