Keywords
idiolect
Delta method
most frequent words
parts of speech
How to Cite
Abstract
This article investigates if there is some distinctive way in which characters of Bolesław Prus novel “The Doll” are speaking. It is well known that author endowed his characters with diff erent social backgrounds, views, ethics. Literary critics often emphasized diff erences in vocabulary and numerous language stylizations among social classes, but in most of the cases only the most characteristic words were taken into con16 Jarosław Foltman sideration and function words (prepositions, conjunctions, personal pronouns and other) were omitted in the research. The aim of this study, in contrast to the previous, is to examine individual characters’ way of speaking by measuring frequencies of using most frequent words and given parts of speech. Tests have been performed using the Delta method with a couple of data visualization techniques. The results show some signifi cant variations in individual idiolects.
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