Railway discourse : linguistic and stylistic representations of the train in the Anglophone world / by Esterino Adami.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adami, Esterino, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Railroads in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 147 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018.

Summary:

This volume examines the train trope in a variety of cultural, literary and linguistic contexts, from contemporary crime fiction and dystopian graphic narratives to postcolonial railway travelogues, by employing a range of methods and frameworks. Situated within the "Discourse, Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics" collection, the book critically engages with significant areas such as discourse and narrative structure. Interpreting the railway as a powerful cultural and imaginary site in the English-speaking world that traverses a range of creative domains, this study explores the ways in which the train and its structures, symbols and metaphors are textually rendered and the type of stylistic effects they generate in readers. It introduces, frames and discusses the idea of railway discourse and focuses on specific case studies (The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, the graphic novel Snowpiercer and Monisha Rajesh's Around India in 80 Trains). In particular, it considers how a compartment window can constrain, and shape, the point of view of a narrator, the way in which science fiction trains are conceptually imagined, and the intercultural implications of rail travel writing in India today. To analyse the role and meaning of the railway in these texts, and compare them with others, this work adopts and adapts analytical tools and critical concepts from the integration of different fields, such as stylistics and linguistics, postcolonial criticism and literary studies.

Contents:

Intro

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One

1.1 Why the Railways?

1.2 The Train and the Wor(l)d

Chapter Two

2.1 The Railways and Crime Narratives

2.2 Structure and Characters in The Girl on the Train

2.3 The Text in/on the Train

2.4 Trainspotting and Point of View

2.5 Movements, Sounds and Perceptions of the Railway

2.6 Concluding Remarks

Chapter Three

3.1 Trains in Fantasy, Imagination and Science Fiction

3.2 Graphic Narratives and Speculative Railways

3.3 "There Travels a Train that Never Stops"

3.4 Metaphors, Personification and Architexts

3.5 Concluding remarks

Chapter Four

4.1 The Railway in the Indian Context

4.2 Language of the Railway in the Indian Subcontinent

4.3 The Train in Indian Fiction

4.4 Case Study: Around India in 80 Trains

4.5 Concluding remarks

Chapter Five

5.1 Trains Galore

5.2 On Tracks, Again

References

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-5275-2555-4

OCLC:

1083096925