This thesis explores gender in The Miller's Tale through active speech and verbs used to describe this speech. It also looks at how closely The Miller's Tale adheres to the conventions of the...Show moreThis thesis explores gender in The Miller's Tale through active speech and verbs used to describe this speech. It also looks at how closely The Miller's Tale adheres to the conventions of the fabliau genre as a way to explain genderShow less
Being J. R. R. Tolkien’s most celebrated work, The Lord of the Rings has been subject to a myriad of academic studies and analyses regarding both its language and its contents. For instance,...Show moreBeing J. R. R. Tolkien’s most celebrated work, The Lord of the Rings has been subject to a myriad of academic studies and analyses regarding both its language and its contents. For instance, scholars such as Provost have studied how the language elucidates the central conflict. Additionally, Agøy and Drout have examined the story’s themes through its stylistic attributes, as well as the general aesthetic effects of these stylistic choices. Meanwhile, feminist readings like those of Enright and Green discuss the number and roles of female characters in the books, countering common criticisms that their paucity betrays Tolkien’s supposed sexist stance. However, the language and contents of the trilogy have yet to be combined into a single systematic study, which is where this thesis comes in. Using the stylistic approach to Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson), Speech-Act Theory (Searle), and keynoting (Carter and Nash), this thesis will examine the text surrounding female characters in an attempt to reveal how stylistic choices affect their presentation. By focussing on stylistic choices, this study aims to clarify how the characters are portrayed, which may not be as obvious from their actions or their role in the plot. This way, this study explores whether the criticism of too few bland female characters in The Lord of the Rings holds true by examining how language contributes to nuances in their characterization.Show less
Stylistics is a methodology through which one can analyse different aspects of authors styles. It is also suitable for analysing American Presidential Debates.
This thesis focuses on how modality plays an important role in the translation of the Modernist narrative 'Barn Burning'. Translators have to decide whether or not to maintain modal assertions. The...Show moreThis thesis focuses on how modality plays an important role in the translation of the Modernist narrative 'Barn Burning'. Translators have to decide whether or not to maintain modal assertions. The problem that arises when modality is not maintained is that the truth value of the assertion is altered; the translated assertion may then have a different meaning than the original. In this thesis, translation universals and translation procedures are discussed as well. The universals and procedures serve as the theoretical background on which the analysis is based.Show less
The stylistic conditions for language switching in the lyrics of pop songs were examined in a corpus of Eurovision Song Contest entries. This phenomenon was examined in the lyrics of songs...Show moreThe stylistic conditions for language switching in the lyrics of pop songs were examined in a corpus of Eurovision Song Contest entries. This phenomenon was examined in the lyrics of songs performed in a language other than English, but which involved one or multiple language switches to English. A corpus of song lyrics was analysed on various stylistics aspects on a textual level, i.e semantics and pragmatics. The analysis sought to show which content/language/context factors contribute to these language switches in songs. Songs that involve language switches to English are found in great numbers in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC); almost 120 out of nearly 1300 entries in the contest from the last sixty years feature some sort of switch to English lyrics, which is a fair number for a corpus. This thesis will explore language switching in ESC songs throughout time.Show less
This thesis argues that the concept of style, here defined as the distinctive set of linguistic features that characterize a particular text, is currently underprioritized in the field of literary...Show moreThis thesis argues that the concept of style, here defined as the distinctive set of linguistic features that characterize a particular text, is currently underprioritized in the field of literary translation studies and should be given a more central position for three main reasons: the inextricability of form and content; the primarily aesthetic function of literature; and the representative function of translation. It proposes a style-centered approach to literary prose translation, which involves thorough stylistic analysis of the source text and the identification and meticulous application of translation procedures that fit within its stylistic framework, as well as the avoidance of translation procedures that would interfere with the source-text style. My analysis of two passages from Cormac McCarthy's (2006) novel The Road and its Dutch translation revealed that a style-centered approach would have significantly improved the degree of what I termed 'stylistic correspondence' between source text and target text. The style-centered approach could thus help improve the degree of stylistic correspondence between literary source texts and target texts and hereby aid style in assuming its rightful, more central position in literary translation studies.Show less
