2.4 Further multi-dimensional studies

The dimensions identified by Biber reflect basic dimensions of variation in English that can be applied to new fields of study. So did Biber and Finegan in 1989. They used the MD analysis in a sociohistorical approach to analyse genres and their historical development in the last four centuries. Focussing on the evolution of different registers, they analysed essays, fiction and letters, investigating their linguistic characteristics conditioned by situational aspects (cf. Biber and Finegan 1989: 488). Biber describes these situational differences as follows:

Fiction and essays are both literate from a situational perspective: they are produced and edited carefully and directed towards a large, specific but unbounded and unindividuated audience. They differ in that fiction describes events and situations for purposes of aesthetic enjoyment, while essays have an informational and sometimes argumentative or persuasive purpose. Personal letters differ from both these genres in that they are interactive and directed towards a specific individual. (1989: 495)

Biber and Finegan wanted to show that genres change over time, though at a different rate but “drifting” to the same direction - towards a more oral style. For their study, they applied the dimensions identified by Biber 1988, but focused only on three dimensions which represent the oral – literate opposition: Dimensions 1, 3 and 5 (For detailed descriptions of these dimensions, see Section 2.3. Note that Dimension 1 is turned around in this study. The negative features are related to involved production, whereas positive features represent informational style.) (cf. Biber and Finegan 1989: 489). Thus, they used the same factors and corresponding features identified in 1988 to analyse essays, letters and fiction of the 17th, 18th and 19th century as well as the modern times (since end of 19th century) to compute new dimension scores. Table 2 below shows the results of this analysis.

Table 2: Dimension scores of three genres (cf. Biber and Finegan 1989: 499)

These dimension scores indicate a parallel development for each of the three genres. They are relatively oral in the 17th ct. In the 18th ct. texts become more literate and later they continually shift to a more oral style, with modern texts even being more oral than their 17th ct. counterparts (cf. Biber and Finegan 1989: 498). That is, all genres have drifted to a more oral style during the centuries and tend to be more involved, more situational and less abstract (cf. Biber and Finegan 1989: 507). This "drift" is represented by the following text samples:

TEXT SAMPLE (4): PERSONAL LETTER

You say “I fear there is little chance of anything else in this life.” You seem by that to have been going through with a more painful and acute zest the same labyrinth that I have – I have come to the same conclusion thus far. My Branchings out therefrom have been numerous: one of them is the consideration of Wordsworth’s genius and as a help, in the manner of gold being the meridian Line of worldly wealth – how he differs from Milton. – And here I have nothing but surmises, from an uncertainty whether Milton’s apparently less anxiety for Humanity proceeds from his seeing further or no than Wordsworth: ... (Biber and Finegan 1989: 499)

TEXT SAMPLE (5): PERSONAL LETTER

I’m reading David Copperfield for the sixth time with almost complete satisfaction. I’d forgotten how magnificent it is. What’s wrong, I can’t help asking myself? Why wasn’t he the greatest writer in the world? For alas – no, I won’t try to go into my crabbings and diminishing. So enthusiastic am I that I’ve got a new life of him: which makes me dislike him as a human being. Did you know – you who know everything – the story of the actress? He was an actor, I think; very hard; meretricious? Something had shriveled? And then his velvet suit, and his stupendous genius? But you won’t want to be discussing Dickens at the moment. (Biber and Finegan 1989: 501)

Considering factor 1 concerning involved vs. informational production, a clear difference between the two samples can be noticed. Sample (4) was written by John Keats in the 19th ct. Particularly striking is the informational style of this letter, as it contains many nouns and prepositional phrases and long words with a quite varied vocabulary, even though it starts with a personal address. However, features that mark involved production are underrepresented in this letter. In contrast, text sample (5), which originates from Virginia Woolf and is therefore classified as modern, is far more involved and includes many contractions, first- and second person pronouns as well as private verbs and wh-questions (cf. Biber and Finegan 1989: 501).

Biber and Finegan also tried to account for this development. According to them, the steady drift to oral styles

served the demands of a progressively wider reading public. [...] A general, popular literacy, appealing to a broad spectrum of the population, was thus increasingly required. In addition, relatively oral, direct styles arose [...] to meet the functional demands of the new informational, expository genres. Finally, the trend [...] reflects aesthetic attitudes, tied in particular to preferences for nature and naturalness. (1989: 516)

Nevertheless, in the middle periods of the 18th ct. a disagreement to this development can be noticed, which resulted in extremely literate writing (cf. Biber and Finegan 1989: 516).

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