Clusters, key clusters and local textual functions in Dickens

Mahlberg, Michaela (2007) Clusters, key clusters and local textual functions in Dickens. Corpora, 2 (1). pp. 1-31. ISSN 1749-5032

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

The paper argues that corpus linguistics can make useful contributions to the descriptive inventory of literary stylistics. The concept of local textual functions is employed as a descriptive tool for the stylistic analysis of a corpus of texts by Charles Dickens. It is suggested that clusters, i.e. repeated sequences of words, can be interpreted as pointers to local textual functions. The focus is on five-word clusters and five functional groups are identified: Labels, Speech clusters, As If clusters, Body Part clusters and Time and Place clusters. The analysis draws on the identification of key clusters comparing the Dickens corpus with a corpus of nineteenth-century fiction, it identifies links to literary criticism and it gives specific attention to the group of Body Part clusters to illustrate the functional variation of clusters.

Item Type: Article
RIS ID: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1017589
Additional Information: Copyright Edinburgh University Press.
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Arts > School of English
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2007.2.1.1
Depositing User: Mahlberg, Dr. Michaela
Date Deposited: 21 Feb 2013 17:58
Last Modified: 04 May 2020 20:29
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/1927

Actions (Archive Staff Only)

Edit View Edit View