THE VERB IN THE INDIVIDUAL STYLE OF MARGARET ATWOOD

Abstract

The paper focuses on the study of the individual style of the Canadian author Margaret Atwood through the prism of verb usage. The variation of verbs used in literary texts, which affects the dynamics and rhythm of the narrative, becomes a key parameter for determining the author’s individual style. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the use of corpusbased methods makes it possible to identify latent features of verb use that are difficult to detect intuitively. The material was a corpus of the author’s prose works, which included 406 393 verb tokens. The quantitative analysis draws on corpus tools such as Sketch Engine and AntPConc. The absolute and relative frequencies of verb use, as well as the type/token ratio (ttr) have been calculated. The obtained statistics are compared with those of the reference corpus of the Strathy Corpus of Canadian English Fiction. The data analysis has shown that the normalized frequency of verb use in M. Atwood’s works (208 309 per 1 million) exceeds the one in the reference corpus, and the high ttr score (0.1) indicates a significant verb diversity. In addition to the quantitative parameters, the study has revealed qualitative features of verb usage, in particular: a tendency to avoid euphemisms, use of scientific and technical terminology, creation of metaphorical images, subjectification through modal verbs, creation of allusions through verb archaisms, and the author’s interpretations of the meaning of individual verbs with shades of irony and sarcasm. The functional potential of verbs in M. Atwood’s prose fiction involves their role in creating dynamics and tension, imagery, and emotional background. The key verbs in M. Atwood’s works shed light on the prevailing themes and ideas. The study emphasizes the importance of the Verb in the formation of M. Atwood’s individual style and delineates the prospects for deeper analysis with the application of modern computer technologies.