A corpus-based approach to author’s idiolect study: lexicological aspect

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the application of a multimodal approach to the analysis of the writer’s lexicon. The versatility of the anthropocentric paradigm of modern linguistics and the approaches applied in our research are mindful of the choice of relevant research methods. The features of a writer’s lexicon (or idiolect in a broader sense) have been of great interest among scholars though they have been mostly explored by literary critics. Nowadays, more linguists are also interested in thorough research on the subject by applying more rigorous scientific methods like quantitative and statistical ones. The paper herewith focuses on a few of them as a preliminary attempt to showcase some results. The primary concern is to make this study corpus-based. Hence it is crucial to create a corpus of works based on the generally acknowledged rules and principles. Therefore, such a corpus may contribute to the development of corpus linguistics and be applicable to other research regarding studying the writer’s idiolect. Another point of interest is that such research may either support or somehow disprove established views regarding the writing style of a certain author (that is very useful when considering author attribution issues or even forensic linguistics, though that is not the case of the given research). Finally, lexical semantics plays one of the leading roles in defining dominant concepts of an author’s writing style corresponding to the cognitive linguistics domain. As a result of such an approach, it may help to construct the lexicon of the author into an ideographic entity. Furthermore, similar findings or comparative analysis of corresponding objects of study may contribute to displaying the author’s outlook and subsequently that of the whole nation.