La lingüística de corpus como herramienta de análisis literario: La narración retrospectiva de los silencios en las novelas de Galdós

Abstract

This article looks into the potential of corpuslinguistic approaches in the analysis of literary texts written in Spanish. To do so, we have built a corpus of study made up of Pérez Galdós’ fictional narratives (approximately 6.4 million words), which have been scrutinized using the software WordSmith Tools (Scott, 2016b). Specifically, the analysis has focused on the reporting of pauses surrounding characters’ words. As will be shown, Galdós frequently narrates characters’ pauses retrospectively, which not only suggests a stylistic trait hitherto unnoticed in his literary exegesis, but also unveils a Dickensian resonance in his craftsmanship so far unremarked. The analysis is meant to make a contribution to the still-emerging field of corpus stylistics in Spanish, illustrating how the analysis of literary works can benefit greatly from the use of innovative corpus tools.

Keywords

• corpus linguistics
• spanish literature
• pauses
• benito pérez galdós
• style.