Kieran O’Halloran Corpus-assisted literary evaluation.

Kieran O’Halloran

Corpus-assisted literary evaluation

Roger Fowler (1996: 201-204):

‘dynamic and disturbing’

Aim

• to use corpus-based analysis to shore up (initial) literary evaluation…

• …i.e, to explore whether we can produce a well-grounded hypothesis that poem is ‘dynamic and disturbing’ for readers more generally.

Formulaic sequence

• Relationship (indirect) with cognition.

• Cognitive reality: holistic language processing (Underwood, Schmitt and Galpin, 2004; Wray, 2002).

• But stored in holistic way? (see Schmitt, Grandage and Adolphs, 2004).

Schema theory

Cook, 1994; Schank and Abelson, 1977

Schema = stereotypical knowledge

• S(W) World: Scripts, Plans, Goals, (Themes)

• S(T) Text

• S(L) Language

Formulaic sequences and schemata

Principles:

• Large corpus provides evidence of prototypical formulaic sequences, i.e., evidence for S(L) - not S(W).

• typical S(L) associated with S(W).

• Large corpus provides evidence of non-prototypical formulaic sequences / of deviation.

Jakobsonian stylistics approach

‘The Jakobsonian principle of equivalence should lead the experienced reader of poetry to linktogether the series of words and their meanings:

‘waiting’, ‘hiding’, ‘loitering’, ‘feeling’, ‘fingering’,‘sidling’, ‘stalking’, ‘raring to go’.

The poem is unified by this series…’

Fowler (1996: 203)

Semantic criteria

• Place (street etc)

n+1 since typical place for locative-functional prepositions

• Intention to act in a place

• Relating to male body

Corpus investigation of –ing formsA: Place and intention to act (n +1)

a) waiting (v1, l2): 49,852 Bank of English

‘for’ 19,149; t = 135.2 ‘to’ 7,748; t = 73.8

‘in’ 1,834; t = 21.7

Phraseological deviation: ‘someone is waiting, I don’t know where’

b) hiding (v1, l3): 9,461

‘in’ (3,575; t = 36.8); ‘behind’ (702; t = 25.8)

‘among’ (58; t = 5)

‘Hiding among’ is non-prototypical collocation


c) loitering (v2, l2): 361

‘in’ (72: t-score = 7.6) highest t-score for n+1

all instances ‘in’ relate to place

‘loitering in the dark’ not deviant. It is S(L) / prototypical formulaic sequence.


Fowler (1996: 203) ‘loitering is uniaccentual from the register of police observation. A person can only loiter with bad intent.’

Around 60% express (bad) intention – 40% do not.

e.g. ‘Should you be loitering around Hyde Park Corner over the next three weeks, pop into Pizza on the Park for a comical crash course in the lost art of cabaret.’

S(L) ‘loitering’: sometimes associated with intention to act (sometimes negatively) and sometimes not.

c) loitering continued


d) sidling (v3, l1): 89 SIDLE: 434 ‘up’ (42; t = 6.4). (211; t = 14.5)

‘along’ (6; t = 2.4). (12; t = 3.4)

‘Up’ most common collocate;

‘Sidle up to someone’ is prototypical.

‘Sidle along somewhere’ is non-prototypical collocation.

e) Stalking (v3, l3): 1,788

‘stalking place’: approx. 10% at n+1/2

‘stalking human (female)’: approx 80% (‘her’ 63, t = 7.4)

e.g. ‘a psychopathic serial killer stalking a woman.’

‘stalking place’ is non-prototypical collocation


f) raring to go (v4, l2): 445 raring: 520

• No instances of ‘unless’

1 locative functional preposition: ‘at St James Park’.


f) raring to go continued

• collocation of ‘raring to go’ with ‘unless’ in verse 4 is deviant

• ‘In Belle Grove Terrace…’ is non-prototypical

Corpus investigation of –ing formsB: Male body (4-n+4)

Interpretation1: phraseology vs S(W)

• ‘someone is waiting, I don’t know where (*‘why’)’ (v1, l2).

Lack of intention; cf: S(W) PLANS and GOALS

• ‘Someone is loitering’ (v2, l2)

may or may not be associated with intention; cf: S(W) PLANS and GOALS

• fingering (Vs 2, ln 4) – semantic prosody of ‘light touching’

cf S(W) SCRIPT

Interpretation1. phraseology vs S(W) continued

a) Non-prototypical collocation

‘hiding among’ (v1, l3)

‘sidling along’ (v3, l1)

‘stalking a place’ (v3, l3)

Interpretation2: Equivalences (corpus-based)

b) Gender

‘feeling’ (v2, l3)

‘fingering’ (v2, l4)

not S(L)


c) Phraseological fragment

‘Someone is waiting’ (v1, l2)

‘Raring to go’ (v4, l2)


a) Phraseological

• ‘someone is waiting’ (v1, l2): deviant‘someone is loitering’ (v2, l2): non-deviant

• ‘someone is waiting’ (v1, l2): no (infinitive of) purpose ‘sidling…..to stop…’ (v3, l1) ‘stalking…to see…’ (v3, l3)

Interpretation3: NON-equivalences (corpus-based)

a) Phraseological continued

‘Pink Lane, Strawberry Lane, Pudding Chare’ / someone iswaiting I don’t know where (v1, ls 1-2)

‘Monk Street, Friars Street, Gallowgate / are better avoidedwhen it’s late (v5, ls 1-2)

Absence of locative-functional preposition with ‘waiting’.


a) Phraseological continued

‘In Leazes Terrace or Leazes Park / someone is loitering inthe dark’ (v2, ls 1-2)

‘In Belle Grove Terrace or Fountain Row / or Hunter’s Roadhe’s raring to go’ (v4, ls 1-2)

‘loitering’ collocates typically with locative-functional prepositions; not case for ‘raring to go’.


b) Intention to act

HUMAN SUBJECT + (is) + waiting (v1, l2) NO

‘He wants to play peculiar games’ (v1, l4) YES

‘HUMAN SUBJECT + (is) + loitering’ (v2, l2) YES and NO


Conclusion

While on Jakobsonian account there is ‘unity’, there isevidence to ground hypothesis that ‘disunity’ in reading would be reasonably common, because of:

• tensions between S(W) likely to be activated in reading and non-prototypical / deviant formulaic sequences in which -ing forms occur;

• existence of different patterns of equivalence and NON-equivalence for –ing forms.

Disunity in reading = ‘dynamic and disturbing’ effects.

Kieran O’Halloran Corpus-assisted literary evaluation.

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