Exploring New Paths in Corpus Stylistics: How does Kazuo Ishiguro Construct the Meaning of Hailsham in Never Let Me Go?

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1674-8921.2025.04.001

Abstract

Abstract:

By means of quantitatively analyzing language data, corpus stylistics aims to explore the style of literary work. In some degree, however, this kind of study neglects the richness of meaning constructed in the literary work. The textual perspective of meaning analysis in corpus linguistics sheds light on new paths of corpus-based literature study. From the textual perspective, we can observe and analyze relationship of the roles and the line of development hidden in a fiction, and therefore obtain a completely new interpretation of the meaning conveyed in the fiction. Sinclair & Mauranen (2006) proposed the notions of discourse object and discourse incident which can be applied to the interpretation of meaning in literary texts. Hailsham is the center of fictional world constructed in Kazuo Ishiguro’s fiction Never Let Me Go and the depiction of it runs throughout the whole fiction. The previous studies on Hailsham mainly focus on its humanizing education and the analysis of its failure, neglecting the exquisite subtlety in meaning of Hailsham. This study employs the ideas of discourse object and discourse incident to analyze how Kazuo Ishiguro constructs the semantic network of Hailsham and gives distinctive personality and souls to the characters in spellbinding detail.

Key words: Never Let Me Go, Hailsham, text perspective, corpus linguistics

CLC Number:

ZHEN Fengchao. Exploring New Paths in Corpus Stylistics: How does Kazuo Ishiguro Construct the Meaning of Hailsham in Never Let Me Go?[J]. Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies, 2025, 25(4): 3-14.

Figures/Tables 2

References 21

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	文本对象	频数
第一部分	Hailsham	55
	Hailsham student (students)	7
	Hailsham closing	3
	her Hailsham days	1
	old Hailsham people	1
	our old Hailsham crowd	1
	our Hailsham bunch	1
第二部分	Hailsham	57
	Hailsham student (students)	8
	our Hailsham days	1
	Hailsham secret	1
	Hailsham couple	1
	old Hailsham collection	1
第三部分	Hailsham	62
	Hailsham student (students)	4
	Hailsham couple	1
	Hailsham life	1
	Hailsham boundaries	1
	the rest of Hailsham	1
总计			208