Language and Characterisation in Television Series: A corpus-informed approach to the construction of social identity in the media

Language and Characterisation in Television Series Editorial page Title page Copyright page Table of contents Acknowledgments Language notes A note on the citing of television series Chapter 1. Televisual characterisation 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Creating characters: Processes and authorship 1.3 Characters and the audience 1.4 Features of the televisual character 1.4.1 Stability 1.4.2 Aspects of character identity 1.5 Frameworks for the linguistic study of televisual characterisation 1.5.1 Cognitive stylistics: Schemas and textual cues 1.5.2 Sociolinguistics: Telecinematic indexicalities 1.5.3 A mixed approach to televisual characterisation 1.6 This book’s case study approach Chapter 2. Corpus linguistic analysis of televisual characterisation: Data and approach 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Corpus linguistic analyses of televisual characterisation 2.3 Corpus linguistic techniques and concepts 2.3.1 Frequency and keyness 2.3.2 Distribution 2.3.3 Collocation and concordance analysis 2.3.4 A note on statistics 2.4 Data 2.5 Units and levels of analysis 2.6 Concluding remarks Chapter 3. Character differentiation and character stability 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Gilmore Girls 3.3 Case study 1: Character differentiation 3.3.1 Lorelai as unique character 3.3.2 Lorelai as an emotional character 3.4 Case study 2: Character stability 3.4.1 Lorelai: An example of a “stable” televisual character? 3.4.2 Diachronic character stability re-visited 3.4.3 Intersubjective stability re-visited Content words Names Reference to family roles (+ Human) pronouns Interpersonal markers 3.4.4 Revisiting stability: The Gilmore Girls reboot 3.5 Conclusion Chapter 4. Characters and stereotypes 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Big Bang Theory 4.3 Nerd stereotypes/schemas 4.4 Methods 4.4.1 Concordance and key word analysis 4.4.2 Scene-based analysis 4.5 Results 4.5.1 Character insights from concordance analysis 4.5.2 Character insights from key word analysis 4.5.3 Character insights from scene-based analysis 4.5.4 Sheldon compared to other television characters 4.5.5 Beyond Sheldon: Nerds in The Big Bang Theory 4.6 Conclusion Chapter 5. Flawed female characters 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Female gender representation in television series 5.3 Swear/taboo words 5.3.1 Swear/taboo words and televisual characterisation 5.3.2 Swear/taboo words and gender 5.4 Nurse Jackie, Weeds and Saving Grace Weeds Saving Grace Nurse Jackie 5.5 The use of swear/taboo words by the three “flawed” women 5.5.1 (Very) strong swear/taboo words 5.5.2 “Female” and “male” swear/taboo words 5.6 Conclusion Chapter 6. Characterisation and the use of marginalised varieties of English 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Indigenous characters and Australian Aboriginal English 6.3 Marginalised and “non-standard” Englishes in telecinematic discourse 6.4 Methodology 6.4.1 Redfern Now 6.4.2 The RFN corpus 6.4.3 Approach 6.5 Findings 6.5.1 Key words and their range 6.5.2 Australian English/culture 6.5.3 Aboriginal ways of using English 6.5.4 Kinship terms 6.5.5 Additional AAE lexis 6.6 Conclusion Chapter 7. Beyond individual series: Analyses of US and Australian television dialogue corpora 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Case study 1: The use of a stigmatised language feature in US television 7.2.1 Background: Ain’t as a stigmatised language feature 7.2.2 Ain’t and characterisation 7.3 Case study 2: AAE lexis in Indigenous-authored television series 7.3.1 Background: Indigenous representation and AAE 7.3.2 Using lexical profiling to analyse AAE lexis 7.3.3 Corpus and methodology 7.3.3.1 The Ngara corpus 7.3.3.2 Methodology 7.3.4 Results 7.3.4.1 AAE words: Frequency, range, and character diffusion 7.3.4.2 AAE words: Character ethnicity 7.3.5 Case study summary 7.4 Chapter conclusion Chapter 8. Conclusion 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Using corpus linguistic techniques to study televisual characterisation 8.3 Televisual characterisation and stylistics 8.4 Concluding remarks List of TV series (and movies) References Appendix Index of TV series (and movies) General index "This book explores how language is used to create characters in fictional television series. To do so, it draws on multiple case studies from the United States and Australia. Brought together in this book for the first time, these case studies constitute more than the sum of their parts. They highlight different aspects of televisual characterisation and showcase the use of different data, methods, and approaches in its analysis. Uniquely, the book takes a mixed-method approach and will thus not only appeal to corpus linguists but also researchers in sociolinguistics, stylistics, and pragmatics. All corpus linguistic techniques are clearly introduced and explained, and the book is thus accessible to both experienced researchers as well as novice researchers and students. It will be essential reading in linguistics, literature, stylistics, and media/television studies"-- Provided by publisher