"Saying Thus or to the Same Defect": A linguistic analysis of Shakespeare’s malapropisms


Keller, Mareike



DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2017.1283119
URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/CdrWhMMVTSW73Ca...
Additional URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315734963...
Document Type: Article
Year of publication: 2017
The title of a journal, publication series: English Studies : A Journal of English Language and Literature
Volume: 98
Issue number: 3
Page range: 244-261
Place of publication: London [u.a.]
Publishing house: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN: 0013-838X , 1744-4217
Publication language: English
Institution: School of Humanities > Anglistik IV - Anglistische Linguistik/Diachronie (Trips 2006-)
Subject: 820 English literature
Individual keywords (German): Malapropismus
Keywords (English): Shakespeare , malapropism
Abstract: This paper offers a closer look at malapropisms from a linguistic point of view. With a focus on processing cues it provides a corpus-based formal analysis of the structural and semantic properties of word-play involving the distortion or confusion of words. It also contains an account of how differences concerning the diachronic development of lexemes can help to differentiate between the malapropism proper on the one hand and similar phenomena on the other. With respect to linguistic and literary theory, the aim of this paper is to provide evidence-based arguments for a clear delimitation of the malapropism proper by highlighting the mechanisms and regularities Shakespeare employed so skilfully in order to evoke the impression of random confusion of learned words by not-so-learned characters.

Dieser Eintrag ist Teil der Universitätsbibliographie.




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