Pub Date : 2025-05-06DOI: 10.1177/09639470251332820
Hilary Duffield
The paper presents key results in the diachronic analysis of recognition (Aristotle’s concept of anagnorisis ) in works of Anglophone narrative fiction and film. Its focus is on the developing cognitive diversity in the representation of character responses during the cognitive-emotional crux which occurs at the heart of the recognition scene. The three forms covered are the recognition of close relationships (generally of kinship), recognition of hostile invaders, and recognition of the human threat to the environment. In contrast to previous research, the examples are taken from a wide range of realist and non-realist genres. The analysis of invasion narratives involves the recognition of enmity; this is mentioned by Aristotle but has received far less attention; the recognition of anthropogenic environmental threat, and its telling absence in some human responses – dysanagnorisis –, is largely a more recent form. The overall timespan of the examples ranges from the Renaissance to contemporary film. Notably, the recognition of enmity and of threat become a more common form in narratives of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with new examples in particular occurring in 1950s narratives. In the examples from the invasion narrative, key transformations in the representation of recognition in print versus film media, and in print-to-film adaptations, constitute an additional innovative focus of the paper. Overall, the representations of recognition studied are cognitively and emotionally diverse, with a marked growth in their ontological, emotional and cognitive complexity.
{"title":"Reconfigured reality in scenarios of transformed identity, invasion and environmental threat: The diachronic exploration of recognition scenes in anglophone print and film narratives","authors":"Hilary Duffield","doi":"10.1177/09639470251332820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251332820","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents key results in the diachronic analysis of recognition (Aristotle’s concept of <jats:italic>anagnorisis</jats:italic> ) in works of Anglophone narrative fiction and film. Its focus is on the developing cognitive diversity in the representation of character responses during the cognitive-emotional crux which occurs at the heart of the recognition scene. The three forms covered are the recognition of close relationships (generally of kinship), recognition of hostile invaders, and recognition of the human threat to the environment. In contrast to previous research, the examples are taken from a wide range of realist and non-realist genres. The analysis of invasion narratives involves the recognition of enmity; this is mentioned by Aristotle but has received far less attention; the recognition of anthropogenic environmental threat, and its telling absence in some human responses – dysanagnorisis –, is largely a more recent form. The overall timespan of the examples ranges from the Renaissance to contemporary film. Notably, the recognition of enmity and of threat become a more common form in narratives of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with new examples in particular occurring in 1950s narratives. In the examples from the invasion narrative, key transformations in the representation of recognition in print versus film media, and in print-to-film adaptations, constitute an additional innovative focus of the paper. Overall, the representations of recognition studied are cognitively and emotionally diverse, with a marked growth in their ontological, emotional and cognitive complexity.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"103 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143915973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-06DOI: 10.1177/09639470251330400
Dorothee Birke
This article uses a diachronic approach to examine how on social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, readers of fiction discuss and also stage strong affects connected with their reading of ‘books that made me cry’. While this trend may seem to be generated wholly by the affordances of digital media, it will be examined in what interesting ways it also connects with the eighteenth-century vogue for sentimental reading. Considering three dimensions of reading that have often been sidelined in literary studies – reading as a physical process, as a communal activity and as a performance – the article presents in-depth analyses of representations of crying readers in both reading cultures. It pays special attention to the changing norms and values connected with reading, which manifest themselves in contemporary discourses on the reader in the respective centuries, such as ‘sentimental reading’ and ‘ugly crying’.
{"title":"Diachronic perspectives on digital reading culture: Crying readers from the age of sensibility to BookTok","authors":"Dorothee Birke","doi":"10.1177/09639470251330400","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251330400","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses a diachronic approach to examine how on social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, readers of fiction discuss and also stage strong affects connected with their reading of ‘books that made me cry’. While this trend may seem to be generated wholly by the affordances of digital media, it will be examined in what interesting ways it also connects with the eighteenth-century vogue for sentimental reading. Considering three dimensions of reading that have often been sidelined in literary studies – reading as a physical process, as a communal activity and as a performance – the article presents in-depth analyses of representations of crying readers in both reading cultures. It pays special attention to the changing norms and values connected with reading, which manifest themselves in contemporary discourses on the reader in the respective centuries, such as ‘sentimental reading’ and ‘ugly crying’.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143915971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-06DOI: 10.1177/09639470251327483
Andrew James Johnston
This article discusses Chaucer’s perspective on the ideological structures that inform the writing of literary history. In the first verses of the Franklin’s Tale , Chaucer first engenders and then deconstructs an – implicit – teleological narrative of literary history that links questions of genre, orality and history only to deconstruct, in almost the same breath, that very narrative by poetic means. Chaucer’s act of historical deconstruction is compared with the self-conscious strategies of raising questions of literary history as they are already to be found in the type of early Middle English romance he parodies in Sir Thopas . As this article argues, it is through this form of poetic meditation on the problems of literary history that Chaucer establishes a sense of his own modernity.
{"title":"Chaucerian modernities: (De)-constructing literary history in The Canterbury Tales","authors":"Andrew James Johnston","doi":"10.1177/09639470251327483","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251327483","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses Chaucer’s perspective on the ideological structures that inform the writing of literary history. In the first verses of the <jats:italic>Franklin’s Tale</jats:italic> , Chaucer first engenders and then deconstructs an – implicit – teleological narrative of literary history that links questions of genre, orality and history only to deconstruct, in almost the same breath, that very narrative by poetic means. Chaucer’s act of historical deconstruction is compared with the self-conscious strategies of raising questions of literary history as they are already to be found in the type of early Middle English romance he parodies in <jats:italic>Sir Thopas</jats:italic> . As this article argues, it is through this form of poetic meditation on the problems of literary history that Chaucer establishes a sense of his own modernity.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"74 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143915974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-06DOI: 10.1177/09639470251327482
Monika Fludernik, Olga Timofeeva
Both linguists and literary scholars deal with change over time. This special issue approaches the question of diachronic development from a comparative perspective, contrasting the ways in which analysis of changes observable in literary texts over the centuries is handled in the realm of literary studies and how linguists discuss language-specific (dis)continuities from one period to the other. For instance, as is well known, generic modifications and repurposing frequently play an important role in literary studies, while linguists often focus on form versus function analysis. These methodological preferences are not exclusive to the two fields, however. The essays in this issue demonstrate how very similar questions and often comparable methodologies are employed by linguists and literary scholars, especially by representatives of historical pragmatics and narratologists, who share methodological assumptions about form and function analysis.
{"title":"Diachronicity: An issue shared between linguistics and literary studies","authors":"Monika Fludernik, Olga Timofeeva","doi":"10.1177/09639470251327482","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251327482","url":null,"abstract":"Both linguists and literary scholars deal with change over time. This special issue approaches the question of diachronic development from a comparative perspective, contrasting the ways in which analysis of changes observable in literary texts over the centuries is handled in the realm of literary studies and how linguists discuss language-specific (dis)continuities from one period to the other. For instance, as is well known, generic modifications and repurposing frequently play an important role in literary studies, while linguists often focus on form versus function analysis. These methodological preferences are not exclusive to the two fields, however. The essays in this issue demonstrate how very similar questions and often comparable methodologies are employed by linguists and literary scholars, especially by representatives of historical pragmatics and narratologists, who share methodological assumptions about form and function analysis.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143915995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-26DOI: 10.1177/09639470251337632
Matthew Voice, Chloe Harrison, Tim Grant, Marcello Giovanelli
This paper reports an initial application of contemporary cognitive stylistics to forensic linguistic contexts. In both areas, a need has been identified for robust analyses. An intercoder reliability study was developed using data from a historic authorship analysis case involving single-authored hate mail. Exploring the applicability of Cognitive Grammar’s notion of construal as a reliable framework for describing salient features of the author’s style, this test examined the accuracy and consistency of descriptions of schematicity and specificity within the corpus, as applied by independent coders. Iterative coding and testing demonstrated that reliability was achievable, but depended upon a protocol developed through considerable definitional work, refining the concepts of specificity and elaboration as taken from Cognitive Grammar. Our findings support the idea that the identification of stylistic features can be rigorous, retrievable, and replicable, but also that a fuller system of coding will require a substantial research programme. Such an approach, bringing together contemporary stylistics and forensic authorship analysis, would be a productive collaboration between both disciplines and a valuable research method for verifiability in stylistics more generally. Content: Readers are advised that the letters analysed for this study contain offensive language, and that short quotes within this paper include racist and hateful language directed at particular groups.
{"title":"Towards a cognitive forensic stylistics: An intercoder reliability test for replicable feature finding in the Operation Heron corpus","authors":"Matthew Voice, Chloe Harrison, Tim Grant, Marcello Giovanelli","doi":"10.1177/09639470251337632","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251337632","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reports an initial application of contemporary cognitive stylistics to forensic linguistic contexts. In both areas, a need has been identified for robust analyses. An intercoder reliability study was developed using data from a historic authorship analysis case involving single-authored hate mail. Exploring the applicability of Cognitive Grammar’s notion of construal as a reliable framework for describing salient features of the author’s style, this test examined the accuracy and consistency of descriptions of schematicity and specificity within the corpus, as applied by independent coders. Iterative coding and testing demonstrated that reliability was achievable, but depended upon a protocol developed through considerable definitional work, refining the concepts of specificity and elaboration as taken from Cognitive Grammar. Our findings support the idea that the identification of stylistic features can be rigorous, retrievable, and replicable, but also that a fuller system of coding will require a substantial research programme. Such an approach, bringing together contemporary stylistics and forensic authorship analysis, would be a productive collaboration between both disciplines and a valuable research method for verifiability in stylistics more generally. Content: Readers are advised that the letters analysed for this study contain offensive language, and that short quotes within this paper include racist and hateful language directed at particular groups.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143876092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-30DOI: 10.1177/09639470251330429
Katri Priiki, Leena Kolehmainen
This article examines pronominal references to anthropomorphic animal characters in contemporary Finnish-language picture books for children ( N = 531). In the Finnish language, the choice of third person pronoun is a key means of distinguishing humans from other animals. The study shows that animal characters in children’s literature are linguistically placed between humans and nonhumans: in about half of the analysed books, the pronoun typically referring to humans refers to the animal characters, whereas in the other half of the data, the pronoun referring to nonhumans is used. A quantitative analysis reveals that the use of the human personal pronoun correlates with the number of human-like traits the characters possess. The analysis shows that pronoun variation has a variety of functions in picture books. Different pronouns may refer to different characters, indicating their degree of humanity, and the treatment of characters as human or nonhuman may also change as the story progresses. The human pronoun can be used in dialogue to indicate that the characters treat each other as persons. On the other hand, since there are differences in the Finnish pronoun system between the spoken and written variety, pronoun variation can mark a dialogue as colloquial. The study compares original and translated Finnish literature, revealing some differences. Finnish authors use the stylistic values linked to the pronouns as a resource more widely than translators, which results in more book-internal variation. Conversely, translators orient towards the standard language and consider how human-liken the characters are when choosing pronouns.
{"title":"Humans or animals? The linguistic representation of animal characters in original and translated Finnish picture books for children","authors":"Katri Priiki, Leena Kolehmainen","doi":"10.1177/09639470251330429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251330429","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines pronominal references to anthropomorphic animal characters in contemporary Finnish-language picture books for children ( <jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 531). In the Finnish language, the choice of third person pronoun is a key means of distinguishing humans from other animals. The study shows that animal characters in children’s literature are linguistically placed between humans and nonhumans: in about half of the analysed books, the pronoun typically referring to humans refers to the animal characters, whereas in the other half of the data, the pronoun referring to nonhumans is used. A quantitative analysis reveals that the use of the human personal pronoun correlates with the number of human-like traits the characters possess. The analysis shows that pronoun variation has a variety of functions in picture books. Different pronouns may refer to different characters, indicating their degree of humanity, and the treatment of characters as human or nonhuman may also change as the story progresses. The human pronoun can be used in dialogue to indicate that the characters treat each other as persons. On the other hand, since there are differences in the Finnish pronoun system between the spoken and written variety, pronoun variation can mark a dialogue as colloquial. The study compares original and translated Finnish literature, revealing some differences. Finnish authors use the stylistic values linked to the pronouns as a resource more widely than translators, which results in more book-internal variation. Conversely, translators orient towards the standard language and consider how human-liken the characters are when choosing pronouns.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143736594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-18DOI: 10.1177/09639470251327730
Daniel Duncan
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.
{"title":"Variation in fictional dialogue in A Series of Unfortunate Events","authors":"Daniel Duncan","doi":"10.1177/09639470251327730","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251327730","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":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143653929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-11DOI: 10.1177/09639470251319912
Alicia Muro
The aim of this paper is to analyse Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical in terms of its approaches to storytelling and narration. A selection of songs will be analysed focusing on their narrative traits and the figure of the narrator, including its (un)reliability. It will be argued that the songs in Hamilton can be classified depending on their approaches to storytelling, including examples of narration to the audience, confessional monologues, epistolary narration, or scenes based on dialogue/conversations. An analysis of who tells Hamilton’s story will be relevant to understand the whole show, for it is also concerned with issues of legacy and remembrance.
{"title":"Who tells your story: Narration in Hamilton: An American Musical","authors":"Alicia Muro","doi":"10.1177/09639470251319912","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470251319912","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this paper is to analyse Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical in terms of its approaches to storytelling and narration. A selection of songs will be analysed focusing on their narrative traits and the figure of the narrator, including its (un)reliability. It will be argued that the songs in Hamilton can be classified depending on their approaches to storytelling, including examples of narration to the audience, confessional monologues, epistolary narration, or scenes based on dialogue/conversations. An analysis of who tells Hamilton’s story will be relevant to understand the whole show, for it is also concerned with issues of legacy and remembrance.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143393056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-20DOI: 10.1177/09639470241310855
Yuan Ping
{"title":"Book Review: Advances in Corpus Applications in Literary and Translation Studies","authors":"Yuan Ping","doi":"10.1177/09639470241310855","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470241310855","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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