A corpus stylistic perspective on Lewis Carroll’s "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland"

• Název práce v češtině: Carrollova "Alenka v říši divů": korpusově stylistická perspektiva
• Název v anglickém jazyce: A corpus stylistic perspective on Lewis Carroll’s "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland"
• Klíčová slova: Lewis Carroll Alenka v říši divů korpus korpusová stylistika lingvistika
• Klíčová slova anglicky: Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland corpus stylistics linguistics
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2013/2014
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav anglického jazyka a didaktiky (21-UAJD)
• Vedoucí / školitel: Mgr. Anna Čermáková, Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 06.06.2014
• Datum zadání: 06.06.2014
• Schválení administrátorem: zatím neschvalováno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 24.06.2014
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 14.09.2015 00:00
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 14.08.2015
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 14.09.2015
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: odevzdaná studentem a finalizovaná
• Oponenti: doc. PhDr. Markéta Malá, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

Corpus stylistics is a cover term used mainly to refer to the application of the corpus linguistics tools and methods in the study of literary texts (Wynne 2012: 474, also e. g. Wynne 2006). The main strength and potential of corpus linguistics typically consist in extensive amounts of textual data: the corpora. However, techniques of processing and analyzing corpora are also helpful in exploring smaller texts, such as novels. „A corpus stylistic approach assumes that the linguistic analysis of a literary text provides useful insights complementing the literary analysis“ (Mahlberg 2013:2). The corpus stylistic analyses have demonstrated that computer assisted methods have the potential of identifying significant linguistic features, which may have gone unnoticed by literary critics, and/or provide a more detailed and objective descriptive basis for further literary interpretation. Mahlberg (2013) presents a number of innovative descriptive tools for the analysis of literary texts and proposes a corpus stylistic theoretical framework.
Corpus stylistics looks into methods of how to approach the traditionally separated area of linguistics and literary studies. It has the potential of enriching the methods of traditional literary analysis in two substantial ways. It is capable of revealing repetitive, but often not immediately obvious, features of a text. It is assumed that precisely these repetitive patterns participate in a major way in the construction of any text. Second, it adds to the “last bastion for the intuitive study of language” (Louw 2011:186), i.e. literary studies, a dimension of objectivity supported by quantitative findings and potentially reduces the researcher bias (e.g. Baker 2011:21). Stubbs (2005) points to word frequencies as an obvious starting point, since some relation, possibly indirect, is to be expected between frequent vocabulary and important themes and linguistic devices.
This work will present a corpus-stylistic investigation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The now iconic text was first published in 1865 and signaled the change in writing style for children to an imaginative and empathetic one. It is regarded as a founding book in the development of fantasy literature and its publication opened the era of the "First Golden Age" of children's literature in Britain (Carpenter 2012). The corpus stylistic analysis of the text will focus on the analysis of keywords and their local context in comparison with at least two reference corpora which will represent the language norm against which the text will be compared. The reference corpora collected for this analysis will be roughly of the same period and genre (cf. Leech 2008). One of the reference corpora will represent contemporary, that is Victorian, literature and the second corpus will consist of children’s literature with the focus on the texts from the period of the “First Golden Age”. In addition to the keyword analysis, an analysis of the most frequent clusters in the novel will be performed and their local textual functions examined (Mahlberg 2013). The thesis will also draw on the concept of 'foregrounding' in connection with the notion of statistical deviance (Leech 2008).
The study will further look into, from the linguistic point of view, Carroll's language of nonsense and linguistic wordplay, which lead to a conflict of logic and absurdity. It will further examine the use of speech acts in this text (most of which break Grice’s Cooperative Principle) and the role of space and time and their multidimensionality and fragmentation in the novel.
The analysis of the collected texts will be conducted in the WordSmith Tools program (Scott 2012) or AntConc (Anthony 2012) and the texts will be collected through the Project Gutenberg.

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