A Stylistic Analysis of Foregrounding Features in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations

Abstract

This paper aims at illustrating the foregrounding features used by Dickens in Great Expectations and elucidating how and why these features are integrated throughout the whole novel. Also, it aims at showing how foregrounding features function as a source of correspondence, integration and structural cohesion. The analysis of a text can reveal the ways in which Dickens manipulates language to achieve his desired effect and it also shows how he has utilized a variety of linguistic strategies to enrich the language of Great Expectations. These strategies demonstrate an inventiveness or creativity in his novel. This reveals the importance of studying how Dickens has been able to manipulate language to create stylistic effects to pass his message to the readers. The analysis of the four texts taken from the novel comes up with a number of conclusions.