Vol. 72 No. 3 (2024): NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics
Articles

A Corpus Linguistic Approach for Onomastics in Drama: Proper Names and Naming in Edward Childs Carpenter’s The Cinderella-Man

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  • Maya Sfeir
Maya Sfeir
American University of Beirut
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/names.2024.2615

Published 2024-09-11

Keywords

  • corpus linguistics,
  • literary onomastics,
  • proper names,
  • family names,
  • anthroponomy,
  • drama
    • ...More
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Copyright (c) 2024 Maya Sfeir

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Proper names and naming are an integral component of dramatic texts. However, to date, scant and fragmented scholarly attention has been given to the connection between proper names and key dramatic elements—namely, stage directions, characterization, and plot progression. This paper adopts corpus linguistics as a method to show how a corpus linguistic approach to onomastics in drama can, on the one hand, provide analysts with a scoping overview of names and naming in plays, and, on the other hand, offer a richer insight into core dramatic elements. Using as a case study Edward Childs Carpenter’s play The Cinderella-Man (1915), it argues that corpus analysis and visualization techniques such as keyword analysis, frequency analysis, concordance analysis, collocation analysis, and dispersion plot analysis can enrich the study of names and naming in drama. The paper contributes to and extends recent research that has called for the incorporation of corpus linguistic approaches in onomastics research.

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