Hercule Poirot, Mon (Faux) Ami: a Corpus Study on Agatha Christie’s Use of Language to Develop Character

EasyChair Preprint 6064

Abstract

This corpus analysis investigates Agatha Christie’s use of discourse in the person of her fictional Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. By focusing on a specific linguistic trait – false friends – it presents evidence of how Christie used this trait to develop Poirot’s character across his thirty-three novels. Moreover, it shows that this trait is almost completely absent from the four novels featuring Poirot written by Sophie Hannah, who was chosen by Christie’s estate to continue his adventures.

Keyphrases: Agatha Christie, corpus stylistics, discourse analysis, false friends

@booklet{EasyChair:6064,
  author    = {Ellen Carter},
  title     = {Hercule Poirot, Mon (Faux) Ami: a Corpus Study on Agatha Christie’s Use of Language to Develop Character},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 6064},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}