ABSTRACT
The (re)construction of orality in literature has been a long-discussed issue in the fields of literary and stylistic research. Despite some criticism to the imagined nature of fictional dialogues, it is evident that they often display traces of the naturally occurring language upon which they are based. This chapter provides a detailed overview of the way literary corpora may be used to explore the portrayal of orality in literature. Using corpus linguistics techniques, it illustrates the value of literary (re)productions of Irish English by investigating the use of New Intensifying So in the fiction of Irish author, Paul Howard’s, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly series.
