The various Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien are recognizably different in style, from the conversational narrative of The Hobbit to the high archaic style of The Book of Lost Tales. While these differences have been acknowledged by scholars, they have not previously been studied quantitatively.
What linguistic features characterize the variation in narrative style between Tolkien’s Book of Lost Tales, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion? To what extent is that variation also seen in the direct speech of characters of different races? For example, is the elevated style of The Silmarillion unique to that work or is it also the way the Elves speak in The Lord of the Rings? How did Tolkien’s writing style change from The Book of Lost Tales to the Quenta Silmarillion?
This talk will present the results of a study using corpus linguistic techniques such as Multidimensional Register Analysis to shed light on the shifts in Tolkien’s style across works and time.
