Register variation in William Godwin: a multidimensional analysis

Abstract

Register variation studies have varied the way of producing the analysis in recent years showing different perspectives on how to consider a piece of writing or oral production. Biber p roposes a way to analyse texts which gives more reliable results , the Multi - Dimensional (MD) linguistic analysis. This methodological approach identifies the agreeing and disagreeing treats by means of dimensions, used to trace different degrees of formali ty in spoken o r written registers. For this reason, in this analysis the MD approach has been used to illustrate th e divergence between the registers of both texts , one being far more informal than the other . Upon examination of these sources, it becomes o bvious that the targeted audience of both is different showing a great amount of variation in their language and structure as it was expected by the author. The purpose of this paper resides on tracing register variation analysing a selection of linguistic features and chapters. Different written registers were selected using two books from t he eighteenth century written by the same author, William Godwin. One them is a narrative, Caleb Williams, and the other is a theoretical work, An Enquiry Concerning Po litical Justice . This means that the present study , by analysing both books with the MD approach , reinforces the common belief that depending on the reader, whether he was educated or not ( with an increasing rise of the middle - class reading public ), the la nguage varies , therefore its register, so it can reach its recipie nts.