Abstract
Abstract
In this article I discuss the issues and challenges of compiling a corpus of historical plays by a range of playwrights that is highly suitable for use in comparative, corpus-based research into language style in Shakespeare’s plays. In discussing sources for digitised historical play-texts and criteria for making a selection for the present study, I argue that not just any set of Early Modern English plays constitutes a suitable basis upon which to make reliable claims about language style in Shakespeare’s plays relative to those of his peers. I point out factors outside of authorial choice which potentially have bearing on language style, such as sub-genre features and change over time. I also highlight some particular difficulties in compiling a corpus of historical texts, notably dating and spelling variation, and I explain how these were addressed. The corpus detailed in this article extends the prospects for investigating Shakespeare’s language style by providing a context into which it can be set and, as I indicate, is a valuable new publicly accessible resource for future research.
Reference69 articles.
1. Archer, Dawn and Derek Bousfield. 2010. ‘See better, Lear’? See Lear better! A corpus-based pragma-stylistic investigation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. In D. McIntyre and B. Busse (eds.). Language and style, 183–203. Basing-toke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-137-06574-2_12
2. Archer, Dawn and Jonathan Culpeper. 2003. Sociopragmatic annotation: New directions and possibilities in historical corpus linguistics. In A. Wilson, P. Rayson and A.M. McEnery (eds.). Corpus linguistics by the lune: A festschrift for Geoffrey Leech, 37–58. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.
3. Archer, Dawn, Jonathan Culpeper and Paul Rayson. 2009. Love – ‘a familiar or a devil’? An exploration of key domains in Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies. In D. Archer (ed.). What’s in a word-list? Investigating word frequency and keyword extraction, 137–157. Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate.
4. Archer, Dawn and Mathew Gillings. In preparation. Depictions of deception, focussing on five Shakespearean characters.
5. Archer, Dawn, Merja Kytö, Alistair Baron and Paul Rayson. 2015. Guidelines for normalising Early Modern English corpora: Decisions and justifications. ICAME Journal 39 (1): 5–24.10.1515/icame-2015-0001
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