This essay uses corpus linguistic methods to study aspects of the novel Vanity Fair by W M Thackeray. The aim is to study the way Thackeray chose to describe his two female protagonists, Rebecca Sharp and Amelia Sedley. This is accomplished by a closer study of keywords in Vanity Fair, created by using a reference corpus consisting of thirteen novels by Victorian authors. These keywords are used to define semantic fields related to the novel. Keywords from the semantic field closest to the protagonists are studied in context. In addition, adjectives that collocate with the names of the protagonists are analyzed to compare the characterization of each woman. The study indicates that Thackeray has used fewer adjectives to describe Amelia than Rebecca, but that he has used these more frequently, which may cause readers to form a stronger mental picture of Amelia’s character sooner than they do for Rebecca’s.

The Murderbot Diaries is a series of science fiction books that deal with the experiences of Murderbot, a human-machine construct. This study uses a corpus stylistics methodology to analyse the language of the books and looks for changes that occur in said language. The paper attempts to answer the question of how the development of the main character can be ascertained through the use of corpus stylistics methods. Using tools like the exploration of keywords, type/token ratio, semantic prosody, clusters and collocations, this thesis attempts to bridge the divide between quantitative and qualitative literary. From the application of these toolkits, insights such as Murderbot’s neurotic actions, love-hate relationships, and unusual vocabulary choices can be observed. This could serve as a starting point for further research that could be carried out on this series so as to arrive at further conclusions that might prove to be useful within the study of the science fiction genre.

The goal of the present thesis is a corpus stylistic analysis of Alice in Wonderland (1865), and it presents the possibilities of using corpus methods in the study of literary texts. In the theoretical part, the thesis is concerned with an explanation of the words norm, foregrounding, deviance and prominence (Leech, 2008), which are key terms in stylistics. The text then focuses in detail on various concerns connected to keywords and clusters, which are investigated later on in the theoretical part. The relation of keywords to the reference corpus and aspects of the length and frequency of occurrence of clusters are analyzed. An important element in a corpus-based analysis is that it is supposed to decrease bias, as the researcher studies statistically based significant markers of the text. The next part of the thesis focuses on the position of Alice in Wonderland between other members of the children's literature of the Golden Age (Knowles & Malmkjaer, 1995), and the role of nonsense and non-observance of pragmatic principles of interaction in the text. The reference corpora are described and primary hypotheses stated. In the practical part, keywords are studied first. They are divided into part of speech categories and interpreted from the point of view of their role and mutual relations in the text....

This thesis has conducted an extensive character analysis of Sherlock Holmes by comparing the original, authentic detective, as he appears in a corpus consisting of Conan Doyle’s collected works about Holmes, to the characterisation in three select period pastiches. The aim was to analyse to what extent the true characterisation of the famous sleuth has survived in contemporary adaptations, more specifically in the three texts, Sherlock Vs. Dracula (1976), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes (1979) and Sherlock Holmes and the Angel of the Opera (1994), where the detective encounters equally well-known fictional characters. The novel approach of combining corpus stylistic quantitative methods of characterisation with a qualitative literary approach of identifying similar stylistic and narratological features of characterisation efficiently facilitated an illustration on how Conan Doyle’s round and complex character has endured through adaptations and reimaginings. The corpus investigation on the Sherlock Conan Doyle Corpus supplied an encompassing image of the character, and revealed characteristics absent from the inherent cultural perception. The subsequent cross-comparison between the original in contrast to contemporary characterisations presented clear deviations to the character and further demonstrated a tendency to exaggerate select, generic features that complement the narrative and plot of the integrated novels. Overall, this study concludes that Sherlock Holmes remains the character who travels over time and genres, albeit with a reduced complexity as the respective characterisations in each of the pastiches to various degrees have modified core characteristics significant to the mind-modelling process. That is, through the process of adaptational alterations, the detective has become a flat character. Enough features persist for him to be recognisable and compelling, yet Sherlock Holmes in his entirety subsists merely as a caricature of his original self.

As a lingua franca across the globe, English plays a vital role in international communications. Due to rapid economic, political, and educational globalization, the English language has become a powerful means of communication. Therefore, English education is vital to the development of many countries around the world. Since 1932, the need for a lingua franca in Saudi Arabia developed as the country progressed politically, economically, and educationally. Now, English is important to Saudis’ economic, educational, and career development and success. Vocabulary is a major step in learning any language. By deepening students’ lexical knowledge, they will be able to use English accurately to express themselves. However, teaching words in isolation and through memorization is not highly effective; English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners need to interact with the language and its usage in a more profound way. This can be done by integrating corpora and stylistics analysis in an EFL curriculum. The importance of stylistics analysis to literary texts in the EFL classroom lies in the way that EFL learners will be exposed to authentic language. At the same time they will get insight into how English is structured; and by accessing corpora, which provide a wide range of data for the analysis of stylistics, students will be able to compare the lexical and grammatical patterns in authentic texts. Also, it is important to introduce students to the different levels of English (i.e. semantic, lexis, morphology); this will enlarge EFL learners’ knowledge of English vocabulary and various grammatical patterns. This project offers an innovative perspective on how to teach English for EFL university-level students by using corpora in a lexicalized stylistics approach, which will enable EFL learners to acquire vocabulary by reading literary texts. This provides a rich environment of lexical items and a variety of grammatical patterns. This approach offers EFL learners analytical tools that will improve their linguistic skills as they interact with and analyze authentic examples of English and gain insight about its historical, social and cultural background.

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