Phrases in literary contexts: patterns and distributions of suspensions in Dickens’s novels

Mahlberg, Michaela; Smith, Catherine; Preston, Simon

Abstract

This paper addresses relations between lexico-grammatical patterns and texts. Our focus is on a specific linguistic unit, the ‘suspended quotation’ (or ‘suspension’), which has received particular attention in Dickens studies. The suspended quotation refers to an interruption of a fictional character’s speech by the narrator with a sequence of at least five words. We show how corpus linguistic methods can help to systematically study suspensions in a corpus of Dickens’s novels: we investigate relationships between patterns of body language presentation and suspensions; we consider the distribution of suspensions across novels; and we illustrate how patterns in suspensions relate to meanings of reporting verbs. Overall, we argue that suspensions are discernible units that contribute to meaningful patterns in narrative prose.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2013
• Journal: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
• Print ISSN: 1384-6655
• Electronic ISSN: 1384-6655
• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 1
• APA6 Citation: Mahlberg, M., Smith, C., & Preston, S. (2013). Phrases in literary contexts: patterns and distributions of suspensions in Dickens’s novels. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 18(1), doi:10.1075/ijcl.18.1.05mah
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.18.1.05mah
• Keywords: Dickens; body language presentation; reporting verbs; suspended quotation; suspension annotation
• Publisher URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/ijcl/2013/00000018/00000001/art00003?token=00591b8ab40da4975e37b76504c48663c707b234a6c5f7a514d3b6a332b257d7241255e4e6b6331944ce39bb5
• Copyright Statement: Copyright information regarding this work can be found at the following address: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0