Abstract
We propose a lexico-grammatical approach to speech in fiction based on the centrality of ‘fictional speech-bundles’ as the key element of fictional talk. To identify fictional speech-bundles, we use three corpora of 19th-century fiction that are available through the corpus stylistic web application CLiC (Corpus Linguistics in Context). We focus on the ‘quotes’ subsets of the corpora, i.e. text within quotation marks, which is mostly equivalent to direct speech. These quotes subsets are compared across the fiction corpora and with the spoken component of the British National Corpus 1994. The comparisons illustrate how fictional speech-bundles can be described on a continuum from lexical bundles in real spoken language to repeated sequences of words that are specific to individual fictional characters. Typical functions of fictional speech-bundles are the description of interactions and interpersonal relationships of fictional characters. While our approach crucially depends on an innovative corpus linguistic methodology, it also draws on theoretical insights into spoken grammar and characterisation in fiction in order to question traditional notions of realism and authenticity in fictional speech.
Highlights
In fictional narrative, the centrality of character has always been recognised, and the importance of the speech of characters within narratives has received a great deal of critical attention
Mind-modelling is a cognitive poetic concept, which can be extended through a corpus linguistic dimension (Mahlberg and Stockwell, 2016; Stockwell and Mahlberg, 2015): corpus linguistic methods are employed to find the linguistic patterns that contribute to the cumulative picture of character information in a text
We focus on speech in the novels of Charles Dickens and the 19th century, partly because of Dickens’ influential and canonical status in the 19th-century literary tradition, partly because he is celebrated for his characterisation and verisimilitude and partly because of the practical consideration that, in the 19th-century novel, direct speech is a common form of speech presentation and relatively straightforwardly identifiable
Summary
The centrality of character has always been recognised, and the importance of the speech of characters within narratives has received a great deal of critical attention. The continuity between fictional worlds and the real world receives even greater emphasis through the concept of mindmodelling: this describes the way in which readers create a sense of the minds of fictional characters. It refers to the human capacity for imagining and maintaining a working model of the knowledge, beliefs, feelings, motivation and consequent behaviour of others (Stockwell, 2009). Mind-modelling is a cognitive poetic concept, which can be extended through a corpus linguistic dimension (Mahlberg and Stockwell, 2016; Stockwell and Mahlberg, 2015): corpus linguistic methods are employed to find the linguistic patterns that contribute to the cumulative picture of character information in a text
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