ComputationalStylisticAnalysisofDHLawrence’sFictions-2019年精选文档

1、Computational Stylistic Analysis of D. H. Lawrences Fictions 【】 This paper aims at the quantitative study of D. H. Lawrences works Sons and Lovers, Lady Chatterley s Lover, which attempts to compare and analyze the characteristics and changes of Lawrences works in his different creating periods. To

2、obtain the pertinentdata, a series of computation and tests facilitatedby FOXPROan d SPSSa re used. The Chi-square tests, F-test and T-test are used to check whether the difference of each item in each corpus is significant. Examination on the level of lexis and semantic show that there are linguist

3、ic evidence which validate the suspicion about the different styles of the two fictions. As a representative writer of transition from neo-classicism to romanticism, D.H. Lawrences works have their own characteristics. This paper is mainly to probe into D.H. Lawrences two works Sons and Lovers and L

4、ady Chatterley s Lover, and reveals the characteristics; an analysis is based on the following aspects: syntax and lexicon. 1 Stylistics and Statistical tests Stylistics studies the features of situationally distinctive uses (varieties) of language, and tries to establish principles capable of accou

5、nting for the particular choices made by individual and social groups in their use of language. (Crystal 1980) Statistical tests can be generally divided into two types: parametric tests and non-parametric tests. Parametric tests are used to test the significance of differences between two means. Th

6、e data in such tests should be interval or ratio. Theses tests are applicable only when the samples are normally distributed. There are mainly three kinds of parametric tests: z-test, t-test and f-test. Z-test is used for larger independent samples (N30). One-sample T-test is used to compare a sampl

7、e with a known mean. Independent t-test is used for smaller independent samples (N3.1 On Lexical Level Vocabulary or lexis is a fundamental and essential device to help us achieve certain stylistic effect in a text and realize the experience of the world. On this level, D.H. Lawrences works demonstr

8、ate some noticeable characteristics. 1) Vocabulary in the Corpora Vocabulary is a standard symbol to influence the difficulty of a fiction. By running a FOXPROp rogram, each corpus is broken into several sentences and words. Then all the words are separated to form an original data. In this way, Len

9、gth of each sentence (in words) and every word (in letters) are obtained and stored in the corresponding tables. Then the vocabulary of the corpora is counted and the size of each is measured. Table 2 Total words of each corpus CORPUS LCHL SAL Total words 110194 160068 Obviously, the amount of the t

10、wo corpora is very large, which is because D.H. Lawrences six works contain a large number of words. Between the two corpora, SAL is the higher than LCHL. Vocabulary is a fundamental element to show a writer s life history and his creating ability. 2) Words of Top Frequency The occurrence of word cl

11、ass can show the nature of a text, which can be displayed through the frequency of certain words. In this way ,to check which text is more formal than the other. (Trudgill, 1974) The data in Table 3 is the 20 most frequent words of the two corpora. Table 3 20 most frequent words in each corpus Accor

12、ding to the table, the mean word length in LCHL is the shorter. It is intriguing that although the paragraph length is extraordinary long, the word length of LCHLi s very short. That is to say, a wide use of colloquial word in dialogues decreases the mean words length to a certain degree. Lawrence e

13、mploys short item to make his works more vivid and easy to understand. 3) Word Length Word length is an important stylistic marker. As we know, words in different varieties are associated with registers. The longer and more complicated the words are, the more formal the text is. Vocabulary which is

14、used in formal style to express conventions and standards, while in informal style is mainly for the smooth and easy communication. By running a FoxPro program about WORDLENGTH, the mean word length is obtained in the following table. Table 6 Mean word length CORPUS LCHL SAL mean 4.74 4.46 According

15、 to the table, the mean word length in SAL is the shorter. It is intriguing that although the paragraph length is extraordinary long, the word length of SAL is very short. Because so many familiar and conversational words are employed among characters dialogues, and the main characteristics about th

16、is kind of words are short and easy to be understood. This shows that he is good at using very short items. 3.2On Syntactic Level 1) Sentence Length Sentence length is viewed asanother important factor to influence style when literary works are analyzed. Either long sentences or short sentences resp

17、ectively have their own stylistic functions. Lawrence is famous for the use of short and simple sentences, which make his works easily understood by the readers. He uses frequent one-word or two-word sentences so as to achieve special effects, especially in some informal dialogues. Money! he said. B

18、ut youve got to begin, said Clifford. Oh, quite! Youve got to get in. Youve got to beat yourway in. You can do nothing if you are kept outside. This dialogue is separated into several simple or elliptical sentences which displays the characteristics of the hero. As to the data of Lawrences mean sent

19、ence length, they are obtained by running the program BREAKCOP. After being processed by the computer, they are listed in Table 7. Table 7 Mean Sentence Length in Each Corpus CORPUS LCHL SAL MEAN SENTENCE LENGTH 10.0097 9.8078 In the table it is obvious that the mean sentence length in LCHL is a lit

20、tle longer than SAL. This shows that Lawrences creating period can be divided into 3 stages, the early one, middle one and the late one, from the analysis in this table, we can see clearly that his most prosperous creating period is the middle period. During this tine, Lawrence tends to use shorter

21、sentences. According to psychologists, people can hold in short-term memory, a unit of a dozen or slightly more words if they are in a meaningful sequence. The data show that the sentences in SAL are nearest to this length, so the works of this period are the most charming and appealing to the readers. 3.3 Conclusion and Implication By employing the statistical analytical means and several Stylistics theories, this paper has analyzed the language of D.H. Lawrences works in on the two levels. The analysis shows that though the language o