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SKETCHING VICTORIAN SOCIETY A CORPUS ASSISTED STUDY OF SOCIAL CLASS IN DICKENS GREAT EXPECTATIONS

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06 Pages : 54-61

http://dx.doi.org/10.31703/glr.2020(V-II).06      10.31703/glr.2020(V-II).06      Published : Jun 2020

Sketching Victorian Society: A Corpus Assisted Study of Social Class in Dickens' Great Expectations

Abstract

    The present work deals with the adjectives used by Charles Dickens to portray the social class in the novel Great Expectations. The study used a corpus linguistics methodology for data preparation, corpus development, and data analysis. The text of the novel was collected from online sources and used in the compilation of the corpus. The corpus was filtered of additional information and tagged using a part-of-speech tagger (POS tagger). The tagged data was analyzed using AntConc software. The findings of the study suggest that the use of adjectives plays a substantial role in the portrayal of the social class in the novel Great Expectations. The findings also show that there was a clear divide between upper and lower classes. The members of the lower class were humiliated and looked down upon by the members of the upper class.

    Social Class, Corpus Linguistics, Great Expectations, Adjectives

    (1) Arshad Ali
    Assistant Professor, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
    (2) Athar Rashid
    Assistant Professor, Department of Governance & Public Policy, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
    (3) Ameer Sultan
    Lecturer, Department of English, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
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References

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Cite this article

APA

    APA : Ali, A., Rashid, A., & Sultan, A. (2020). Sketching Victorian Society: A Corpus Assisted Study of Social Class in Dickens' Great Expectations. Global Language Review, V(II), 54-61. https://doi.org/10.31703/glr.2020(V-II).06

CHICAGO

    CHICAGO : Ali, Arshad, Athar Rashid, and Ameer Sultan. 2020. "Sketching Victorian Society: A Corpus Assisted Study of Social Class in Dickens' Great Expectations." Global Language Review, V (II): 54-61 doi: 10.31703/glr.2020(V-II).06

HARVARD

    HARVARD : ALI, A., RASHID, A. & SULTAN, A. 2020. Sketching Victorian Society: A Corpus Assisted Study of Social Class in Dickens' Great Expectations. Global Language Review, V, 54-61.

MHRA

    MHRA : Ali, Arshad, Athar Rashid, and Ameer Sultan. 2020. "Sketching Victorian Society: A Corpus Assisted Study of Social Class in Dickens' Great Expectations." Global Language Review, V: 54-61

MLA

    MLA : Ali, Arshad, Athar Rashid, and Ameer Sultan. "Sketching Victorian Society: A Corpus Assisted Study of Social Class in Dickens' Great Expectations." Global Language Review, V.II (2020): 54-61 Print.

OXFORD

    OXFORD : Ali, Arshad, Rashid, Athar, and Sultan, Ameer (2020), "Sketching Victorian Society: A Corpus Assisted Study of Social Class in Dickens' Great Expectations", Global Language Review, V (II), 54-61

TURABIAN

    TURABIAN : Ali, Arshad, Athar Rashid, and Ameer Sultan. "Sketching Victorian Society: A Corpus Assisted Study of Social Class in Dickens' Great Expectations." Global Language Review V, no. II (2020): 54-61. https://doi.org/10.31703/glr.2020(V-II).06