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- Title
Interjections in the Performance of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
- Authors
O’Connell, Daniel; Kowal, Sabine
- Abstract
Three data sets of primary and secondary interjections were compared: (1) the original interjections written into the text of Jane Austen’s (1813/1994) novel Pride and prejudice; (2) the interjections read aloud in commercial recordings by six professional readers of the entire text of the novel; (3) the interjections spoken by actresses and actors in the film production (Birtwistle and Langton in Pride and prejudice [TV Mini-series]. London: BBC TV, 1995) whose script, despite modest selectiveness, adheres most closely of all film versions to Austen’s original text. Overall, the respective frequencies of occurrence of interjections were 136 < 141 < 398. Of the 136 interjections in Austen’s printed text, 96% were attributable to women’s roles, particularly Elizabeth Bennet and her mother. The second of these figures (141) is an average across all six readers. Hence, readers added a very modest number of interjections. But the actresses and actors added a large number of interjections. The dramatic oral expressiveness of the film performance is largely carried by and reflected in the actresses’ and to a lesser extent in the actors’ use of these primary interjections. These findings can well be related to Nübling’s (Zeitschrift für Semiotik 26:11–45, 2004, Duden: Die Grammatik (pp 573–640). Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 2005) hypothesis of a spectrum of interjectional expressivity. But Ameka’s (J Pragmat 18:101–118, 1992) linguistic hypothesis that pauses will both precede and follow interjections was once again found to be empirically groundless. A large percentage (96%) of the interjections in the film performance served the function of initializing various units of discourse, either after a pause before articulatory phrases, or before a sentence and/or turn. Both the emotional and initiating functions of interjections are characteristic of conceptual and medial orality rather than of conceptual and medial literacy. Accordingly, their usage throws further light on a theory of spontaneous spoken discourse.
- Subjects
INTERJECTIONS (Grammar); PRIDE &; Prejudice (Book : Austen); AUSTEN, Jane, 1775-1817; DISCOURSE analysis; LITERACY
- Publication
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2010, Vol 39, Issue 4, p285
- ISSN
0090-6905
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10936-009-9138-y