How do novels hang together? Characterization as registerial meta-stability
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Fang Li
Fang Li received her PhD in English literature from University of Washington and is currently professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (South Korea). Her research includes social problem novels, systemic functional linguistics, and the history of the representation of consciousness. Address for correspondence: Department of English Literature and Culture, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, 107 Imun-ro Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02450, South Korea. Email: lifang@hufs.ac.kr
David Kellogg received his PhD in linguistics from Macquarie University and is currently assistant professor at Sangmyung University (South Korea). His research includes systemic functional linguistics and cultural-historical psychology. His most recent book-length publication is a translation of the work of L.S. Vygotsky (forthcoming, Springer). Address for correspondence: Department of English Education, Sangmyung University Teachers’ College,
10 Hongjimun 2-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03016, South Korea. Email: dkellogg60@smu.ac.kr
Abstract
How does a novel like Middlemarch cohere, since it is made up of at least two very different kinds of text, narrative on the one hand and dialogue on the other? In this paper, we look to two authorities: to literature, where authors seem to agree that it is consistency in voice that holds both narrators and characters together, and to linguistics, where a computerized corpus allows us to measure variation between and within characters. Where previous researchers found unsystematic variations, we find meta-stability: characters remain true to themselves only through variation. The way in which Dorothea addresses her future husband differs from the way she addresses her little sister in Chapter Five of Middlemarch but this is in turn a special case of differences between the way in which Dorothea addresses men and the way in which she addresses women. Such a difference serves to symbolically articulate a key theme of Eliot’s novel – the middle ground that every woman must occupy in the march from the world of our forefathers through that of our husbands to that of our children.
About the authors
Fang Li received her PhD in English literature from University of Washington and is currently professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (South Korea). Her research includes social problem novels, systemic functional linguistics, and the history of the representation of consciousness. Address for correspondence: Department of English Literature and Culture, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, 107 Imun-ro Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02450, South Korea. Email: lifang@hufs.ac.kr
David Kellogg received his PhD in linguistics from Macquarie University and is currently assistant professor at Sangmyung University (South Korea). His research includes systemic functional linguistics and cultural-historical psychology. His most recent book-length publication is a translation of the work of L.S. Vygotsky (forthcoming, Springer). Address for correspondence: Department of English Education, Sangmyung University Teachers’ College,
10 Hongjimun 2-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03016, South Korea. Email: dkellogg60@smu.ac.kr
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- TEXT & TALK celebrating the 40th ruby anniversary
- Leadership identities: Whose construction?
- How do novels hang together? Characterization as registerial meta-stability
- Bloopers and backstage talk on TV cooking shows
- Blasphemy and persecution: Positioning in an inter-religious discussion
- Rhetorical Structure Theory and coherence break identification
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- TEXT & TALK celebrating the 40th ruby anniversary
- Leadership identities: Whose construction?
- How do novels hang together? Characterization as registerial meta-stability
- Bloopers and backstage talk on TV cooking shows
- Blasphemy and persecution: Positioning in an inter-religious discussion
- Rhetorical Structure Theory and coherence break identification
