This paper uses a combination of corpus-based and qualitative approaches to
investigate the ‘framing' of criminals in fiction on serial killers, particularly in
the works of the top-selling novelists Thomas Harris and James Patterson.
These works feature detectives/psychologists and villains who tend to be
psychopathic men involved in criminal actions that range from kidnapping to
murder. Framing can be used to understand and explore how an entity is
constructed, communicated and shaped. It can be defined as ‘schemata' or
repertoires of organized patterns of thinking which can be triggered by the
framing devices presented in the text (Kitzinger, 2007). In this paper, I explore
how serial killers are framed linguistically using the analytical tools of critical
stylistics proposed by Jeffries (2010a). Using WordSmith5, the frequency of
words related to ‘killers' and ‘murder' and the concordance lines of the names
of each serial killer used as node words, are all extracted and examined.
Concordance lines, which present ‘the analyst with instances of a word or
cluster in its immediate co-text' (Baker et al., 2008: 279), are examined
qualitatively to identify linguistic patterns using critical stylistic tools –
including, for example, naming and describing, equating and contrasting,
assuming and implying, prioritizing, representing actions/ events/ states,
modality choices and metaphor. This paper, to a large extent, shows that the
suggested corpus-assisted critical stylistic approach provides a comprehensive
model for the study of the serial killers in the selected novels, and possibly, and
more generally, for the study of characters in fiction. Indeed, the main
achievement of this approach which involves a synergy of quantitative and
qualitative methods is the provision of a more comprehensive and systematic
analysis of large amounts of data.