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Linguistics and English Language

Style in Fiction Symposium (SIFS)
PALA (Poetics and Linguistics Association) International symposium, 11th March 2006, Lancaster University
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Geoffrey Leech

Lancaster University, UK

Geoff Leech

Proper Words in (Im)proper Places

Abstract

According to Jonathan Swift, the ‘true definition of style’ is ‘proper words in proper places’. True; but proper words may also be in improper places, and this is the more interesting and challenging aspect of stylistic analysis. I will explore this conundrum with reference to the third paragraph of Dickens’ Great Expectations, beginning ‘Ours was the marsh country...’ How does Dickens set up the narrator’s world of his fictional autobiography by contravening the principles of End Focus and End Weight?!
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Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, LA1 4YT, United Kingdom
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