Publication details
The Power of Language in American Hard-boiled Detective Fiction
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | This article focuses on the language presented in American hard-boiled detective fiction. The hard-boiled language is besides the setting, the detective and the detection, one of the defining features of this sub-genre of detective fiction. These novels have fascinated the readers with its fast-moving often brutal plots full of violence, sex, disturbing themes and macabre details told in terse prose since the early 1930's. The hard-boiled detective fiction reports what happened and what was said rather than how it felt from the detective's perspective. He or she speaks in the language of the people, tough American vernacular of the “mean streets” that lives on the page of these novels. The language used is informal, unsentimental and realistic. This article ascertains how and why the hard-boiled authors, the long gone but also the contemporaries, employ this particular discourse, what is its message/purpose, and which features make this language distinctive – hard-boiled. |