Linguistic function and literary style: an inquiry into the language of William Golding's The Inheritors

This chapter shows a modern linguistic delineation of the nature of foregrounding as being both a textual and an interpretative matter: though the sense of a text is dependent on stylistic features, any single set of features can create a norm and also be used to deviate from it. The restriction to a single participant also applies to mental process clauses. This category includes perception, cognition, and reaction, as well as the rather distinct sub-category of verbalization; and such clauses in English typically contain a ‘phenomenon,’ that which is seen, understood, liked, etc. The feeling of frustration is perhaps further reinforced by the constant reference to complex mental activities of cognition and verbalization. The Inheritors has provided a perspective for a linguistic inquiry of a kind whose relevance and significance is notoriously difficult to assess: an inquiry into the language of a full-length prose work.