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Phraseology and
Style in Subgenres
of the Novel
A Synthesis of Corpus
and Literary Perspectives
Edited by
Iva Novakova · Dirk Siepmann
Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel
Iva Novakova · Dirk Siepmann
Editors
Phraseology
and Style
in Subgenres
of the Novel
A Synthesis of Corpus and Literary
Perspectives
Editors
Iva Novakova Dirk Siepmann
Grenoble Alpes University University of Osnabrück
Grenoble, France Osnabrück, Germany
ISBN 978-3-030-23743-1 ISBN 978-3-030-23744-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23744-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: Marina Lohrbach_shutterstock.com
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
The genesis of this book was in a four-year collaborative research project

PhraseoRom1 on the phraseology of contemporary novels, co-funded
by the French National Research Agency (ANR2) and the German
Research Foundation (DFG3). It is one of the few international projects
to truly bring together researchers from both literary studies and lin-
guistics. The book, whose ten chapters report on selected results of this
project, revolves around a detailed analysis and classification of recur-
rent fiction-specific patterns found in fictional genres and their gen-
eral functions, as revealed by sophisticated corpus-driven enquiry. It
focuses both on patterns found in the novel generally and genre-spe-
cific patterns shared by various literary genres. In addition, the book
1https://phraseorom.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr. The PhraseoRom project (2016–2020), led by

I. Novakova (University Grenoble Alpes, France) and Dirk Siepmann (University of Osnabrück,
Germany), brought together 25 researchers from different French and German universities
[University Grenoble Alpes, Sorbonne-Nouvelle Paris 3 University, University of Montpellier
(France), University of Bonn, University of Osnabrück and University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
(Germany)].
2Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR).
3Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
v
vi Preface
compares and contrasts the stylistic practices encountered in British,

American and French contemporary novels published since the 1950s
and discusses implications these might have for phraseology or literary
translation.
The book lies at the intersection of corpus, computational linguistics,
and stylistics and is resolutely situated within the digital humanities.
It is our hope that it will lend impetus to genre studies by being the
first large-scale project to employ Natural Language Processing (NLP)
and digital stylistics tools to describe literary genres not just in terms
of traditional rhetoric or grammar, but more so as lexico-grammatical
artifacts based on recurrent patterns. Thus, the book is primarily con-
cerned with phraseological aspects of style. Since our aim is to explore
the recurrent features of fictional genres and their general functions, we
rarely consider specific authors or novels individually here, although our
methodology could also serve to identify author-specific lexico-syntactic
patterns.
Generally speaking, our research has produced persuasive evidence
to suggest that the identification of recurrent patterns, often called
“motifs” in the French literature on the subject (Longrée and Mellet
2013; Legallois 2012), enables researchers to better distinguish the spe-
cificities of different literary genres. Viewed from this angle, literariness
arises from the significant over-representation of particular motifs in
specific literary genres, most of which are so discreetly conventional that
the reader may not consciously notice them. Put succinctly, motifs are
genre markers at sentence level. Where genre theory is concerned, the
innovative potential of our approach is in particular due to the avenues
it opens to considering long-standing debates on feature analysis, genre
distinction and the hybridization of genres from a new vantage point
and by deploying a new, interdisciplinary methodology.
Presentation of the Chapters

The chapters of this book are arranged systematically to build up the
picture, starting with general issues and general fiction and then moving
on to comparisons between specific genres.
Preface vii
Chapter 1, written by I. Novakova and D. Siepmann, outlines lin-

guistic approaches to literature, to phraseology and idiomaticity, as well
as new approaches in stylistics and in theories of literary genre for char-
acterizing the recurrent lexico-grammatical patterns in contemporary
fiction. It also summarizes our methodology, presents our corpora and
highlights the book’s innovative features.
Chapter 2 (D. Legallois and S. Koch) proposes an overview of the
term “motif ” which refers to recurring patterns in different disciplines:
folkloristics, narratology, bioinformatics, NLP and linguistics.
Chapter 3 (I. Novakova, D. Siepmann and M. Gymnich) analyzes
the key adverbs and adverbial motifs in English and their functional
equivalents in French novels using the keyword approach (Scott and
Tribble 2006).
Chapter 4 (S. Diwersy, L. Gonon, V. Goossens, M. Gymnich and
A. Tutin) deals with verbs introducing direct speech in English and
French contemporary fiction (especially in the crime, fantasy and
romancesubgenres).
Chapter 5 (F. Grossmann, M. Gymnich and D. Siepmann) investigates
the expressions related to alcohol and tobacco consumption in post-war
English and French fiction from a corpus-stylistic and corpus-driven van-
tage point.
Chapter 6 (L. Gonon and O. Kraif ) compares the “fiction words”
(neologisms) in French and American science fiction during the 1990s
to determine to which extent two different literary traditions may share
a common background of fictional references, mixing elements that
come from various “xenoencyclopedias” (Saint-Gelais 1999).
Chapter 7 (V. Goossens, C. Jacquot and S. Dyka) distinguishes
between the two fictional genres of science fiction and fantasy through
an original semantic and stylistic classification of the recurrent narrative
patterns and related motifs in the corpora.
Chapter 8 (J. Sorba, L. Gonon, S. Dyka and V. Goossens) considers
the discursive functions of motifs generated by the expressions écrire/lire
une lettre, un roman, write/read a letter, a novel in general contemporary
fiction in comparison with a corpus of crime novels.
viii Preface
Chapter 9 (S. Dyka, L. Fesenmeier and M. Gymnich) studies the

motifs generated by the structures “dans un état de NP/in a state of NP”
from functional and stylistic points of view in six subgenres: general,
crime, romance, fantasy, historical and science fiction.
Chapter 10 (I. Novakova and D. Siepmann) outlines the most salient
results of our research while emphasizing the interdisciplinary approach
applied in differentiating contemporary fiction subgenres. It also points
out the avenues the book opens to fruitful future research in the digital
humanities.
Grenoble, France Iva Novakova

Osnabrück, Germany Dirk Siepmann
References
Legallois, Dominique. 2012. “La Colligation: autre nom de la collocation
grammaticale ou autre logique de la relation mutuelle entre syntaxe et
sémantique?” Corpus 11. http://corpus.revues.org/2202.
Longrée, Dominique, and Sylvie Mellet. 2013. “Le Motif: une unité
phraséologique englobante? Étendre le champ de la phraséologie de la
langue au discours.” Langages 189: 68–80.
Saint-Gelais, Richard. 1999. L’Empire du pseudo: Modernités de la science-fic-
tion. Québec: Nota Bene.
Scott, Mike, and Christopher Tribble. 2006. Textual patterns: Key words and
corpus analysis in language education. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Acknowledgements
We owe a great debt of gratitude to Professor Marion Gymnich

(University of Bonn, Germany) for her invaluable aid in re-reading
the various chapters of this book. We sincerely appreciate, too, Denise
Burkhard’s (University of Bonn, Germany) meticulous work in pre-
paring the manuscript for publication, and express our thanks to her.
Finally, we are indebted to Henry Randolph (Tek Ryder Translations,
California, USA) for his skilful editing and proofreading of the draft
chapters.
ix
Contents
1 Literary Style, Corpus Stylistic, and Lexico-Grammatical

Narrative Patterns: Toward the Concept of Literary Motifs 1
Iva Novakova and Dirk Siepmann
2 The Notion of Motif Where Disciplines Intersect:

Folkloristics, Narrativity, Bioinformatics, Automatic
Text Processing and Linguistics 17
Dominique Legallois and Stefan Koch
3 Key Adverbs and Adverbial Motifs in English Fiction

and their French Functional Equivalents 47
Iva Novakova, Dirk Siepmann and Marion Gymnich
4 Speech Verbs in French and English Novels 83

Sascha Diwersy, Laetitia Gonon, Vannina Goossens,
Marion Gymnich and Agnès Tutin
xi
xii Contents
5 Alcohol and Tobacco Consumption in English

and French Novels Since the 1950s:
A Corpus-Stylistic Analysis 115
Francis Grossmann, Marion Gymnich
and Dirk Siepmann
6 French and American Science Fiction During

the Nineties: A Contrastive Study of Fiction Words
and Phraseology 151
Laetitia Gonon and Olivier Kraif
7 Science Fiction versus Fantasy: A Semantic

Categorization and its Contribution to Distinguishing
Two Literary Genres 189
Vannina Goossens, Clémence Jacquot and Susanne Dyka
8 Reading and Writing as Motifs in English

and French General Fiction 223
Julie Sorba, Laetitia Gonon, Susanne Dyka
and Vannina Goossens
9 Dans un état de NP and in a state of NP: Bridging

the Syntagmatic Gap in English and French Fiction 251
Susanne Dyka, Ludwig Fesenmeier and Marion Gymnich
10 Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach for

Differentiating Contemporary Fiction Subgenres 279
Appendix A: Corpora 287
Appendix B: Discursive Functions 291
Index 295
Notes on Contributors
Sascha Diwersy is associate professor of French linguistics in the

Department of Linguistics and the Praxiling research laboratory at Paul
Valéry Montpellier 3 University, France. His main research interests are
in corpus linguistics, syntax, semantics, lexicology, text linguistics and
the study of language varieties. He has authored a textbook on colloca-
tion, corpus-driven lexico-grammatical analysis and contrastive studies
(Kookkurrenz, Kontrast, Profil) and has written some 30 articles. His is
the (co-)author of several large corpora in different languages (French,
German, Spanish, English, Russian) and the (co-)developer of two cor-
pus analysis platforms (EmoBase/Lexiscope, BTLC.PrimeStat/Varitext).
Susanne Dyka currently works at the Institute of English and
American Studies at Osnabrück University and the Institute of
Anglistics at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. Her
main research interests are in lexicography and phonology. As a member
of the PhraseoRom project team she specializes in the semantic classifi-
cation of RLTs.
Ludwig Fesenmeier is professor of French and Italian Linguistics
in the Institute of Romance Studies at Friedrich Alexander University
xiii
xiv Notes on Contributors
Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. His main research interests are in

(historical) Romance text linguistics, historical syntax of the Romance
languages as well as Romance variational linguistics. He has co-edited
several volumes and written two other books and more than 70 articles
and reviews.
Laetitia Gonon is an associate professor of French language and sty-
listics at the University Grenoble Alpes, France (UGA, UMR5316 Litt
& Arts). She specializes in the style of crime news items and popular
fiction from the nineteenth century to the present day, particularly their
phraseology. She is currently interested in Anglicisms in French novels
(Flaubert, but also contemporary French bestsellers, detective novels
and sentimental novels).
Vannina Goossens is a postdoctoral fellow at the University Grenoble
Alpes and a member of LIDILEM, as part of the Franco-German ANR-
DFG PhraseoRom project. Her work is in the fields of semantics and
corpus linguistics with focus on studying the semantic structuring of
lexicon and lexical units, polysemy, polylexical sequences and their role
in structuring discourse and literary genres using statistical and texto-
metric methods.
Francis Grossmann is professor emeritus of Linguistics at the
University Grenoble Alpes, France, and a member of the LIDILEM
Research Team. His research has focused in recent years on analysing
the phraseological dimensions of scientific discourse, the lexicon of
emotions and the discursive markers of reported speech. His research
interests further include lexical learning at different levels of education.
He has (co)-authored some fifteen books or entire journal issues. He has
also co-directed several research projects and his work has been pub-
lished in over 70 peer reviewed publications as well as book chapters
and conference proceedings.
Marion Gymnich is professor of English Literature and Culture at the
University of Bonn, Germany. Her research interests include British
literature and culture from the nineteenth century to the present, nar-
rative theory, and genre theory. She has (co-)authored six books, (co-)
edited 14 books and has published more than 100 articles.
Notes on Contributors xv
Clémence Jacquot is an associate professor of linguistics and stylis-

tics at the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 and a researcher at the
Praxiling laboratory (UMR 5267). She is a specialist in stylistics and,
during her Ph.D. and as a postdoc in Digital Humanities, did work on
the tools used to interpret literary texts. She is currently interested in
the differences between the narrative subgenres and their description
using digital stylistics tools.
Stefan Koch is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Erlangen-
Nuremberg (Germany) in the binational PhraseoRom project. He has
to his credit publications on Spanish scriptology, Spanish and Italian
historical linguistics as well as Italian morphology, Romance and general
typology.
Olivier Kraif is professor at the University Grenoble Alpes teaching
in the field of Computer Science and Natural Language Processing.
He has been a researcher in LIDILEM (Laboratoire de LInguistique
et DIdactique des Langues Étrangères et Maternelles) since 2002. He
works in the field of text corpora processing with an emphasis on mul-
tilingual corpora (comparable as well as parallel). His research aims
include developing tools and techniques for investigating linguistic phe-
nomena from lexicon, phraseology, contrastive analysis and translational
studies perspectives.
Dominique Legallois is professor of French linguistics at Sorbonne-
Nouvelle Paris 3 University, France. His main research interests are in
corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and construction grammar. He has
(co-)authored two textbooks on construction grammar (Constructions
in French) and text linguistics (The Grammar of Genres and Styles: From
Discrete to Non-discrete Units) and has written more than 60 articles and
reviews.
Iva Novakova is professor of French and Contrastive Linguistics at
the University Grenoble Alpes and a member of LIDILEM research
team. Her research has focused in recent years on phraseology and
corpus linguistics. She has published more than 80 works in the field
of the emotional lexicon, on the phraseology in literary language, on
causative constructions and on time-modes-aspects. She co-led the
xvi Notes on Contributors
French-German Emolex (2010–2013) research project EMOLEX on

the emotional lexicon in five European languages. Currently, she is
principal investigator, with Dirk Siepmann, of the PhraseoRom project
(2016–2020), whose main objective is studying the extended phrase-
ology and specific textual motifs of contemporary French, English and
German novels.
Dirk Siepmann is professor of English language teaching at the
Institute of English and American Studies of Osnabrück University,
Germany. His main research interests are in lexicology and lexicography,
translation studies and language teaching. He has (co-)authored two
textbooks on academic writing (Writing in English and Wissenschaftliche
Texte auf Englisch schreiben), and written ten other books and more than
80 articles and reviews. Currently, he is principal investigator, with Iva
Novakova, of the PhraseoRom project (2016–2020).
Julie Sorba is an associate professor in Linguistics at the University
Grenoble Alpes (LIDILEM and UMR5316 Litt & Arts Research
Centers), France. She defended her Ph.D. thesis in comparative linguis-
tics of ancient languages. In recent years, she has pursued her academic
research interests along two main tracks: lexicology and especially phra-
seological phenomena in broad corpora of French contemporary—lit-
erary/non-literary—texts using the tools of corpus linguistics. She has
written more than 40 articles and reviews. She is the co-editor of LIDIL
a Journal of Linguistics and Language Education.
Agnès Tutin is professor in French Linguistics at the University
Grenoble Alpes, France, participates in the LIDILEM research team,
and heads up the Masters in Linguistics program. Her main research
interests are in lexical semantics, phraseology and corpus linguistics. In
her recent work, she has focused on phraseological routines in academic
discourse and spoken corpora.
Abbreviations
CONT Contrast corpus

CRIM Crime fiction
DF Discursive functions
DISP Dispersion
EN English
FR French
FW Fiction words
FY Fantasy novels
GEN General fiction
HIST Historical novels
LIT Literary corpus
LLR Log-likelihood ratio
LSCs Lexico-syntactic constructions
NLP Natural language processing
NP Nominal phrase
RLT(s) Recurrent lexico-syntactic tree(s)
ROM Romance novels
SF Science fiction novels
xvii
List of Figures
Chapter 2
Fig. 1 Genome sequences 28
Fig. 2 Verbal valence as elements of the motif
(based on Čech et al. 2017, 16) 30
Fig. 3 Frequency of the motifs (based on Čech et al. 2017, 16) 30
Fig. 4 An example of the RLT pousser la porte (push the door open) 36
Chapter 4
Fig. 1 CA applied to the data set obtained by cross-tabulating verb
class and the combination of language with genre (The verb
class is shown in red, the combined category of genre
and language in blue. Circle size represents contribution) 94
Fig. 2 Vocabulary growth curves for the verb slot of the speech tag
construction in the English and French samples 97
Chapter 5
Fig. 1 Most frequent types of alcohol in the English and French
sub-corpora (n English = 8046; n French = 6837) 141
xix
xx List of Figures
Fig. 2 “Other” types of alcohol in the English and French

sub-corpora, n = 229 in the English corpus, n = 239
in the French corpus 141
Fig. 3 Take a sip in the English corpus before and after sorting,
n = 303 before sorting; 202 after sorting 143
Fig. 4 Boire une gorgée in the French corpus before and after
sorting, n = 207 before sorting; 113 after sorting 144
Fig. 5 Sip of wine and gorgée de vin in the English
and French corpora 145
Chapter 6
Fig. 1 Distribution of the selected words in the French
corpus (n.b. the OTH label refers to words that have
not been categorized) 162
Fig. 2 Distribution of selected words in the English corpus 163
Fig. 3 Distribution of types of formation for the selected words
in the French corpus 165
Fig. 4 Distribution of types of formation for the selected words
in the English corpus 166
Chapter 9
Fig. 1 Recurrent Lexico-Syntactic Tree for dans un état de
NP in the French sub-corpora 255
Fig. 2 Recurrent Lexico-Syntactic Tree for in a state of
NP in the English sub-corpora 255
List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 1 The Dragon-Slayer as a motif chain and its equally
valid story variants (based on Ofek et al. 2013, 3) 28
Table 2 Textual motif “discovery of a body” (based on Muryn
et al. 2016, 9–11) 37
Chapter 3
Table 1 Quantitative differences between different types
of adverbs in English and French 49
Table 2 English and French key manner adverbs
with potential equivalents 53
Table 3 Quantitative differences between selected candidates
for equivalence (occurrences per one million words) 54
Table 4 Distribution of manner adverbs by verb semantics
(log dice >5) 56
Table 5 Natural French equivalents of English adverbs 59
Table 6 Frequency of key adverbs in translation and comparable
corpora revisited 78
xxi
xxii List of Tables
Chapter 4
Table 1 Corpora used for the study 88
Table 2 Occurrences of direct speech 89
Table 3 Frequencies of verb classes cross-tabulated
by genre combined with language 93
Table 4 Contrastive specificities of verb classes by language 95
Table 5 Contrastive specificities of verb classes by genre
in the French data set 96
Table 6 Contrastive specificities of verb classes by genre
in the English data set 96
Table 7 Frequencies of verb classes cross-tabulated by language 110
Table 8 Frequencies of verb classes cross-tabulated by genre
for English 111
Table 9 Frequencies of verb classes cross-tabulated by genre
combined for French 111
Chapter 5
Table 1 Most frequent RLTs related to the cigarette script
in the English sub-corpus 126
Table 2 Most frequent RLTs related to the cigarette
in the French sub-corpus 132
Table 3 Most frequent RLTs related to the consumption
of alcohol in the English sub-corpus 137
Table 4 Most frequent RLTs related to the consumption
of alcohol in the French sub-corpus 140
Chapter 6
Table 1 Quantitative description of the corpora 153
Table 2 Semantic classes derived from the selected fiction words 161
Table 3 Comparative distribution according to POS 163
Chapter 7
Table 1 French and English science fiction and fantasy corpora 191
Table 2 Cumulative thresholds and number of RLTs
for each language and genre 193
List of Tables xxiii
Table 3 Semantic dimensions and values used

in the PhraseoRom project 195
Table 4 Classification of patterns by semantic dimension
for French science fiction and fantasy 201
Table 5 Classification of RLTs by semantic dimension
for English science fiction and fantasy 202
Chapter 8
Table 1 Specificities of the recurrent lexico-syntactic patterns
of our study in the GEN corpora 228
Table 2 The lexical and grammatical collocates of the eight patterns 230
Table 3 Syntagmatic variations of the article across the eight LSCs 232
Table 4 The syntagmatic variations of the noun across the eight LSCs 233
Table 5 The syntagmatic variations of the verb across the eight LSCs 233
Table 6 The paradigmatic variations across the noun in the eight LSCs 235
Chapter 9
Table 1 Frequency of dans un état de NP and in a state of
NP with statistically relevant collocates and number
of statistically relevant collocates (LLR ≥10.83) 256
Table 2 Frequency of en état de NP 257
Table 3 Statistically significant collocates of in a state of
NP sorted by word classes 258
Table 4 Statistically significant collocates of dans un état de
NP sorted by word classes 258
Table 5 Statistically significant verb collocates of dans un état de
NP (LLR ≥10.83) 259
Table 6 Statistically significant verb collocates of in a state of
NP (LLR ≥10.83) 260
Table 7 Statistically significant noun collocates of dans un état de
NP (LLR ≥10.83) 262
Table 8 Statistically significant noun collocates of in a state of
NP (LLR ≥10.83) 263
Table 9 Statistically significant adjective collocates
of dans un état de NP (LLR ≥10.83) 264
Table 10 Statistically significant adjective collocates
of in a state of NP (LLR ≥10.83) 265
xxiv List of Tables
Appendix A
Table 1 Size of the entire comparable corpora 288
Table 2 Size of the samples in the literary corpora (LIT)
(Samples of literary corpora (LIT) versus reference
corpora [CONT] [cf. Table 3]) 289
Table 3 Size of the contrast (non-literary) corpora (CONT) 290
Table 4 Size of the parallel corpora 290
1
Literary Style, Corpus Stylistic,
and Lexico-Grammatical Narrative
Patterns: Toward the Concept
of Literary Motifs
1 Introduction
In this chapter, Section 2 opens with an outline of the linguistic
approaches to literature, to phraseology and idiomaticity, as well as new
approaches in stylistics and in theories of literary genre, to character-
ize the recurrent lexico-grammatical patterns in contemporary fiction.
In Sect. 3, we summarize our methodology and present our corpora.
Section 4 highlights the book’s innovative features. This section also
defines what sets the patterns called “motifs” apart from other types
of phraseological units and how the present work advances research in
linguistics and literary studies.
I. Novakova (*)
Grenoble Alpes University, Grenoble, France
e-mail: iva.novakova@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr
D. Siepmann
University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany
e-mail: dirk.siepmann@uni-osnabrueck.de
© The Author(s) 2020 1
I. Novakova and D. Siepmann (eds.),
Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23744-8_1
2
I. Novakova and D. Siepmann
2 Scientific Background
2.1 Linguistic Approaches to Literature
Previous research in stylistics (e.g. Barthes 1966; Leech and Short 2007),
corpus stylistics (Stubbs 2005; Fischer-Starcke 2010; Mahlberg 2013) and
textometry (Brunet 1981)1 concentrated on characterizing the style(s) of
various authors (e.g. Flaubert, Proust, Dickens, Austen). It showed that
the bulk of the theoretical literature focuses on recurrent schemas (e.g.
Todorov 1980; Lits 2011) found in their novels. On the other hand,
research is scarce when it comes to fiction-specific lexico-grammatical pat-
terns based on large corpora, which the present volume centers on. Our
study first differentiates these patterns before proceeding to distinguishing
them from other types of phraseological units.
While some literary scholars (e.g. Attridge 2004) and the general
public tend to confer a special status on the language of literature, lin-
guists generally agree that “literary language is not special or different,
in that any formal feature termed ‘literary’ can be found in other dis-
courses” (Burton and Carter 2006, 273). Countering the formalist claim
that “defamiliarization” or “foregrounding” (Mukařovský 2014, 43)
is the essence of literature and literary language, a strong case has been
made that many works of literature contain “ordinary language” or have
their “roots in everyday uses of language” (Leech 2014, 5–6). This has
led to attempts at capturing the specificity of literary language in func-
tional terms, using criteria such as medium-dependence, displaced inter-
action, and polysemy (Burton and Carter 2006, 272) or the “duplicity”
(Scholes 1982, 23) of the various factors involved in the communication
process (e.g. the difference between author and narrator).
If we adopt this view, the subjective impression of “literariness”
(литepaтypнocть, Jakobson 1921) conveyed by even the shortest pas-
sage of imaginative prose would merely be an incidental phenome-
non subordinate to the unfathomable rules of the artistic craft. Yet,
1[Textometry is an approach that has been developed primarily in France since the 1970s. It
makes use of a large range of linguistically significant and mathematically sound computations
for the analysis of textual data];
1 Literary Style, Corpus Stylistic, and Lexico-Grammatical …
3
significantly, this assumption of a functional difference without a formal

correlative—a kind of linguistic epiphenomenon—is without parallel or
precedent in linguistics. It may simply be due to the fact that literary
language or the language of a particular literary genre have never been
examined in their entirety. As mentioned earlier, the investigations have
usually focused on a particular author’s style or individual texts as well
as on the stylistic devices handed down from Greek antiquity. By turn-
ing both literary and linguistic traditions on their heads as it were, we
are assuming that literariness does not primarily reside in any stylistic
features peculiar to literary texts (e.g. metaphor, irony), but rather in
their adherence to genre-internal conventions of idiomaticity. In other
words, it is the statistically significant over-representation of particular
general-language features that creates the subjective impression of liter-
ariness. It will be argued here that the essence of imaginative writing is
not idiosyncracy or originality but a certain unobtrusive conventional-
ity common to all instantiations of a particular literary genre during a
given period, regardless of their literary status. Any attempt to pin down
the notion of literariness must therefore consider the habitual “norm”
(Coseriu 1975, 85–88) or the “idiom principle” (Sinclair 1991, 113)
underlying specific genres if we are to succeed in determining how the
“creativity principle” (Siepmann 2011, 68) and the “open-choice prin-
ciple” (Sinclair 1991, 175) variously operate in specific texts. Moreover,
Stubbs and Barth (2003, 79) demonstrated that “text types are distin-
guished by lexical and grammatical patterns.” They found that fiction,
for example, is “characterized by a verbal style, by past tense verb forms
and by frequent vocabulary from the lexical fields of saying, looking,
thinking and wanting.” However, the study in question, apart from
being based on a small corpus, was limited by its exclusive focus on
the 200 most-frequently occurring multi-word strings in each genre.
The results showed little evidence of lexical units of meaning capa-
ble of significantly impacting the reader’s conscious perceptions of
texts. Similarly, Biber et al. (1999) identified a number of general fic-
tion-specific grammatical features, such as the absence of participial rel-
ative clauses (606) or the frequent use of double genitives (309). Biber
(1988) and Conrad and Biber (2001) also provided detailed multidi-
mensional analyses of register variation linking situational characteristics
4
to linguistic features and their functions but in which they failed to

consider fiction-specific keywords or multi-word units.
2.2 Approaches to Idiomaticity and Phraseology
As we have just seen, while there is a dearth of studies on the lexi-

co-grammatic nature of literary texts, many researchers have examined
idiomatic combinations in other genres such as journalistic and scientific
texts (Sinclair 1991, 2004; Hunston and Francis 2000; Hoey 2005; de
Beaugrande 2005). While there is currently no consensus among authors
on the resulting profusion of labels used to identify idiomaticity—
such as “extended units of meaning” (Sinclair 2004), “constructions”
(Goldberg 1995), “collostructions” (Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003),
“collocations” (Hausmann 1979; Mel’čuk et al. 1995; Siepmann 2005),
“lexical bundles” (Biber et al. 1999), “sequential patterns” (Quiniou et al.
2012), and “multi-words expressions” (Steyer and Brunner 2014)—there
is nevertheless a growing convergence among these different approaches
and labels that dispenses with the distinction between a grammar com-
posed of rules and a lexicon consisting of words and phrases.
Thus, the Neofirthian approach, whose most accomplished propo-
nent is undoubtedly Hoey (2005), advocates for a grammatical lexicon
containing both grammatical combinations (“colligations”: e.g. GN + to
be + about + V-ing ) and lexical combinations (“collocations” clear motor-
way ). This theory uses the concept of collocational “nests,” where the
meaning is not compositional (say a word => say a word against => won’t
say a word against; Hoey 2005, 11). In addition, Hoey completes the
description of “local” lexico-syntactic relationships, i.e. those internal to
the sentence, by analyzing lexico-syntactic relationships in larger textual
units called “textual colligations.” However, his study is based on a small
number of English lexemes and needs to be expanded to larger corpora
or performed from a cross-linguistic perspective.2
2Lexical priming theory was used for the analysis of the emotion lexicon in five European lan-
guages based on large multilingual corpora (see among others Novakova and Melnikova 2013;
Novakova 2015).
5
Construction grammars, on the other hand, treat language as an

inventory of form/meaning pairs extending across a continuum,
from lexicon to grammatical structures via idiomatic sequences (e.g.
Goldberg 1995; Fillmore et al. 1988; Croft 2001). An obvious rela-
tionship exists between contextualism and certain construction gram-
mars such as the “collostructions” of Stefanowitsch and Gries (2003).
While the former starts from general constructions such as the dit-
ransitive construction to identify its associated lexis, the latter instead
start from individual lexemes (e.g. give) to arrive at general syntactic
patterns.
The strong convergence of these different approaches led to a shift
in research focus from the fixed sequences of traditional phraseology
(routine formulas, proverbs and binary collocations (Hausmann 1979;
Mel’čuk et al. 1995) to all kinds of “pragmatemes” (Feilke 1996) and
“extended” lexical units (Sinclair 2004). Three particularly promising
concepts in this respect are “collocational frameworks” (Renouf and
Sinclair 1991), “motifs” (Legallois 2006, 2012; Longrée and Mellet
2013) and “probabemes” (Herbst and Klotz 2003). The latter are
polylexical sequences highly likely to be used by speakers in particular
situations (e.g. “il n’avait pas de mots assez durs pour Vinf ” vs. “il avait
des mots durs pour Vinf ”; Hausmann 2007, 136).
In this volume, we venture beyond binary collocations by analyz-
ing recurrent polylexical units automatically extracted from our con-
temporary fiction corpora. As such, we firmly position ourselves in the
so-called “extended phraseology” framework (cf. Legallois and Tutin
2013), which includes a wide range of study objects, from collocations
through paremiology or various pragmatics or discursive sequences to
polylexical units. More generally, both the “continental” approach to
phraseology and British contextualism (Sinclair 2004; Hoey 2005;
Biber 2009) converge by no longer considering phraseology as a mar-
ginal phenomenon but rather as an essential structural element of
human language. Several of the contributions in this volume aim spe-
cifically at clarifying how polylexical phraseological units form literary
motifs as well as their functioning both linguistically and discursively in
modern fiction.
6
2.3 Stylistics and Theories of Literary Genre
Textual genres are currently the subject of interdisciplinary studies in

linguistics, literary theory, stylistics, and lexicometric analysis. In the
theory of literature, several works on textual genres authored by, for
example, Gymnich et al. (2007), Zymner (2003), Frow (2005), Duff
(2000), and Monte and Philippe (2014) can be cited here. In addition,
Adam (2005) proposed dealing with the question of text categorization
in terms of dynamics, the effects of genericity and generic tensions: for
him, a text is always in production, as in reception/interpretation, in
relation with one or more genres. This content-based approach, which
still needs to be complemented by linguistics and digital stylistics, opens
new perspectives on the theory of genres (see also Beauvisage 2001;
Rastier 2011).
Furthermore, genre theory has traditionally tended to draw a rela-
tively clear distinction between so-called highbrow and lowbrow fic-
tion, that is, between “popular genres” and “literary fiction” (cf. Frow
2005, 128). This was chiefly done using criteria based exclusively on the
content of the genres in question, such as the description of emotional
states in a romance. Other approaches in genre theory have highlighted
genres as being “rooted in institutional infrastructures” (Frow 2005,
128); that is, generic distinctions are perpetuated by institutions such as
publishing houses and booksellers. Without question, such institutions
are capable of promoting genres through various marketing strategies,
say by using covers that readers perceive as typical of a particular genre.
Still, the reader will ultimately always fall back on genre expectations
when it comes to the content. For content to be deemed characteristic
of a genre, it arguably also has to be couched in a genre-appropriate
language that satisfies readers’ expectations.
Traditionally, both content and language of lowbrow or popular genres,
such as the crime news item, serial novels (Gonon 2012, 2015), detective
stories3 (Eisenzweig 1983), and fantasy fiction, have been thought of as
3L’Affaire Lerouge by E. Gaboriau (1866) is widely accepted as the first French crime novel.
7
shaped by “the formulaic and the conventional” (Frow 2005, 2). In recent
decades, however, in the wake of Postmodernism, the boundaries between
popular and “literary” fiction have progressively blurred, and numerous
factors “have contributed to closing the gap to a certain extent between
highbrow literature and popular culture” (Nünning and Nünning 2018,
30). Genres like crime fiction, historical novels, fantasy, romance and sci-
ence fiction are still intact and thriving. What has changed is the grow-
ing number of well-known “literary” or “highbrow” fiction writers who
have adopted conventions of “generic fiction” in penning their novels.
While Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel When We Were Orphans
(2000) may still be a far cry from formulaic crime fiction, it neverthe-
less clearly draws on various traits proper to detective fiction. In France, a
multi-awarded and acclaimed author like Jean Echenoz also plays with the
rules of historical (14, 2012) or spy fiction (Envoyée Spéciale, 2016). Many
further examples of this kind could be cited.
Given these sorts of dynamics, literary genres tend to exhibit an
extreme literary and stylistic heterogeneity: they range from works that
are definitely categorizable as “lowbrow fiction” (such as the Mills and
Boon/Harlequin romances) to intellectually demanding novels written
by famous authors. Therefore, this categorization is ripe for reassessment
using the tools of modern digital stylistics. The digital-stylistic approach
provides a new type of quantitatively based evidence (see Herrmann
et al. 2015). Consequently, large corpora are changing the stylistic
studies paradigm by offering new heuristic tools to put subgenres into
literary and stylistic categories and revisit the controversial distinction
between highbrow and lowbrow fiction (see Boyer 2008).
3 Corpora and Methodology

In all chapters of this volume, we adopt a corpus-driven methodology4
applied to large English and French literary corpora compiled in the
course of the PhraseoRom project. The corpora consist of contemporary
4For the distinction between corpus based and corpus driven approaches, see Tognini-Bonelli (2001).
8
novels, subdivided into the six subgenres of crime, science fiction,

fantasy, romance, historical and general fiction. Complementing them
is a parallel corpus containing novels that have been translated from
English into French or vice versa (see Appendix A). The corpora were
automatically parsed to carry out lemmatization and part-of-speech tag-
ging as well as marking syntactic dependencies between words. We used
two different tools, Connexor (Tapanainen and Järvinen 1997) for the
French texts, and XIP (Aït-Mokhtar et al. 2002) for the English texts, to
extract lexical units (pivots) that combine with other words and these in
turn provided two different methods of accessing textual motifs:
– the RLTs5 (Recurrent Lexico-syntactic Trees) method, integrated into

Lexicoscope (Kraif 2016; see Chapter 2 by Legallois and Koch in this
volume);
– the keyword approach tool (Scott and Tribble 2006), integrated into
Sketchengine (Kilgarriff et al. 2014; see Chapter 3 by Novakova et al.
in this volume)
The RLTs methodology automatically extracts statistically significant

nonlinear fiction-specific constructions from the literary corpora (LIT)
that are then compared to newspaper, scientific texts and TED talks
that we constituted as our reference corpus (CONT) (see Appendix A).
Based on the complex pivot concept, this iterative extraction method
provides recurrent expressions of length n around a given pivot that
vastly improve on simple frameworks consisting of repeated segments
or lexical chunks. They represent real syntactic sub-trees, which can be
realized in different ways on the surface in the texts. The RLTs are then
automatically clustered according to specificity, frequency, and disper-
sion criteria and analyzed syntactically, semantically, and discursively.
The second approach using keywords is employed in analyzing fic-
tion-specific adverbial constructions in English and French (see Chapter 3
by Novakova et al. in this volume). The keyword in its statistical sense
5The abbreviation RLTs (Recurrent Lexico-syntactic Trees) is the English equivalent for ALR
(Arbres Lexico-syntaxiques récurrents; Kraif 2016).

9
is by now a well-established concept in corpus linguistics: A word must

exceed a minimum frequency level according to the statistical index log
likelihood. Keyword searches capture two kinds of data: (a) what the text
or texts being examined are about (“aboutness indicators”) and (b) what
the predominant word choices are in a stylistic sense (“stylistic indica-
tors”). The corpus-stylistic study of literary language is mostly concerned
with the latter.
We applied a complementary approach to analyzing the speech verbs
in French and English novels (see Chapter 4 by Diwersy et al. in this
volume). Here, the data sets were processed using what essentially are
canonical methods in the tradition of French textometry (cf. Lebart
et al. 1998) whose focus is on contrastive word specificities and corres
pondence analysis. The contrastive specificities method (Lafon 1980)
operates roughly on the same principle as the keyword method in the
British tradition of corpus linguistics but, unlike the latter, runs its cal-
culations using hypergeometric distribution.
4 Innovative Features of the Book

In this section, we highlight what we believe is the unique contribution
our research makes to stylistics by introducing the notion of “motif ”
to bridge the gap between linguistics and literary studies. Our intent
here is not to preempt the detailed discussions found in the remaining
chapters of this book, but to preliminarily sketch what we mean by
this relatively new idea. To begin with, we do not intend for the term
“motif ” to be taken as referring to elements with symbolic significance
that recur in a story, as has traditionally been the case in literary studies.
Instead, in our usage, “motif ” denotes a sequence of either continuous
or discontinuous units that may combine different types of elements
(particular word forms, lemmas and/or morpho-syntactic categories,
collocations). Our motifs thus
– display lexico-syntactic regularities and variations at the syntagmatic

and paradigmatic levels while simultaneously performing particular
discursive/narrative functions. They are therefore recurrent linguistic
10
units that can be described at the levels of lexico-grammar, semantics

and pragmatics/discourse (Longrée and Mellet 2013; Legallois 2012);
– furnish a link between linguistics and literary studies to the extent
that they collaborate in the construction of scripts and schemas; and
are situated—unlike traditional literary motifs—where social scripts
and fictional scripts (see also Baroni 2002, 2007) intersect.
Motifs as we understand them cannot be identified by fully auto-

matic procedures but instead require the linguist and the literary
scholar to make a judgment. The automatic extraction of recurrent
lexico-syntactic trees (RLTs) or of keywords represents the first step in
our general procedure and should be thought of as merely a heuristic
process useful for detecting potential candidate motifs. To take a sim-
ple example, the sequence “Poss Det + N (thoughts/meditations…)
+ were + interrupted/cut short by N/as clause” (e.g. His thoughts
were interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the lock ) may qualify
as a motif to the extent that it combines different types of elements
(grammatical: the noun thought ) and displays paradigmatic variations
(lexical: interrupt/cut short; thoughts/meditations/…) (Siepmann
2015). At the same time it also performs a particular narrative func-
tion: transitioning between an internal and an external narrative per-
spective and beginning a new narrative segment.
The notion of motif lets us fill in the missing link between “ macro-level”
notions of script or schema that have traditionally been used in cognitive
narratology (e.g. study of the plot, isotopies) and the “micro-level” ele-
ments that go into making up the script (specific phraseological recur-
rences). A straightforward example is afforded by what might be called the
“cigarette script,” which, at its most basic, involves a sequence of actions
such as lighting up, inhaling, exhaling, blowing smoke, etc. (for more
details, see Chapter 5 by Grossmann et al. in this volume). A recurrent
motif found in this script type is Pronoun/Noun He + V lighted + DET
a + N cigarette + PP (prepositional phrase), where the PP “slot” is commonly
filled by elements of the type “locative” (e.g. on the way down from the
hotel), “source” (from a packet of Gauloises), “mode of lighting” (from the
burning end of another), or “manner” (with trembling hands).
11
The present volume is intended for linguists, translation and literary

scholars, corpus stylistics scholars and lexicologists, as well as the lay
reader outside academia. We believe that the book may also have a cer-
tain appeal for creative writing teachers and students because it explores
the interrelationships between style and substance or between narrative
intent and formulation, while also providing a wide-ranging catalogue
of specific linguistic patterns that aspiring writers can use or adapt to
their own purposes.
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2
The Notion of Motif Where Disciplines
Intersect: Folkloristics, Narrativity,
Bioinformatics, Automatic Text Processing
and Linguistics
Dominique Legallois and Stefan Koch
1 Introduction
In attempting to present and discuss the notion of motif in several
disciplinary fields, we have set ourselves an ambitious goal in this
chapter. While the distances that separate these disciplines represent a
challenge they also enrich the task before us.
So, why be interested in this notion of motif in the first place? It
seems to us that this notion is one of the few to transcend the bound-
aries between various areas of intellectual inquiry which otherwise may
have little in common. Then also, in recent years the notion of motif
has enjoyed unquestioned success in linguistics, specifically in the sub-
disciplines concerned with semantic or stylistic characterisation of texts.
D. Legallois (*)
University Sorbonne-Nouvelle, Paris, France
e-mail: dominique.legallois@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
S. Koch
Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
e-mail: stefan.koch@fau.de
© The Author(s) 2020 17
I. Novakova and D. Siepmann (eds.),
Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of the Novel,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23744-8_2
18
D. Legallois and S. Koch
This success can be gauged by the proposals and innovations advanced

by various linguists in developing the concept or in creating tools that
automate the extraction of motifs from texts. The present volume in this
and the other chapters centers on applications of motifs.
The term motif is extremely complex: Even when tackled within the
same discipline and field of analysis, as in this volume, it is subject to
varied interpretations. To put it another way, the definition of motif
is still constantly evolving. This evolution is driven both by technical
advances in computer technology and conceptual innovations.
This dynamic compels us therefore to first equip linguists and literary
text specialists with the historical, epistemological and methodological
background on the use of motif in scientific research. Non-linguists, on
the other hand, may discover elements in the linguistic approach that
will let them reflect on and develop their own conception of motif. We
thus regard the term motif in its various conceptions as a potentially
solid basis for dialogue between subjects and disciplines that usually
work siloed from each other.
Our analysis begins with narratology and folkloristics, two fields in
which the notion of motif has been well represented, especially in nine-
teenth-century research on popular traditions, and has been further
developed since then by structuralists and narratologists/semioticians.
Next, we delve into the role the term motif plays in information
retrieval in science, both from the perspectives of Harris et al. (1989)
and of bioinformatics. As we will discover, these techniques for ana-
lyzing various pattern types are somewhat akin to certain of the older
methods in narratology.
A third set of approaches to motif is the one undertaken by Natural
Language Processing (NLP). Köhler (2006) had a seminal role in ini-
tiating recent work which developed the notion of motif as a discrete
linguistic unit that makes computational processing of texts and cor-
pora—characterization, clustering, classification, etc.—feasible.
Lastly, we turn to a series of linguistic studies carried out in France
during the past decade, including in the domain of computational lin-
guistics but also designed to cover several dimensions related to sty-
lometry, semantic characterizations, genre characterizations, etc. This
body of research was generated to a great extent in the course of the
2 The Notion of Motif Where Disciplines Intersect: Folkloristics …
19
PhraseoRom project on which all of the contributions in this book are

based.
At the end of this overview, the reader will have been presented with
a set of designs from which to draw conclusions that should equip him
or her to add value in assessing the possible ramifications of the concept
of motif.
Although motif frequently also crops up in music and painting, that
is, in nonlinguistic or non-textual domains, we confine our scope to
addressing and reflecting on textual motifs. Hence, we close this chapter
by applying the notion specifically to literary texts.
2 Motif in Folkloristics and Narratology

In cultural anthropology and folkloristics, the term motif refers to
a recurrent element in the popular traditions of a cultural commu-
nity. Several motifs combine to form patterns, allowing researchers to
describe, analyze and interpret cultural differences. Thus, broadly speak-
ing, motifs can be applied to the field of literature—including oral lit-
erature, such as folk tales—to visual and textile arts and to music. In
the latter two, motif then is either, respectively, any repeated decorative
element or the smallest distinctive recurring musical line from a melody
or rhythm. This musical motif is different from the one proposed by
Boroda (1982), which we discuss in more detail below.
2.1 Tales and Popular Narratives
For our purpose, the study of motifs in tales or popular narratives is of

particular interest. Here, motifs are recurrent microstories, recognizable
thanks to a stable but malleable and adaptable physiognomy, depend-
ing on the texts in which they occur. More precisely, they are stereo-
typical narrative sequences whose identity is definable and irreducible
(Vincensini 2000, 2), as shown by the following examples, some of
which are taken from Vincensini’s work:
20
(1) - “Punishment, sitting in the water”1, which appears in many novels

of the Middle Ages but also in the Lives of the Saints.
- “The perilous cemetery”: The hero is confronted at night by supernatu-
ral opponents (Cadot 1980).
- “The constrained gift”: A donor makes unlimited offers without even
being asked by the recipient. This motif appears in the Gospels of
Saint Matthew as well as in the Arthurian legend.
- “The accusatory bleeding”: A corpse starts bleeding in the presence
of the murderer. This motif is used in many medieval texts but also
appears in Le Second livre des Amours by Ronsard, in Richard III by
Shakespeare, in Les Tragiques by Agripa d’Aubigné.
- “The animal skin delimiting a territory”: This motif concerns a trick
used by the hero to claim a large territory.
The conception of motif in ancient and traditional texts necessarily

touches on intertextuality and collective memory. In a sense, motifs are
always leitmotivs in a culture.
Based on the first collections made by the Grimm brothers, in the
Verzeichnis der Märchentypen, published in 1910 by the Finnish folklor-
ist Antti Aarne (1867–1925; see Aarne [1961] for an English version),
taletypes (Märchentypen ) are classified into categories, each assigned a
number and a title in German. The concept of the taletype accommo-
dates variations of the same tale in different countries or repertoires. The
American folklorist Stith Thompson (for example 1946) continued this
work, which ended up in the international classification of tales known
as the Aarne-Thompson classification. But he also proposed a catego-
rization of motifs that resulted in the famous Index of Motifs found in
the six-volume Motif-index of folk-literature: a classification of narrative
elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla,
fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends, published between 1932 and
1936.2 It sets up the following main categories:
1This motif is also what was called an exemplum (pl. exempla), that is, a short moral narrative
given as true and used for educational purposes in sermons in the twelfth and thirteenth centu-
ries. exempla were also used to “christianize” traditional stories. There were exempla repertories,
for example, the scala coedi collection by Jean Gobi dated around 1300 (Vincensini 2000, 13).
2A revised and enlarged edition was published between 1955 and 1958.
21
a) mythological motifs,
b) animals,
c) tabu,
d) magic,
e) the dead,
f) marvels,
g) ogres,
h) tests,
j) the wise and the foolish,
k) deceptions,
l) reversal of fortune,
m) ordaining the future,
n) chance and fate,
p) society,
q) rewards and punishment,
r) captives and fugitives,
s) unusual cruelty,
t) sex,
u) the nature of life,
v) religion,
w) traits of character,
x) humour, and
z) miscellaneous groups of motifs.
Thompson divided each category into subcategories. For example, the

motifs related to the wise and the foolish he broke down into the follow-
ing subcategories:
- J0-J199 Acquisition and possession of wisdom/knowledge

- J200-J1099 Wise and unwise conduct
- J1100-J1699 Cleverness
- J1700-J2799 Fools (and other unwise persons)
In his book The Folktale (1946), Thompson described the many distinc-
tive classes as follows:
22
A motif is the smallest element in a tale having a power to persist in tra-

dition. In order to have this power it must have something unusual and
striking about it. Most motifs fall into three classes. First are the actors
in a tale – gods, or unusual animals, or marvelous creatures like witches,
ogres, or fairies, or even conventionalized human characters like the
favorite youngest child or the cruel step-mother. Second come certain
items in the background of the action – magic objects, unusual customs,
strange beliefs, and the like. In the third place there are single incidents
– and these comprise the great majority of motifs. (Thompson 1946,
415–16)
A current conception of motif in narratology seems to echo Thompson’s

comments. The striking character of the motif, so to speak its expressive
character, lies in its concrete value. In a recent reference book on narra-
tology, Abbott (2008, 95) after Prince (2003, 55) states, that “[m]otifs
are, in Gerald Prince’s words, the ‘minimal thematic unit’ (Dictionary,
55).” Abbott then goes on to contrast motif and theme (see Abbott
2008, 237, 242) as follows:
Motif: A discrete thing, image, or phrase that is repeated in a narrative.

Theme, by contrast, is a more generalized or abstract concept that is sug-
gested by, among other things, motifs. A coin can be a motif, greed is a
theme. (Abbott 2008, 237)
Theme: A subject (issue, question) that recurs in a narrative through
implicit or explicit reference. Along with motif, theme is one of the two
commonest forms of narrative repetition. Where motifs tend to be con-
crete, themes are abstract. (Abott 2008, 242)
Abbott (2008, 95) also illustrated his definitions with the following
example: “Windows, for example, are a motif in Wuthering Heights and,
given the way Brontë deploys them, they support a highly complex
interplay of three themes: escape, exclusion, and imprisonment. When,
for another example, the character Barkis in David Copperfield continues
to repeat his cryptic phrase, ‘Barkis is willin’,’ it becomes a motif, a sig-
nature phrase for the theme of shy, honest-hearted devotion in love that
23
Barkis exhibits in his pursuit of Peggotty.” The motif in contemporary

narratology is therefore a minimal unit that “concretizes” the themes.3
2.2 The Russian Formalists
Since the 1920s, the Russian formalists have also regarded the motif as
a minimum unit but have also pointed out the difficulty of defining this
minimality. Additionally, these researchers developed elements for artic-
ulating the relationship between motifs and linguistic forms.
Thus, Tomaševskij (1925 [1965]) equated motif and clause (see also
Ducrot and Todorov 1972). To our knowledge, this was the first time
anyone reflected on the linguistic dimension of motif. We will elabo-
rate on this point below. Tomaševskij (1925 [1965]) also proposes that
some motifs can be dynamic in how they change the narrative situation
or make it evolve. Motifs that do not change the narrative situation are
termed stative motifs. We recognize this also as a first reflection on the
gestalt complementarity between foreground and background or figure
and ground. Tomaševskij also famously distinguished fabula from story,
sometimes referred to as the story/narrative distinction.
For Veselóvskij (1913a, b), each proposal had its own motif which
he held to be the smallest unit of the thematic material. The notion of
motif thus was radically redefined, further distancing it from the folk-
lorist conception. However, according to Propp (1968 [1928]), by pos-
iting non-compositionality for the linguistic clause, we lose sight of all
the possible substitutions that make up the richness and variety of tales:
If a motif is something logically whole, then each sentence of a tale

gives a motif. (A father has three sons: a motif; a stepdaughter leaves
home: a motif; Ivan fights with a dragon: a motif; and so on.) This
would not be so bad if motifs were really indivisible; an index of motifs
would then be made possible. But let us take the motif ‘a dragon kid-
naps the tsar’s daughter’ (this example is not Veselóvskij’s). This motif
3See for example the helmet motif in L. F. Céline’s Casse-Pipe, studied by Richard (1979).
24
decomposes into four elements, each of which, in its own right, can
vary. The dragon may be replaced by Koščéj, a whirlwind, a devil, a
falcon, or a sorcerer. Abduction can be replaced by vampirism or vari-
ous other acts by which disappearance is effected in tales. The daughter
may be replaced by a sister, a bride, a wife, or a mother. The tsar can be
replaced by a tsar’s son, a peasant, or a priest. In this way, contrary to
Veselóvskij, we must affirm that a motif is not monomial or indivisible.
(Propp 1968, 13)
Propp sought to replace Veselóvskij’s (1913b, 9–12) motif with the

notion of narrative function, that is, an action defined in terms of its
meaning in plot development independent of the characters and how
these functions are fulfilled. Following the French philologist Bédier,
Propp (1968) differentiates constant patterns from the variable patterns,
calling the former function and the latter attribute. The names of the
characters may change but their actions or functions do not.
The 31 narrative functions in the traditional Russian tale are certainly
motifs—narrative atoms—but Propp prefers to dispense with a cumber-
some terminology. The functions (for example: acceptance of the mission
by the hero; departure of the hero; testing of the hero by a donor, etc.) find
their place in sequences—they are ordered and arranged, as in these
examples: lack—compensation for lack, prohibition—violation of the pro-
hibition, combat—victory, and so on.
2.3 Some Developments of the Formalist Approach
Propp’s model made an impact from the 1960s onwards. Thus, the
American folklorist Alan Dundes (1934–2005) used Pike’s linguistic
terminology (1967) in an attempt to apply Propp’s method to a corpus
of Amerindian stories. Dundes (1962) proposed renaming the Proppian
function motifemes. He also developed the term allomotif to designate
the various forms in which the motif is realized in the tale. Allomotifs
are to motifemes as allophones are to phonemes.
The Czech researcher Doležel (1972) repatriated the notion of
motif to the field of literary text analysis. He approached it on three
levels: motifeme, structural motif and texture motif. The first level is
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At the end of five months the gang returns to dry land, and a
statement of account from the overseer’s book is drawn up,
something like the following:—
Sam Bo to John Doe, Dr.
Feb. 1. To clothing (outfit) $5 00
Mar. 10. To clothing, as per overseer’s 2 25
account
Feb. 1. To bacon and meal (outfit) 19 00
July 1. To stores drawn in swamp, as 4 75
per overseer’s account
July 1. To half-yearly hire, paid his 50 00
owner.
$81 00
Per Contra, Cr.
July 1. By 10,000 shingles, as per 100 00
overseer’s account, 10c
Balance due Sambo $19 00
which is immediately paid him, and of which, together with the
proceeds of sale of peltry which he has got while in the swamp, he is
always allowed to make use as his own. No liquor is sold or served
to the negroes in the swamp, and, as their first want when they come
out of it is an excitement, most of their money goes to the grog-
shops.
After a short vacation, the whole gang is taken in the schooner to
spend another five months in the swamp as before. If they are good
hands and work steadily, they will commonly be hired again, and so
continuing, will spend most of their lives at it. They almost invariably
have excellent health, as have also the white men engaged in the
business. They all consider the water of the “Dismals” to have a
medicinal virtue, and quite probably it is a mild tonic. It is greenish in
colour, and I thought I detected a slightly resinous taste upon first
drinking it. Upon entering the swamp also, an agreeable resinous
odour, resembling that of a hemlock forest, was perceptible.
The negroes working in the swamp were more sprightly and
straightforward in their manner and conversation than any field-hand
plantation negroes that I saw at the South; two or three of their
employers with whom I conversed spoke well of them, as compared
with other slaves, and made no complaints of “rascality” or laziness.
One of those gentlemen told me of a remarkable case of providence
and good sense in a negro that he had employed in the swamp for
many years. He was so trustworthy, that he had once let him go to
New York as cook of a lumber schooner, when he could, if he had
chosen to remain there, have easily escaped from slavery.
Knowing that he must have accumulated considerable money, his
employer suggested to him that he might buy his freedom, and he
immediately determined to do so. But when, on applying to his
owner, he was asked $500 for himself, a price which, considering he
was an elderly man, he thought too much, he declined the bargain;
shortly afterwards, however, he came to his employer again, and
said that although he thought his owner was mean to set so high a
price upon him, he had been thinking that if he was to be an old man
he would rather be his own master, and if he did not live long, his
money would not be of any use to him at any rate, and so he had
concluded he would make the purchase.
He did so, and upon collecting the various sums that he had loaned
to white people in the vicinity, he was found to have several hundred
dollars more than was necessary. With the surplus, he paid for his
passage to Liberia, and bought a handsome outfit. When he was
about to leave, my informant had made him a present, and, in
thanking him for it, the free man had said that the first thing he
should do, on reaching Liberia, would be to learn to write, and, as
soon as he could, he would write to him how he liked the country: he
had been gone yet scarce a year, and had not been heard from.
Deep River, Jan. 18th.—The shad and herring fisheries upon the
sounds and inlets of the North Carolina coast are an important
branch of industry, and a source of considerable wealth. The men
employed in them are mainly negroes, slave and free; and the
manner in which they are conducted is interesting, and in some
respects novel.
The largest sweep seines in the world are used. The gentleman to
whom I am indebted for the most of my information, was the
proprietor of a seine over two miles in length. It was manned by a
force of forty negroes, most of whom were hired at a dollar a day, for
the fishing season, which usually commences between the tenth and
fifteenth of March, and lasts fifty days. In favourable years the profits
are very great. In extremely unfavourable years many of the
proprietors are made bankrupt.
Cleaning, curing, and packing houses are erected on the shore, as
near as they conveniently may be to a point on the beach, suitable
for drawing the seine. Six or eight windlasses, worked by horses, are
fixed along the shore, on each side of this point. There are two large
seine-boats, in each of which there is one captain, two seine-
tenders, and eight or ten oarsmen. In making a cast of the net, one-
half of it is arranged on the stern of each of the boats, which, having
previously been placed in a suitable position—perhaps a mile off
shore, in front of the buildings—are rowed from each other, the
captains steering, and the seine-tenders throwing off, until the seine
is all cast between them. This is usually done in such a way that it
describes the arc of a circle, the chord of which is diagonal with the
shore. The hawsers attached to the ends of the seine are brought
first to the outer windlasses, and are wound in by the horses. As the
operation of gathering in the seine occupies several hours, the boat
hands, as soon as they have brought the hawsers to the shore, draw
their boats up, and go to sleep.
As the wings approach the shore, the hawsers are from time to time
carried to the other windlasses, to contract the sweep of the seine.
After the gaff of the net reaches the shore, lines attached toward the
bunt are carried to the windlasses, and the boats’ crews are
awakened, and arrange the wing of the seine, as fast as it comes in,
upon the boat again. Of course, as the cast was made diagonally
with the shore, one wing is beached before the other. By the time the
fish in the bunt have been secured, both boats are ready for another
cast, and the boatmen proceed to make it, while the shore gang is
engaged in sorting and gutting the “take.”
My informant, who had $50,000 invested in his fishing establishment,
among other items of expenditure, mentioned that he had used
seventy kegs of gunpowder the previous year, and amused himself
for a few moments with letting me try to conjecture in what way
villanous saltpetre could be put to use in taking fish.
There is evidence of a subsidence of this coast, in many places, at a
comparatively recent period; many stumps of trees, evidently
standing where they grew, being found some way below the present
surface, in the swamps and salt marshes. Where the formation of the
shore and the surface, or the strength of the currents of water, which
have flowed over the sunken land, has been such as to prevent a
later deposit, the stumps of great cypress trees, not in the least
decayed, protrude from the bottom of the sounds. These would
obstruct the passage of a net, and must be removed from a fishing-
ground.
The operation of removing them is carried on during the summer,
after the close of the fishing season. The position of a stump having
been ascertained by divers, two large seine-boats are moored over
it, alongside each other, and a log is laid across them, to which is
attached perpendicularly, between the boats, a spar, fifteen feet long.
The end of a chain is hooked to the log, between the boats, the other
end of which is fastened by divers to the stump which it is wished to
raise. A double-purchase tackle leads from the end of the spar to a
ring-bolt in the bows of one of the boats, with the fall leading aft, to
be bowsed upon by the crews. The mechanical advantages of the
windlass, the lever, and the pulley being thus combined, the chain is
wound on to the log, until either the stump yields, and is brought to
the surface, or the boats’ gunwales are brought to the water’s edge.
When the latter is the case, and the stump still remains firm, a new
power must be applied. A spile, pointed with iron, six inches in
diameter, and twenty feet long, is set upon the stump by a diver, who
goes down with it, and gives it that direction which, in his judgment,
is best, and driven into it by mauls and sledges, a scaffold being
erected between the boats for men to stand on while driving it. In
very large stumps, the spile is often driven till its top reaches the
water; so that when it is drawn out, a cavity is left in the stump, ten
feet in depth. A tube is now used, which is made by welding together
three musket-barrels, with a breech at one end, in which is the tube
of a percussion breech, with the ordinary position of the nipple
reversed, so that when it is screwed on with a detonating cap, the
latter will protrude within the barrel. This breech is then inserted
within a cylindrical tin box, six inches in diameter, and varying in
length, according to the supposed strength of the stump; and soap or
tallow is smeared about the place of insertion to make it water tight.
The box contains several pounds of gunpowder.
The long iron tube is elevated, and the diver goes down again, and
guides it into the hole in the stump, with the canister in his arms. It
has reached the bottom—the diver has come up, and is drawn into
one of the boats—an iron rod is inserted in the mouth of the tube—
all hands crouch low and hold hard—the rod is let go—crack!—whoo
—oosch! The sea swells, boils, and breaks upward. If the boats do
not rise with it, they must sink; if they rise, and the chain does not
break, the stump must rise with them. At the same moment the heart
of cypress is riven; its furthest rootlets quiver; the very earth
trembles, and loses courage to hold it; “up comes the stump, or
down go the niggers!”
The success of the operation evidently depends mainly on the
discretion and skill of the diver. My informant, who thought that he
removed last summer over a thousand stumps, using for the purpose
seventy kegs of gunpowder, employed several divers, all of them
negroes. Some of them could remain under water, and work there to
better advantage than others; but all were admirably skilful, and this,
much in proportion to the practice and experience they had had.
They wear, when diving, three or four pairs of flannel drawers and
shirts. Nothing is required of them when they are not wanted to go to
the bottom, and, while the other hands are at work, they may lounge,
or go to sleep in the boat, which they do, in their wet garments.
Whenever a diver displays unusual hardihood, skill, or perseverance,
he is rewarded with whisky; or, as they are commonly allowed, while
diving, as much whisky as they want, with money. Each of them
would generally get every day from a quarter to half a dollar in this
way, above the wages paid for them, according to the skill and
industry with which they had worked. On this account, said my
informant, “the harder the work you give them to do, the better they
like it.” His divers very frequently had intermittent fevers, but would
very rarely let this keep them out of their boats. Even in the midst of
a severe “shake,” they would generally insist that they were “well
enough to dive.”
What! slaves eager to work, and working cheerfully, earnestly, and
skilfully? Even so. Being for the time managed as freemen, their
ambition stimulated by wages, suddenly they, too, reveal sterling
manhood, and honour their Creator.
Norfolk, Jan. 19th.—The market gardens at Norfolk—which have

been profitably supplying New York markets with poor early
vegetables, and half-hardy luxuries for several years past—do not
differ at all from market gardens elsewhere. They are situated in
every direction for many miles from the city, offering a striking
contrast, in all respects, to the large, old-fashioned Virginian farms,
among which they are scattered.
On one of the latter, of over a thousand acres, a friend told me he
had seen the negroes moving long, strawy manure with shovels, and
upon inquiry found there was not a dung-fork on the place.
The soil is a poor sandy loam, and manure is brought by shipping
from Baltimore, as well as from the nearer towns, to enrich it. The
proprietors of the market gardens are nearly all from New Jersey,
and brought many of their old white labourers with them. Except at
picking-time, when everything possessing fingers is in demand, they
do not often employ slaves.
The Norfolk Argus says that, from about the 20th June to the 20th
July, from 2,000 to 2,500 barrels of potatoes will be shipped daily
from that city to Philadelphia and New York, together with 300 to 500
barrels of cucumbers, musk-melons, etc.
Norfolk, Jan. 20th.—While driving a chaise from Portsmouth to Deep

River, I picked up on the road a jaded-looking negro, who proved to
be a very intelligent and good-natured fellow. His account of the
lumber business, and of the life of the lumbermen in the swamps, in
answer to my questions, was clear and precise, and was afterwards
verified by information obtained from his master.
He told me that his name was Joseph, that he belonged (as
property) to a church in one of the inland counties, and that he was
hired from the trustees of the church by his present master. He
expressed contentment with his lot, but great unwillingness to be
sold to go on to a plantation. He liked to “mind himself,” as he did in
the swamps. Whether he would still more prefer to be entirely his
own master, I did not ask.
The Dismal Swamps are noted places of refuge for runaway
negroes. They were formerly peopled in this way much more than at
present; a systematic hunting of them with dogs and guns having
been made by individuals who took it up as a business about ten
years ago. Children were born, bred, lived, and died here. Joseph
Church told me he had seen skeletons, and had helped to bury
bodies recently dead. There were people in the swamps still, he
thought, that were the children of runaways, and who had been
runaways themselves “all their lives.” What a life it must be! born
outlaws; educated self-stealers; trained from infancy to be constantly
in dread of the approach of a white man as a thing more fearful than
wild cats or serpents, or even starvation.
There can be but few, however, if any, of these “natives” left. They
cannot obtain the means of supporting life without coming often
either to the outskirts to steal from the plantations, or to the
neighbourhood of the camps of the lumbermen. They depend much
upon the charity or the wages given them by the latter. The poorer
white men, owning small tracts of the swamps, will sometimes
employ them, and the negroes frequently. In the hands of either they
are liable to be betrayed to the negro-hunters. Joseph said that they
had huts in “back places,” hidden by bushes, and difficult of access;
he had, apparently, been himself quite intimate with them. When the
shingle negroes employed them, he told me, they made them get up
logs for them, and would give them enough to eat, and some
clothes, and perhaps two dollars a month in money. But some, when
they owed them money, would betray them, instead of paying them.
I asked if they were ever shot. “Oh, yes,” he said; “when the hunters
saw a runaway, if he tried to get from them, they would call out to
him, that if he did not stop they would shoot, and if he did not, they
would shoot, and sometimes kill him.
“But some on ’em would rather be shot than be took, sir,” he added,
simply.
A farmer living near the swamp confirmed this account, and said he
knew of three or four being shot in one day.
No particular breed of dogs is needed for hunting negroes: blood-
hounds, fox-hounds, bull-dogs, and curs were used,[24] and one
white man told me how they were trained for it, as if it were a
common or notorious practice. They are shut up when puppies, and
never allowed to see a negro except while training to catch him. A
negro is made to run from them, and they are encouraged to follow
him until he gets into a tree, when meat is given them. Afterwards
they learn to follow any particular negro by scent, and then a shoe or
a piece of clothing is taken off a negro, and they learn to find by
scent who it belongs to, and to tree him, etc. All this the farmer told
me. I don’t think dogs are employed in the ordinary “driving” in the
swamp, but only to overtake some particular slave, as soon as
possible, after it is discovered that he has fled from a plantation.
Joseph said that it was easy for the drivers to tell a fugitive from a
regularly employed slave in the swamps.
“How do they know them?”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, dey looks strange.”
“Skeared like, you know, sir, and kind o’ strange, cause dey hasn’t
much to eat, and ain’t decent [not decently clothed], like we is.”
When the hunters take a negro who has not a pass, or “free papers,”
and they don’t know whose slave he is, they confine him in jail, and
advertise him. If no one claims him within a year he is sold to the
highest bidder, at a public sale, and this sale gives title in law against
any subsequent claimant.
The form of the advertisements used in such cases is shown by the
following, which are cut from North Carolina newspapers, published
in counties adjoining the Dismals. Such advertisements are quite as
common in the papers of many parts of the Slave States as those of
horses or cattle “Taken up” in those of the North:—
WAS TAKEN UP and committed to the Jail of Halifax
County, on the 26th day of May, a dark coloured boy, who
says his name is Jordan Artis. Said boy says he was
born free, and was bound out to William Beale, near
Murfreesboro, Hertford County, N.C., and is now 21 years
of age. The owner is requested to come forward, prove
property, pay charges, and take the said boy away, within
the time prescribed by law; otherwise he will be dealt with
as the law directs.
O. P. SHELL, Jailer.
Halifax County,
N.C., June
8,1855.
TAKEN UP,
AND COMMITTED to the Jail of New Hanover County, on
the 5th of March, 1855, a Negro Man, who says his name
is EDWARD LLOYD. Said negro is about 35 or 40 years
old, light complected, 5 feet 9½ inches high, slim built,
upper fore teeth out; says he is a Mason by trade, that he
is free, and belongs in Alexandria, Va., that he served his
time at the Mason business under Mr. Wm. Stuart, of
Alexandria. He was taken up and committed as a
runaway. His owner is notified to come forward, prove
property, pay charges, and take him away, or he will be
dealt with as the law directs.
E. D. HALL, Sheriff.
In the same paper with the last are four advertisements of
Runaways: two of them, as specimens, I transcribe.
$200 REWARD.
RAN AWAY from the employ of Messrs. Holmes & Brown,
on Sunday night, 20th inst., a negro man named YATNEY
or MEDICINE, belonging to the undersigned. Said boy is
stout built, about 5 feet 4 inches high, 22 years old, and
dark complected, and has the appearance, when walking
slow, of one leg being a little shorter than the other. He
was brought from Chapel Hill, and is probably lurking
either in the neighbourhood of that place, or Beatty’s
Bridge, in Bladen County.
The above reward will be paid for evidence sufficient to
convict any white person of harbouring him, or a reward of
$25 for his apprehension and confinement in any Jail in
the State, so that I can get him, or for his delivery to me in
Wilmington.
J. T. SCHONWALD.
RUNAWAY
FROM THE SUBSCRIBER, on the 27th of May, his negro
boy ISOME. Said boy is about 21 years of age; rather light
complexion; very coarse hair; weight about 150 lbs.;
height about 5 feet 6 or 7 inches; rather pleasing
countenance; quick and easy spoken; rather a downcast
look. It is thought that he is trying to make his way to
Franklin county, N.C., where he was hired in Jan. last, of
Thomas J. Blackwell. A liberal Reward will be given for his
confinement in any Jail in North or South Carolina, or to
any one who will give information where he can be found.
W. H. PRIVETT,
Canwayboro’,
S.C.
Handbills, written or printed, offering rewards for the return of
runaway slaves, are to be constantly seen at nearly every court-
house, tavern, and post-office. The frequency with which these
losses must occur, however, on large plantations, is most strongly
evidenced by the following paragraph from the domestic-news
columns of the Fayetteville Observer. A man who would pay these
prices must anticipate frequent occasion to use his purchase.
“Mr. J. L. Bryan, of Moore county, sold at public auction,
on the 20th instant, a pack of ten hounds, trained for
hunting runaways, for the sum of $1,540. The highest
price paid for any one dog was $301; lowest price, $75;
average for the ten, $154. The terms of sale were six
months’ credit, with approved security, and interest from
date.”
The newspapers of the South-western States frequently contain
advertisements similar to the following, which is taken from the West
Tennessee Democrat:—
BLOOD-HOUNDS.—I have TWO of the FINEST DOGS
for CATCHING NEGROES in the Southwest. They can
take the trail TWELVE HOURS after the NEGRO HAS
PASSED, and catch him with ease. I live just four miles
southwest of Boliver, on the road leading from Boliver to
Whitesville. I am ready at all times to catch runaway
negroes.—March 2, 1853.
DAVID TURNER.
The largest and best “hotel” in Norfolk had been closed, shortly
before I was there, from want of sufficient patronage to sustain it,
and I was obliged to go to another house, which, though quite
pretending, was shamefully kept. The landlord paid scarcely the
smallest attention to the wants of his guests, turned his back when
inquiries were made of him, and replied insolently to complaints and
requests. His slaves were far his superiors in manners and morals;
but, not being one quarter in number what were needed, and
consequently not being able to obey one quarter of the orders that
were given them, their only study was to disregard, as far as they
would be allowed to, all requisitions upon their time and labour. The
smallest service could only be obtained by bullying or bribing. Every
clean towel that I got during my stay was a matter of special
negotiation.
I was first put in a very small room, in a corner of the house, next
under the roof. The weather being stormy, and the roof leaky, water
was frequently dripping from the ceiling upon the bed and driving in
at the window, so as to stand in pools upon the floor. There was no
fire-place in the room; the ladies’ parlour was usually crowded by
ladies and then friends, among whom I had no acquaintance, and,
as it was freezing cold, I was obliged to spend most of my time in the
stinking bar-room, where the landlord, all the time, sat with his boon
companions, smoking and chewing and talking obscenely.
This crew of old reprobates frequently exercised their indignation
upon Mrs. Stowe, and other “Infidel abolitionists;” and, on Sunday,
having all attended church, afterwards mingled with their ordinary
ribaldry laudations of the “evangelical” character of the sermons they
had heard.
On the night I arrived, I was told that I would be provided, the next
morning, with a room in which I could have a fire, and a similar
promise was given me every twelve hours, for five days, before I
obtained it; then, at last, I had to share it with two strangers.
When I left, the same petty sponging operation was practised upon
me as at Petersburg. The breakfast, for which half a dollar had been
paid, was not ready until an hour after I had been called; and, when
ready, consisted of cold salt fish; dried slices of bread and tainted
butter; coffee, evidently made the day before and half re-warmed; no
milk, the milkman not arriving so early in the morning, the servant
said; and no sooner was I seated than the choice was presented to
me, by the agitated book-keeper, of going without such as this, or of
losing the train, and so being obliged to stay in the house twenty-four
hours longer.
Of course I dispensed with the breakfast, and hurried off with the
porter, who was to take my baggage on a wheelbarrow to the station.
The station was across the harbour, in Portsmouth. Notwithstanding
all the haste I could communicate to him, we reached the ferry-
landing just as the boat left, too late by three seconds. I looked at my
watch; it lacked but twenty minutes of the time at which the landlord
and the book-keeper and the breakfast-table waiter and the railroad
company’s advertisements had informed me that the train left.
“Nebber mine, massa,” said the porter, “dey won’t go widout ’ou—
Baltimore boat haant ariv yet; dey doan go till dat come in, sueh.”
Somewhat relieved by this assurance, and by the arrival of others at
the landing, who evidently expected to reach the train, I went into the
market and got a breakfast from the cake and fruit stalls of the
negro-women.
In twenty minutes the ferry-boat returned, and after waiting some
time at the landing, put out again; but when midway across the
harbour, the wheels ceased to revolve, and for fifteen minutes we
drifted with the tide. The fireman had been asleep, the fires had got
low, and the steam given out. I observed that the crew, including the
master or pilot, and the engineer, were all negroes.
We reached the railroad station about half an hour after the time at
which the train should have left. There were several persons,
prepared for travelling, waiting about it, but there was no sign of a
departing train, and the ticket-office was not open. I paid the porter,
sent him back, and was added to the number of the waiters.
The delay was for the Baltimore boat, which arrived in an hour after
the time the train was advertised, unconditionally, to start, and the
first forward movement was more than an hour and a half behind
time. A brakeman told me this delay was not very unusual, and that
an hour’s waiting might be commonly calculated upon with safety.
The distance from Portsmouth to Welden, N.C., eighty miles, was
run in three hours and twenty minutes—twenty-five miles an hour.
The road, which was formerly a very poor and unprofitable one, was
bought up a few years ago, mainly, I believe, by Boston capital, and
reconstructed in a substantial manner. The grades are light, and
there are few curves. Fare, 2¾ cents a mile.
At a way-station a trader had ready a company of negroes, intended
to be shipped South; but the “servants’ car” being quite full already,
they were obliged to be left for another train. As we departed from
the station, I stood upon the platform of the rear car with two other
men. One said to the other:—
“That’s a good lot of niggers.”
“Damn’d good; I only wish they belonged to me.”
I entered the car, and took a seat, and presently they followed, and
sat near me. Continuing their conversation thus commenced, they
spoke of their bad luck in life. One appeared to have been a bar-
keeper; the other an overseer. One said the highest wages he had
ever been paid were two hundred dollars a year, and that year he
hadn’t laid up a cent. Soon after, the other, speaking with much
energy and bitterness, said:—
“I wish to God, old Virginny was free of all the niggers.”
“It would be a good thing if she was.”
“Yes, sir; and, I tell you, it would be a damn’d good thing for us poor
fellows.”
“I reckon it would, myself.”
When we stopped at Weldon, a man was shouting from a stage-

coach, “Passengers for Gaston! Hurry up! Stage is waiting!” As he
repeated this the third time, I threw up to him my two valises, and
proceeded to climb to the box, to take my seat.
“You are in a mighty hurry, aint ye?”
“Didn’t you say the stage was waiting?”
“If ye’r goin’ ter get any dinner to-day, better get it here; won’t have
much other chance. Be right smart about it, too.”
“Then you are not going yet?”
“You can get yer dinner, if ye want to.”
“You’ll call me, will you, when you are ready to go?”
“I shan’t go without ye, ye needn’t be afeard—go ’long in, and get yer
dinner; this is the place, if anywar;—don’t want to go without yer
dinner, do ye?”
Before arriving at Weldon, a handbill, distributed by the proprietors of
this inn, had been placed in my hands, from which I make the
following extracts:—
“We pledge our word of honour, as gentlemen, that if the
fare at our table be inferior to that on the table of our
enterprising competitor, we will not receive a cent from the
traveller, but relinquish our claims to pay, as a merited
forfeit, for what we would regard as a wanton imposition
upon the rights and claims of the unsuspecting traveller.
“We have too much respect for the Ladies of our House, to
make even a remote allusion to their domestic duties in a
public circular. It will not however, be regarded indelicate
in us to say, that the duties performed by them have been,
and are satisfactory to us, and, as far as we know, to the
public. And we will only add, in this connection, that we
take much pleasure in superintending both our “Cook-
House” and Table in person, and in administering in
person to the wants of our guests.
“We have made considerable improvements in our House
of late, and those who wish to remain over at Weldon, will
find, with us, airy rooms clean beds, brisk fires, and
attentive and orderly servants, with abundance of FRESH
OYSTERS during the season, and every necessary and
luxury that money can procure.
“It is not our wish to deceive strangers nor others; and if,
on visiting our House, they do not find things as here
represented, they can publish us to the world as
impostors, and the ignominy will be ours.”
Going into the house, I found most of the passengers by the train at
dinner, and the few negro boys and girls in too much of a hurry to
pay attention to any one in particular. The only palatable viand within
my reach was some cold sweet potatoes; of these I made a slight
repast, paid the landlord, who stood like a sentry in the doorway, half
a dollar, and in fifteen minutes, by my watch, from the time I had
entered, went out, anxious to make sure of my seat on the box, for
the coach was so small that but one passenger could be
conveniently carried outside. The coach was gone.
“O, yes, sir,” said the landlord, hardly disguising his satisfaction;
“gone—yes, sir, some time ago; you was in to dinner, was you, sir—
pity! you’ll have to stay over till to-morrow now, won’t you?”
“I suppose so,” said I, hardly willing to give up my intention to sleep
in Raleigh that night, even to secure a clean bed and fresh oysters.
“Which road does the stage go upon?”
“Along the county road.”
“Which is that—this way through the woods?”
“Yes, sir.—Carried off your baggage did he?—Pity! Suppose he
forgot you. Pity!”
“Thank you—yes, I suppose he did. Is it a pretty good road?”
“No, sir, ’taint first-rate—good many pretty bad slews. You might go
round by the Petersburg Railroad, to-morrow. You’d overtake your
baggage at Gaston.”
“Thank you. It was not a very fast team, I know. I’m going to take a
little run; and, if I shouldn’t come back before night, you needn’t keep
a bed for me. Good day, sir.”
In about half an hour I overhauled the coach: as I came up, the
driver hailed me—
“Hallo! that you?”
“Why did not you wait for me, or call me when you wanted to go, as
you promised?”
“Reckoned yer was inside—didn’t look in, coz I asked if ’twas all
right, and somebody, this ’ere gentleman here”—[who had got my
seat]—“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘all right;’ so I reckoned ’twas, and driv along.
Mustn’t blame me. Ortn’t to be so long swallerin’ yer dinner—mind,
next time!”
The road was as bad as anything under the name of a road can be
conceived to be. Wherever the adjoining swamps, fallen trees,
stumps, and plantation fences would admit of it, the coach was
driven, with a great deal of dexterity, out of the road. When the
wheels sunk in the mud, below the hubs, we were sometimes
requested to get out and walk. An upset seemed every moment
inevitable. At length, it came; and the driver, climbing on to the upper
side, opened the door, and asked—
“Got mixed up some in here then, didn’t ye? Ladies, hurt any? Well,
come, get out here; don’t want to stay here all night I reckon, do ye?
—Aint nothing broke, as I see. We’ll right her right up. Nary durn’d
rail within a thousan’ mile, I don’t s’pose; better be lookin’ roun’; got
to get somethin’ for a pry.”
In four hours after I left the hotel at Weldon, the coach reached the
bank of the Roanoke, a distance of fourteen miles, and stopped.
“Here we are,” said the driver, opening the door.
“Where are we—not in Gaston?”
“Durned nigh it. That ere’s Gaston, over thar; and you jast holler, and
they’ll come over arter you in the boat.”
Gaston was a mile above us, and on the other side of the river.
Nearly opposite was a house, and a scow drawn up on the beach;
the distance across the river was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile. When
the driver had got the luggage off, he gathered his reins, and said—
“Seems to me them ther gol-durned lazy niggers aint a goin’ to come
over arter you now; if they won’t you’d better go up to the railroad
bridge, some of ye, and get a boat, or else go down here to Free
Town; some of them cussed free niggers ’ll be glad of the job, I no
doubt.”
“But, confound it, driver! you are not going to leave us here, are you?
we paid to be carried to Gaston.”
“Can’t help it; you are clus to Gaston, any how, and if any man thinks
he’s goin’ to hev me drive him up to the bridge to-night, he’s
damnably mistaken, he is, and I aint a goin’ to do it not for no man, I
ain’t.”
And away he drove, leaving us, all strangers, in a strange country,
just at the edge of night, far from any house, to “holler.”
The only way to stop him was to shoot him; and, as we were all good
citizens, and travelled with faith in the protection of the law, and not
like knights-errant, armed for adventure, we could not do that.
Good citizens? No, we were not; for we have all, to this day,
neglected to prosecute the fellow, or his employers. It would, to be
sure, have cost us ten times any damages we should have been
awarded; but, if we had been really good citizens, we should have
been as willing to sacrifice the necessary loss, as knights-errant of
old were to risk life to fight bloody giants. And, until many of us can
have the nobleness to give ourselves the trouble and expense of
killing off these impudent highwaymen of our time, at law, we have
all got to suffer in their traps and stratagems.
We soon saw the “gol-durned lazy niggers” come to their scow, and
after a scrutiny of our numbers, and a consultation among
themselves, which evidently resulted in the conclusion that the job
wouldn’t pay, go back.
When it began to grow dark, leaving me as a baggage-guard, the
rest of the coach’s company walked up the bank of the river, and
crossed by a railroad bridge to Gaston. One of them afterwards
returned with a gang of negroes, whom he had hired, and a large
freight-boat, into which, across the snags which lined the shore, we
passed all the baggage. Among the rest, there were some very large
and heavy chests, belonging to two pretty women, who were moving,
with their effects; and, although they remained in our company all the
next day, they not only neglected to pay their share of the boat and
negro-hire, but forgot to thank us, or even gratefully to smile upon
us, for our long toil in the darkness for them.
Working up the swollen stream of the Roanoke, with setting-poles
and oars, we at length reached Gaston. When I bought my tickets at
the station in Portsmouth, I said, “I will take tickets to any place this
side of Raleigh at which I can arrive before night. I wish to avoid
travelling after dark.” “You can go straight through to Raleigh, before
dark,” said the clerk. “You are sure of that?” “Yes, sir.” On reaching
Gaston, I inquired at what time the train for Raleigh had passed: “At
three o’clock.”
According to the advertisement, it should have passed at two
o’clock; and, under the most favourable circumstances, it could not
have been possible for us, leaving Portsmouth at the time we did, to
reach Gaston before four o’clock, or Raleigh in less than twenty-
eight hours after the time promised. The next day, I asked one of the
railroad men how often the connection occurred, which is advertised
in the Northern papers, as if it were a certain thing to take place at
Gaston. “Not very often, sir; it hain’t been once, in the last two
weeks.” Whenever the connection is not made, all passengers whom
these railroad freebooters have drawn into their ambush, are obliged
to remain over a day, at Gaston; for, as is to be supposed, with such
management, the business of the road will support but one train a
day.
The route by sea, from Baltimore to Portsmouth, and thence by
these lines, is advertised as the surest, cheapest, and most
expeditious route to Raleigh. Among my stage companions, were
some who lived beyond Raleigh. This was Friday. They would now
not reach Raleigh till Saturday night, and such as could not
conscientiously travel on Sunday, would be detained from home two
days longer than if they had come the land route. One of them lived
some eighty miles beyond Raleigh, and intended to proceed by a
coach, which was to leave Saturday morning. He would probably be
now detained till the following Wednesday, as the coach left Raleigh
but twice a week.
The country from Portsmouth to Gaston, eighty miles, partly in
Virginia, and partly in North Carolina, is almost all pine forest, or
cypress swamp; and on the little land that is cultivated, I saw no
indication of any other crop than maize. The soil is light and poor.
Between Weldon and Gaston there are heavier soils, and we passed
several cotton fields, and planters’ mansions. On the low, flat lands
bordering the banks of the Roanoke, the soil is of the character of
that of James River, fine, fertile, mellow loam; and the maize crop
seemed to have been heavy.
Gaston is a village of some twenty houses, shops, and cabins,
besides the railroad storehouses, the hotel, and a nondescript
building, which may be either a fancy barn, or a little church, getting
high. From the manner in which passengers are forced, by the
management of the trains arriving here, to patronize it, the hotel, I
presume, belongs to the railroad companies. It is ill-kept, but affords
some entertainment from its travesty of certain metropolitan
vulgarities. I was chummed with a Southern gentleman, in a very
small room. Finding the sheets on both our beds had been soiled by
previous occupants, he made a row about it with the servants, and,
after a long delay, had them changed; then observing that it was
probably the mistress’s fault, and not the servants’, he paid the
negro, whom he had been berating, for his trouble.
Among our inside passengers, in the stage-coach, was a free
coloured woman; she was treated in no way differently from the
white ladies. My room-mate said this was entirely customary at the
South, and no Southerner would ever think of objecting to it.
Notwithstanding which, I have known young Southerners to get very
angry because negroes were not excluded from the public
conveyances in which they had taken passage themselves, at the
North; and I have always supposed that when they were so
excluded, it was from fear of offending Southern travellers, more
than anything else.[25]

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Phraseology and Style in Subgenres of

the Novel: A Synthesis of Corpus and

The Op-Ed Novel: A Literary History of Post-Franco

Corpus-based Translation and Interpreting Studies in

An Eye-Tracking Study of Equivalent Effect in

Engineering Legitimacy 1st ed. Edition Iva Petkova

Fascinating Transitions in Multilingual Newscasts: A

Maternal Sentencing and the Rights of the Child 1st ed.

New Voices and New Perspectives in International

The In-Between Spaces of Asylum and Migration: A

ISBN 978-3-030-23743-1 ISBN 978-3-030-23744-8 (eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

Cover credit: Marina Lohrbach_shutterstock.com

The genesis of this book was in a four-year collaborative research project

1https://phraseorom.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr. The PhraseoRom project (2016–2020), led by

3Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

compares and contrasts the stylistic practices encountered in British,

Presentation of the Chapters

Chapter 1, written by I. Novakova and D. Siepmann, outlines lin-

Chapter 9 (S. Dyka, L. Fesenmeier and M. Gymnich) studies the

Grenoble, France Iva Novakova

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Professor Marion Gymnich

1 Literary Style, Corpus Stylistic, and Lexico-Grammatical

2 The Notion of Motif Where Disciplines Intersect:

3 Key Adverbs and Adverbial Motifs in English Fiction

4 Speech Verbs in French and English Novels 83

5 Alcohol and Tobacco Consumption in English

6 French and American Science Fiction During

7 Science Fiction versus Fantasy: A Semantic

8 Reading and Writing as Motifs in English

9 Dans un état de NP and in a state of NP: Bridging

10 Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach for

Appendix A: Corpora 287

Appendix B: Discursive Functions 291

Sascha Diwersy is associate professor of French linguistics in the

Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. His main research interests are in

Clémence Jacquot is an associate professor of linguistics and stylis-

French-German Emolex (2010–2013) research project EMOLEX on

CONT Contrast corpus

Fig. 2 “Other” types of alcohol in the English and French

Table 3 Semantic dimensions and values used

significantly, this assumption of a functional difference without a formal

to linguistic features and their functions but in which they failed to

2.2 Approaches to Idiomaticity and Phraseology

As we have just seen, while there is a dearth of studies on the lexi-

Construction grammars, on the other hand, treat language as an

2.3 Stylistics and Theories of Literary Genre

Textual genres are currently the subject of interdisciplinary studies in

3 Corpora and Methodology

novels, subdivided into the six subgenres of crime, science fiction,

– the RLTs5 (Recurrent Lexico-syntactic Trees) method, integrated into

The RLTs methodology automatically extracts statistically significant

(Arbres Lexico-syntaxiques récurrents; Kraif 2016).

is by now a well-established concept in corpus linguistics: A word must

4 Innovative Features of the Book

– display lexico-syntactic regularities and variations at the syntagmatic

units that can be described at the levels of lexico-grammar, semantics

Motifs as we understand them cannot be identified by fully auto-

The present volume is intended for linguists, translation and literary

Scholes, Robert. 1982. Semiotics and Interpretation. New Haven: Yale

This success can be gauged by the proposals and innovations advanced

PhraseoRom project on which all of the contributions in this book are

2 Motif in Folkloristics and Narratology

2.1 Tales and Popular Narratives

CONT Contrast corpus

2.2 Approaches to Idiomaticity and Phraseology

2.3 Stylistics and Theories of Literary Genre

3 Corpora and Methodology

4 Innovative Features of the Book

2 Motif in Folkloristics and Narratology

2.1 Tales and Popular Narratives

2.2 The Russian Formalists

2.3 Some Developments of the Formalist Approach