Descrizione
Through a comparative analysis of a corpus of old American films and of their recent remakes, this book aims to explore the sociolinguistically complex phenomena of colloquiality and colloquialisation in English film dialogue. The study is based on the most relevant theoretical reflections on the topic – from which this work derives a definition of colloquiality – as well as on a robust methodological framework, namely Douglas Biber’s multi-dimensional analysis. The results indicate a strengthening of colloquiality in the remakes vis-à-vis the originals. At the same time, the study illustrates that the tendency to speak colloquially has always been highly prominent in American cinema.