Η κοινωνιόλεκτος των Ελλήνων μεταναστών της Αμερικής στη νουβέλα του Θανάση Βαλτινού Συναξάρι Ανδρέα Κορδοπάτη. Βιβλίο Πρώτο: Αμερική (1964). Μελέτη με τη συμβολή της μεθοδολογίας των Σωμάτων Κειμένων

Abstract

In the history of modern literary criticism, European Structuralism—most notably represented by R. Jakobson—pioneered a methodological approach to literary language in more objective terms. In a similar direction, yet extending to a broader field, the French structuralists, both linguists and literary theorists, sought to foreground the linguistic structures that constitute the text (Babiniotis, 1991: 37–38). In conjunction with these developments, literary studies became closely aligned with the science of Linguistics (Lyons, 2019: 55–65). For certain scholars, including Benveniste, literature is regarded as a form of linguistic expression (langage), and the author does not merely inherit or select the pronominal and verbal system but actively “plays” with it (Tadié, 2001: 284). These theoretical advances gave rise to a new interdisciplinary field of research, study, and interpretive practice. Within this framework, the present paper situates itself at the intersection of Linguistics and Literature. More specifically, it focuses on the language (or sociolect) of the first Greek immigrants to America, as represented in Thanasis Valtinos’ novella Chronicle of Andreas Kordopatis. Book One: America (1964). Employing the methodology of Corpus Linguistics (Sinclair, 1996; McEnery & Wilson, 1996), we identify and catalogue words and phrasal units that reproduce the speech patterns of these early immigrants. The resulting corpus forms a distinctive “lexicon” embedded within the text, shedding light on aspects of the author’s narrative strategy and intentionality, as well as offering additional insights into its narratological dimensions