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.

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

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: May 15, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: May 15, 2014
• 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
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.18.1.05mah
• Keywords: Dickens; body language presentation; reporting verbs; suspended quotation; suspension annotation
• Public URL: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/3151
• 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