Narrative progression in the short story : a corpus stylistic approach / Michael Toolan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Toolan, Michael J.

Series:

Linguistic approaches to literature ; v. 6.

Linguistic approaches to literature, 1569-3112 ; v. 6

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fiction--Authorship.

Fiction.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Short story--Technique.

Short story.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub., c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

One of our most valuable capacities is our ability partly to predict what will come next in a text. But linguistic understanding of this remains very limited, especially in genres such as the short story where there is a staging of the clash between predictability and unpredictability. This book proposes that a matrix of narrativity-furthering textual features is crucial to the reader's forming of expectations about how a literary story will continue to its close. Toolan uses corpus linguistic software and methods, and stylistic and narratological theory, in the course of delineating the matrix of eight parameters that he sees as crucial to creating narrative progression and expectation. The book will be of interest to stylisticians, narratologists, corpus linguists, and short story scholars.

Contents:

Narrative Progression in the Short Story

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. The crucial question: how does text 'guide' the reader?

2. A brief sketch of the research context and methods

3. On genre, relevance, scripts, and background

4. Guided expectation

5. Text integrity

6. Predictive reading

7. Conclusion

Collocation and corpus stylistics

1. Studies in discourse prospection and expectation

2. Collocational stylistics

3. Choosing an appropriate comparator corpus

4. A note on the stories selected for analysis.

5. Conclusion

Lexical patternings in short stories

1 Word frequencies in "Two Gallants"

1.1 "Gallantry" in Dubliners

1.2 High and low frequency lexis in "Two Gallants"

2. Textual richness measured by lexical diversity

2.1 The type-token measure

2.2 Lexical innovation and text structure

3. Foregrounding via repetitive phrasing or by novelty of phrasing and collocation

3.1 Clusters

3.2 Achieving the stern task of living: a tissue of not-so-vague associations

4. Keyword analysis of "Two Gallants"

4.1 Using keywords on "Two Gallants": section by section

Top keyword sentences as story waymarking

1. A top keyword abridgement of "Two Gallants"

2. Applying the top keyword procedure in story abridgements

2.1 Updike's "A &amp

P"

2.2 Carver's "Boxes".

2.3 Carver's "Cathedral".

3. Further procedural questions about the top keyword method

3.1 Distinguishing the top keyword from other frequent keywords.

3.2 On the importance, in the top keyword, of proper name status.

4. Some interim conclusions

Keywords and the Language of Guidance in "The Love of a Good Woman"

1. Story opening as initial guidance

2. Top lexical keywords as narrativity indices.

3. Textual segmentation and keywords' collocates.

4. Local (within-section) interrelation and collocation of keywords

Repetition and para-repetition in story structure

1. A more delicate keywords and plotlinks analysis of "The Love of a Good Woman"

2. Keyword personal pronouns and idiolect-signalling

3. The non-repetitive echo: long-distance patterning via associated lexis and analogy

3.1 Rubbing and scratching surfaces

3.2 Dark above, light below

3.3 Sorrowful plummeting

3.4 Bashing, banging and braining

4. Para-repetitive narrative bonding between story opening and remainder

Prospection and expectation

1. Sentences featuring named main characters

1.1 High frequency and keyword character referencing

1.2 Modelling cohesive chains in long texts by sampling

2. Narrative-tense finite verbs in character-depicting action clauses

2.1 Narrative-tense verbs with inquits excluded

2.2 VVD density

2.3 Is independent capture of narrative-tense action verbs needed?

3. The cueing power of first sentences of narrative paragraphs

4. Narrativity carried by "fully lexical" frequent keywords and clusters.

4.1 Frequent keywords

4.2 Clusters

1. The heightened narrativity of characters' represented thought

1.1 Automating identification of FIT: rule 1, narrative modal verbs with pronouns.

1.2 Exclude modals following if, whether, that…

1.3 Automating identification of FIT: Rule 2, include all questions and exclamations in the narrative

1.4 Automating identification of FIT: Rule 3, include all flanking sentences containing subjective modals

1.5 Modifying the three FIT-finding procedures

2. Prospective direct speech

3. Negation-carrying clauses

4. Narrative verbs of modality and mental processing

5. Implementing the model with "Two Gallants".

6. Compiling the abridgement

The textual tracking of suspense and surprise

1. Narrative suspense

2. Narrative surprise

3. Textualising suspense in "Two Gallants"

4. Textualising surprise in "Bliss" and "A small, good thing"

Next steps

1. Corpus-based study of narrativity: a work in progress.

2. Expanding and refining the model: modality and evaluation

3. The reader's experience of the text

4. Directions for future research

References

Name index

Topic index

The series Linguistic Approaches to Literature.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [201]-208) and indexes.

ISBN:

9786612104800

9781282104808

1282104802

9789027290618

902729061X

OCLC:

316787372