Atmospheric Effects of Strange White Flowers: A Corpus Stylistic Approach to the Text World in The Time Machine

Abstract

Previous research on plants in The Time Machine has shown the importance of putting these peripheral objects to the core. Studies have indicated potential associations between corpus stylistics and cognitive stylistics, but investigations of The Time Machine have not dealt with the “strange white flowers” in much detail, especially observing from a corpus perspective and interpreting from the cognitive one. The principal objective of this study is to explore the atmospheric effects of these flowers with a combined corpus and cognitive methodological approach. Corpus techniques rely on the tools of Sketch Engine and CQPweb, while cognitive methods lie in the theories of Atmosphere and the Text World. The results showed that “strange white flowers” at the macro-level create elusive and diffusive atmospheric effects of transiency and strangeness, which could be represented at the meso-level by the text-world presentation and explored at the micro-level by collocation and colligation. The findings can contribute to a better understanding of peripheral objects in The Time Machine and add new insight into the study of science fiction.