Investigating the stylistic relevance of adjective and verb simile markers

TL;DR

This paper examines the frequency and stylistic relevance of adjective and verb simile markers in British and French novels to identify which are most informative for stylistic analysis and how their usage differs across languages.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of less prominent simile markers in two languages, highlighting their stylistic significance and language-specific usage patterns.

Findings

Certain simile markers are more frequent and stylistically relevant

Differences in simile marker usage between British and French novels

Identification of key markers for stylistic analysis

Abstract

Similes play an important role in literary texts not only as rhetorical devices and as figures of speech but also because of their evocative power, their aptness for description and the relative ease with which they can be combined with other figures of speech (Israel et al. 2004). Detecting all types of simile constructions in a particular text therefore seems crucial when analysing the style of an author. Few research studies however have been dedicated to the study of less prominent simile markers in fictional prose and their relevance for stylistic studies. The present paper studies the frequency of adjective and verb simile markers in a corpus of British and French novels in order to determine which ones are really informative and worth including in a stylistic analysis. Furthermore, are those adjectives and verb simile markers used differently in both languages?