This new, corpus-driven approach to the study of language and style of literary texts makes use of the Dickens' 4.6 million-word corpus for a detailed examination of patterns of lexical collocations. It offers new insights into Dickens' linguistic innovation, together with a nuanced understanding of his use of language to achieve stylistic ends. At the centre of the study is a close analysis of the two narratives in Bleak House , read as a focal point for consideration of Dickens' stylistic development through his whole writing life.

MASAHIRO HORI is Professor of English Linguistics and Stylistics at Kumamoto Gakuen University in Japan. He co-authored a series of books, My Word, with Gerald Sullivan, and co-translated Tobias Smollett's The Adventures of Roderick Random in Japanese.