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University of Huddersfield Repository Alsuweed, Muhammad Accessing Dickens's style as an EFL learner: a corpus stylistic approach to lexical style Original Citation Alsuweed, Muhammad (2015) Accessing Dickens's style as an EFL learner: a corpus stylistic approach to lexical style. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/31480/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. 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For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ Accessing Dickens’s Style as an EFL Learner: A Corpus Stylistic Approach to Lexical Style Muhammad Alsuweed A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Huddersfield November 2015 To my dear parents, my dear wife, my family and my little sons, including the new arrival. ii Abstract This study is based on a corpus of the Charles Dickens Complete Works (the DCC), which was constructed to fulfil the aims of this research. The DCC was compiled to represent The Works of Charles Dickens in the National Edition (a set of 40 volumes, including the life of Dickens in the last two volumes, which consists of 6,202,886 tokens in total). This compilation, as the DCC, represents the first complete corpus of Dickens’s works. Employing the corpus stylistic approach was as an underpinning concept, and formed the methodology that has guided the research. The lens of focus is placed on Dickens’s lexicon, in respect to both the lexemes and their relative frequency, alongside the choices of lexis to be found in the context. The rationale for this thesis and value of its aims is primarily the facilitation of non-native English learners’ access to these works, through provision of an enhanced aesthetic appreciation of Dickens’s style with regards to his semantics and lexical choice. Additionally, the methodology aims to enable the acquisition of vocabulary, while providing learners with training in the reading of complex texts. The software tools used in the analysis are the WordSmith Tools 6.0 suite, AntConc 3.4.4w, AntWordProfiler 1.4.0w and the Range programme. The investigation of the DCC was conducted to facilitate Dickens’s works to non-native readers by focusing on the lexicon of his works. The analysis reports, amongst others, the DCC keyword list; the DCC Headword List (with 27,296 headwords); and the DCC Word Family List (approximately 102,753), which contains the family members of each headword in the DCC. These lists represent a valuable resource that can serve to facilitate the teaching of Dickens objectively, and through an evidence-based approach. In essence, the lexical knowledge gained from the DCC is intended to advance the reading and comprehension of Dickens’s works by non-native readers, and then to contribute towards the development of such learners' level of English language proficiency. Therefore, this study builds bridges between corpus stylistics and iii second language pedagogy. In the analysis of Dickens’s lexical selection, I demonstrate how learners can be assisted to reach the appreciation of Dickens’s style in terms of his lexicon and the semantic level of his works. iv Acknowledgements My wish is to convey my deepest thanks to all those who have tirelessly supported and unconditionally encouraged me through this challenging process of writing this doctoral thesis. In particular, my gratitude is extended to my supervisor, Professor Dan McIntyre, for his continuous support, encouragement, critical feedback and observations, and his belief in my work and ability; these have been fundamental to my completion of this thesis. I would further like to extend my gratitude to Professor Lesley Jeffries, for her constant encouragement and compassionate support. Although at times my progress was challenged, during these periods, the positive and compassionate encouragement from my wife, friends and supervisors has propelled me forward, and helped to stimulate the necessary motivation to continue. Completion of this thesis would not have been possible without their personal and academic support. Furthermore, I would like to sincerely offer thanks to my wife in particular, for her caring support, and complete understanding during every phase of this thesis's journey. As for my sons, I can only apologise to them for my preoccupation on those occasions when I have been consumed by my work. I pledge that my achievement will be a reward for them also. I also offer my heartfelt thanks to my dear friends, who have been there to advise and support me along the way: Sheikh Abdul-Karim for his compassion, wisdom and moral support, and Dr Muhammad Rababaa and Dr Shabbir Dastgir for their pertinent advice and encouragement. The staff members at the University of Huddersfield have been incredibly helpful, offering speedy and intelligent solutions to those issues that have cropped v up during this PhD journey. In particular, I would like to thank the Head of the Department of History, English, Languages and Media, Professor Paul Ward, and the Dean of the School of Music, Humanities and Media at the University of Huddersfield, Professor Martin Hewitt. Finally, my gratitude is offered to the staff members of the International Office, Mrs Lianne Holmes and Miss Kirsten Barker, for their ready support whenever requested. vi Copyright statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and any and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the “Intellectual Property Rights”) and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. vii Table of Contents Chapter 1 Style, Reading and Dickens’s Works ................................................................. 1 1.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1.1 Style and stylistics .................................................................................................. 1 1.1.2 Stylistics and lexical choice ................................................................................... 4 1.1.3 Literary text and learning language .................................................................... 6 1.2 Context of the study ................................................................................................... 11 1.2.1 Stylistics in the literature and language classroom ........................................ 12 1.2.2 Lexical choice as a pillar of language teaching ............................................... 14 1.3 Aims and research questions..................................................................................... 20 1.4 Definition of commonly used terms in the thesis .................................................. 22 1.5 The structure of the thesis .......................................................................................... 27 1.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 2 The Nature of Authentic and Simplified Texts .............................................. 31 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 31 2.2 Simplified texts ............................................................................................................ 34 2.3 Authentic texts ............................................................................................................. 37 2.4 Comparative analysis of authentic and simplified texts ....................................... 39 2.4.1 The lexical profile statistics of simplified and authentic samples ................. 44 2.4.2 Word-family lists.................................................................................................. 48 2.5 Lexicon or