Language and characterisation in television series : a corpus-informed approach to the construction of social identity in the media : a corpus-informed approach to the construction of social identity in the media / Monika Bednarek.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bednarek, Monika, 1977- author.

Series:

Studies in Corpus Linguistics

Studies in Corpus Linguistics vol. 106

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dialogue in television programs.

Dialogue analysis.

Characters and characteristics on television.

Television programs--United States.

Television programs.

Television programs--Australia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (279 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : John Benjamins Publishing Company, [2023]

Summary:

"This book explores how language is used to create characters in fictional television series. To do so, it draws on multiple case studies from the United States and Australia. Brought together in this book for the first time, these case studies constitute more than the sum of their parts. They highlight different aspects of televisual characterisation and showcase the use of different data, methods, and approaches in its analysis. Uniquely, the book takes a mixed-method approach and will thus not only appeal to corpus linguists but also researchers in sociolinguistics, stylistics, and pragmatics. All corpus linguistic techniques are clearly introduced and explained, and the book is thus accessible to both experienced researchers as well as novice researchers and students. It will be essential reading in linguistics, literature, stylistics, and media/television studies"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Intro

Language and Characterisation in Television Series

Editorial page

Title page

Copyright page

Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Language notes

A note on the citing of television series

Chapter 1. Televisual characterisation

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Creating characters: Processes and authorship

1.3 Characters and the audience

1.4 Features of the televisual character

1.4.1 Stability

1.4.2 Aspects of character identity

1.5 Frameworks for the linguistic study of televisual characterisation

1.5.1 Cognitive stylistics: Schemas and textual cues

1.5.2 Sociolinguistics: Telecinematic indexicalities

1.5.3 A mixed approach to televisual characterisation

1.6 This book's case study approach

Chapter 2. Corpus linguistic analysis of televisual characterisation: Data and approach

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Corpus linguistic analyses of televisual characterisation

2.3 Corpus linguistic techniques and concepts

2.3.1 Frequency and keyness

2.3.2 Distribution

2.3.3 Collocation and concordance analysis

2.3.4 A note on statistics

2.4 Data

2.5 Units and levels of analysis

2.6 Concluding remarks

Chapter 3. Character differentiation and character stability

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Gilmore Girls

3.3 Case study 1: Character differentiation

3.3.1 Lorelai as unique character

3.3.2 Lorelai as an emotional character

3.4 Case study 2: Character stability

3.4.1 Lorelai: An example of a "stable" televisual character?

3.4.2 Diachronic character stability re-visited

3.4.3 Intersubjective stability re-visited

Content words

Names

Reference to family roles

(+ Human) pronouns

Interpersonal markers

3.4.4 Revisiting stability: The Gilmore Girls reboot

3.5 Conclusion

Chapter 4. Characters and stereotypes

4.1 Introduction

4.2 The Big Bang Theory.

4.3 Nerd stereotypes/schemas

4.4 Methods

4.4.1 Concordance and key word analysis

4.4.2 Scene-based analysis

4.5 Results

4.5.1 Character insights from concordance analysis

4.5.2 Character insights from key word analysis

4.5.3 Character insights from scene-based analysis

4.5.4 Sheldon compared to other television characters

4.5.5 Beyond Sheldon: Nerds in The Big Bang Theory

4.6 Conclusion

Chapter 5. Flawed female characters

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Female gender representation in television series

5.3 Swear/taboo words

5.3.1 Swear/taboo words and televisual characterisation

5.3.2 Swear/taboo words and gender

5.4 Nurse Jackie, Weeds and Saving Grace

Weeds

Saving Grace

Nurse Jackie

5.5 The use of swear/taboo words by the three "flawed" women

5.5.1 (Very) strong swear/taboo words

5.5.2 "Female" and "male" swear/taboo words

5.6 Conclusion

Chapter 6. Characterisation and the use of marginalised varieties of English

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Indigenous characters and Australian Aboriginal English

6.3 Marginalised and "non-standard" Englishes in telecinematic discourse

6.4 Methodology

6.4.1 Redfern Now

6.4.2 The RFN corpus

6.4.3 Approach

6.5 Findings

6.5.1 Key words and their range

6.5.2 Australian English/culture

6.5.3 Aboriginal ways of using English

6.5.4 Kinship terms

6.5.5 Additional AAE lexis

6.6 Conclusion

Chapter 7. Beyond individual series: Analyses of US and Australian television dialogue corpora

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Case study 1: The use of a stigmatised language feature in US television

7.2.1 Background: Ain't as a stigmatised language feature

7.2.2 Ain't and characterisation

7.3 Case study 2: AAE lexis in Indigenous-authored television series

7.3.1 Background: Indigenous representation and AAE.

7.3.2 Using lexical profiling to analyse AAE lexis

7.3.3 Corpus and methodology

7.3.3.1 The Ngara corpus

7.3.3.2 Methodology

7.3.4 Results

7.3.4.1 AAE words: Frequency, range, and character diffusion

7.3.4.2 AAE words: Character ethnicity

7.3.5 Case study summary

7.4 Chapter conclusion

Chapter 8. Conclusion

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Using corpus linguistic techniques to study televisual characterisation

8.3 Televisual characterisation and stylistics

8.4 Concluding remarks

List of TV series (and movies)

References

Appendix

Index of TV series (and movies)

General index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Bednarek, Monika Language and Characterisation in Television Series

ISBN:

9789027254665

OCLC:

1369643745