Variation in fictional dialogue in A Series of Unfortunate Events

IF 0.6 3区 文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS Language and Literature Pub Date : 2025-03-18 DOI:10.1177/09639470251327730
Daniel Duncan
{"title":"Variation in fictional dialogue in A Series of Unfortunate Events","authors":"Daniel Duncan","doi":"10.1177/09639470251327730","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The study of linguistic variation in fiction often concerns the use of dialect features as a tool for characterization; however, its use in situating the author in the construction of the text is less remarked upon. This paper considers both of these uses by examining Lemony Snicket’s usage of four sociolinguistic variables in <jats:italic>A Series of Unfortunate Events</jats:italic> . <jats:italic>ASOUE</jats:italic> is of particular interest because it is metafictional, yet as a work of children’s literature has a didactic role in teaching its audience the importance of being well-read. I show that depending on the variable, variation in the dialogue may involve reflection of the author’s language-internal constraints, adherence to a prescriptive norm, or style shifting to distinguish protagonists and antagonists from one another. I argue that these three patterns of variability help to position Snicket as a character within the metafictional series while demonstrating ‘correct’ language usage to readers.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"91 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Language and Literature","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251327730","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

The study of linguistic variation in fiction often concerns the use of dialect features as a tool for characterization; however, its use in situating the author in the construction of the text is less remarked upon. This paper considers both of these uses by examining Lemony Snicket’s usage of four sociolinguistic variables in A Series of Unfortunate Events . ASOUE is of particular interest because it is metafictional, yet as a work of children’s literature has a didactic role in teaching its audience the importance of being well-read. I show that depending on the variable, variation in the dialogue may involve reflection of the author’s language-internal constraints, adherence to a prescriptive norm, or style shifting to distinguish protagonists and antagonists from one another. I argue that these three patterns of variability help to position Snicket as a character within the metafictional series while demonstrating ‘correct’ language usage to readers.
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 去求助
来源期刊
CiteScore
1.70
自引率
14.30%
发文量
35
期刊介绍: Language and Literature is an invaluable international peer-reviewed journal that covers the latest research in stylistics, defined as the study of style in literary and non-literary language. We publish theoretical, empirical and experimental research that aims to make a contribution to our understanding of style and its effects on readers. Topics covered by the journal include (but are not limited to) the following: the stylistic analysis of literary and non-literary texts, cognitive approaches to text comprehension, corpus and computational stylistics, the stylistic investigation of multimodal texts, pedagogical stylistics, the reading process, software development for stylistics, and real-world applications for stylistic analysis. We welcome articles that investigate the relationship between stylistics and other areas of linguistics, such as text linguistics, sociolinguistics and translation studies. We also encourage interdisciplinary submissions that explore the connections between stylistics and such cognate subjects and disciplines as psychology, literary studies, narratology, computer science and neuroscience. Language and Literature is essential reading for academics, teachers and students working in stylistics and related areas of language and literary studies.
期刊最新文献
Variation in fictional dialogue in A Series of Unfortunate Events Who tells your story: Narration in Hamilton: An American Musical Book Review: Advances in Corpus Applications in Literary and Translation Studies Book Review: Slowing Metaphor Down In memoriam Tony Bex
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1