In this paper I analyse the language of Charles Darwin’s Red Notebook in order to highlight the most typical features of these texts (summarised in § 2), which clearly underline the character of intimate, self-oriented writing. Ellipsis is definitely the most distinguishing characteristic, and the aim of my contribution is just to analyse and discuss elliptical utterances. My approach hinges on functionalism and on cognitivism, and pivots on markedness/complexity (basically as developed by Merlini Barbaresi (1988, 2003)), and on textual perspectives (see de Beaugrande & Dressler (1981)). In § 3, I criticise the formal descriptions of ellipsis which are commonly found in most contemporary research and also argue against Halliday & Hasan’s view that ellipsis is simply an instrument of textual cohesion, since, in my opinion, contextual factors (i.e., extratextual ones ¾ in our case, especially the situation of occurrence and the addressee) have an equally significant role. Then, ellipsis is considered in connection with markedness and complexity, and also the role of preferences is considered. In § 4, I deal with markedness and textual parameters, and, in § 5, I analyse all the cases of lexical ellipsis occurring in the Red Notebook in order to support my argumentation. In § 6, other interesting cases of economy in language use are examined and, finally, in § 7, I answer the issues raised in the paper.

The Language of Charles Darwin's Red Notebook

BERTACCA, ANTONIO
2010-01-01

Abstract

In this paper I analyse the language of Charles Darwin’s Red Notebook in order to highlight the most typical features of these texts (summarised in § 2), which clearly underline the character of intimate, self-oriented writing. Ellipsis is definitely the most distinguishing characteristic, and the aim of my contribution is just to analyse and discuss elliptical utterances. My approach hinges on functionalism and on cognitivism, and pivots on markedness/complexity (basically as developed by Merlini Barbaresi (1988, 2003)), and on textual perspectives (see de Beaugrande & Dressler (1981)). In § 3, I criticise the formal descriptions of ellipsis which are commonly found in most contemporary research and also argue against Halliday & Hasan’s view that ellipsis is simply an instrument of textual cohesion, since, in my opinion, contextual factors (i.e., extratextual ones ¾ in our case, especially the situation of occurrence and the addressee) have an equally significant role. Then, ellipsis is considered in connection with markedness and complexity, and also the role of preferences is considered. In § 4, I deal with markedness and textual parameters, and, in § 5, I analyse all the cases of lexical ellipsis occurring in the Red Notebook in order to support my argumentation. In § 6, other interesting cases of economy in language use are examined and, finally, in § 7, I answer the issues raised in the paper.
2010
Bertacca, Antonio
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11568/138200
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