A Corpus Driven Study of Adjectives in Sidhwaas Fiction
The present research is a corpus-based analysis of adjectives in Bapsi Sidhwa’s fiction. It is aimed at highlighting the various aspects of the usage of adjectives and their resultant effects in Sidhwian fiction. For this purpose, a corpus of Sidhwa’s fictional works has been compiled which has been analyzed with the help of Antconc 3.2.4 software. For a detailed scrutiny, the concordance lines have been explored thoroughly. The research, in an attempt to be in accordance with the procedure of corpus-based study, has relied on a detailed analysis of lexical items along with insights that have been gathered from keyword lists, clusters and n-grams, in order to strengthen the validity, collocations and colligation trends have also been analyzed. The in-depth study of the adjectives, the use of which is thought to be a distinguishing characteristics of Sidhwa, has been carried out to validate the so-called assumption that the rather excessive use of adjectives is a leading characteristic of female writers in general and Sidhwa’s writings in particular. The corpus analysis has lead the researchers to the findings that there seems to be an unusual usage of adjectives in Sidhwa’s fiction in quantitative terms but as far as their aptness is concerned, it can be asserted that their use can be justified according to the requirements of the text. The research has explored new vistas in corpus stylistics to endorse the insight of the literary theorists. The present research will help the literary critics, new researchers of the author, teachers, and students to understand the text from a more syntactical perspective.
