A case for corpus stylistics

Abstract

In this article we investigate keywords and key semantic domains in Fleming's Casino Royale. We identify groups of keywords that describe elements of the fictional world such as characters and settings as well as thematic signals. The keyword groups fall into two broad categories that are characterized as text-centred and reader-centred, with the latter providing particular clues for interpretation. We also compare the manually identified keyword groups with key semantic domains that are based on automatic semantic analysis. The comparison shows, for instance, how words that do not seem to fit a semantic domain can be seen as reader-centred keywords fulfilling specific textual functions. By linking our analysis to arguments in literary criticism, we show how quantitative and qualitative approaches can usefully complement one another.

Fundamentalist and tolerant islamic discourse in john updike’s terrorist and jonathan wright’s translation the televangelist: a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of semantic prosody

“…This cutoff point is reasonable given the size of the two corpora under study: The Televangelist (900459 words); Terrorist (540015 words). Once the two keyword lists were generated, common content keywords were identified and classified into "fictional world signals," keywords that relate to concrete characters and objects, and "thematic signals," keywords that require interpretation, following Mahlberg & McIntyre's (2011) model. Fictional world keywords like television in The Televangelist and truck in Terrorist were not chosen for analysis because they refer to concrete objects and do not belong to Islamic discourse.…”

Key words and translated cohesion in Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and one of its Italian translations

“…However, our approach to KWs also takes account of their thematic potential. This twofold perspective reflects Mahlberg & McIntyre's (2011) distinction between text-centred and reader-centred KWs. The difference between the two types rests on the range 2.…”

“…McEnery 2009). Identifying key words in narrative fiction, Mahlberg & McIntyre (2011) propose a way of classifying key words with regard to their functions in the creation of textual worlds. With a focus on translation studies, key words can be seen as a way to support the description of an individual translator's strategy (Olahan 2004).…”

“…Antarctic is used as an adjective in most of the cases (36 out of 50 occurrences); this is the reason why we included it in the group of KWs referring to the spatial setting, as opposed to excluding it as a proper noun. can play as polysemous and thematic items in the text (Mahlberg & McIntyre 2011). The KWs that can be regarded as a "settings" group, in particular, suggest implications that go beyond the simple definition of the physical place in which the plot of MoM develops.…”

A Corpus Stylistic Analysis of Some Lexical and Semantic Devices in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction

“…No wonder then, that corpus stylistics has achieved great leaps as a sub discipline of corpus linguistics to the extent that it may be considered as a field in itself. Many studies have contributed to the development and elaboration of corpus studies e.g., Mahlberg (2006Mahlberg ( , 2007Mahlberg ( , 2010Mahlberg ( , 2011; Leech and Short (2007); Stubbs (2005). Most of them analyze lexicogrammatical patterns of varied literary texts using quantitative and qualitative methods.…”