Social Semiotic Stylistics and the corpus: How do-able is an automated analysis of verbal art?

Social Semiotic Stylistics and the corpus: How do-able is an automated analysis of verbal art? Corpora have been extensively applied in all areas of linguistic research, including that of ‘figurative’ language (Charteris-Black 2004; Deignan 2005; Luporini 2013a) and to literature itself (e.g., Taylor Torsello and Turci 2007; Toolan 2009). Yet ‘high’ level studies of text in all registers, addressing semantics/context, have been shown to resist automation (Miller et al., to appear). And, when dealing with a framework for ‘verbal art’ (Hasan 1985 [1989]; 2007) that is so scrupulous in its precepts, categories and its very definition of the object of inquiry, the question of the extent to which automated corpus techniques can be effectively deployed must be tackled. Though corpus assisted studies should ideally be part of the ongoing development of a rigorous Social Semiotic Stylistics (SSS), the proposal is not unproblematic. This chapter explores the problem, firstly by probing the implications of SSS’s essential theses, which we thoroughly endorse (cf. Miller 2010), in particular its conviction that literature is “[…] created by languaging in a particular way” (Hasan 2007: 16, original emphasis). This specialness of verbal art is what led Hasan to devising a unique model of ‘double articulation’ with both a semiotic system of language and a higher order semiotic system of verbal art, the level at which the first order meanings are enriched in order to express the literature text’s Theme (1985 [1989]). We argue that, while corpus tools may assist analysis at the lower level semiotic system of language itself, and even potentially help identify motivated patterns to be further examined, verbal art’s higher order semiosis requires traditional qualitative manual analysis of a logogenetic nature. The second part of the chapter summarises the results of a corpus-assisted reading of J.M Coetzee’s 1986 novel Foe (Luporini 2013b), a rewriting of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (Widdowson 2006 ), with a view to illustrating what software such as WordSmith Tools (Scott 2008) can/cannot tell us about: a) its thematic richness, and b) the complex cultural context in which it was produced and which it, in turn, symbolically reproduces: Apartheid South Africa. Cited References Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Deignan, A. (2005). Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hasan, R. (1985 [1989]). Language, Linguistics and Verbal Art. Geelong, Vic.: Deakin University Press; Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hasan, R. (2007). “Private pleasure, public discourse: reflections on engaging with literature”, in Miller, D.R. and Turci, M. (eds.), pp. 13-40. Luporini, A. (2013a). Metaphor in Times of Crisis: Metaphorical Representations of the Global Crisis in The Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore 2008. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Pisa. Luporini, A. (2013b). “Inside ‘the home of Friday’: Linguistic representations of frustrated communication in a corpus-assisted study of J.M. Coetzee's Foe”, in Di Michele, L. (ed.), Regenerating Community, Territory, Voices. Memory and Vision. Proceedings of the XXV AIA Conference, L'Aquila, September 15-16-17, 2011. Volume II. Naples: Liguori Editore, pp. 186-198. Miller, D.R., Bayley, P., Bevitori, C., Fusari, S. and Luporini, A. (to appear, online). ‘Ticklish trawling’: The limits of corpus assisted meaning analysis – a colloquium in four parts. Extended abstract of the colloquium presented at the 24th European Systemic Functional Linguistics Conference and Workshop, Coventry, 1-3 July, 2013. Miller, D.R. and Turci, M. (eds.) (2007). Language and Verbal Art Revisited. Linguistic Approaches to the Study of Literature. London: Equinox. Scott, M. (2008). WordSmith Tools version 5. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software. Taylor Torsello, C. (2007) “Projection in literary and in non-literary texts”, in Miller, D.R. and Turci M., pp. 115-148. Toolan M. (2009) Narrative Progression in the Short Story, a corpus stylistic approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Turci M. (2007) “The meaning of ‘dark*’ in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, in in Miller, D.R. and Turci, M. (eds.), pp. 97-114. Widdowson, P. (2006). “’Writing back’: contemporary re-visionary fiction”. Textual Practice 20 (3), pp. 491-507.