[Corpora-List] fiction dialogue in corpora

[Karin Axelsson]

Dear Corpora-List members,

I’m a PhD student planning to study tag questions in the BNC. I’d  
like to compare the use in fiction dialogue to that in spoken  
conversation. In order to compare frequencies I would need to know  
the proportion of dialogue, i.e. direct speech, in a sub-corpus of  
the written part restricted to the imaginative domain and book as  
medium of text (probably also restricted to the UK and Ireland as  
domicile of author and maybe also restricted to the latest period of  
time: 1985-1993)

Does anybody know how large the proportion of direct speech is in  
this sub-corpus?

If not, does anybody know how to find out the proportion of direct  
speech in such a sub-corpus?

Are there any corpora of just British fiction dialogue?

The best alternative I know of is the English original fiction part  
of the English-Norwegian Parallel Corpus, where direct speech is a  
possible search restriction. Unfortunately, there are as yet no  
figures for the proportion of direct speech in it.

Has anybody done research on the proportion of direct speech in  
British fiction? There appear to be large differences for different  
authors (and probably differences between fiction in different genres  
and different languages).

Many thanks in advance for answers to any of these questions.


Best regards,
Karin Axelsson
PhD student
English Deparment
Göteborg University
Sweden

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