Corpus-Based Analysis of Power Dynamics in V for Vendetta

Abstract

The current research used the corpus linguistics approach to analyze the discourse of power in Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta. Although the novel has been studied in depth in qualitative scholarship, no previous study has engaged the entire verbal text of the novel in systematic and data-driven corpus analysis. A single-text corpus consisting of the full verbal text of the novel was created in AntConc (v4.3.1) for the purpose of producing word frequency distributions, lines of text that show the focus word or words in context (KWIC), collocation profiles, and n-gram cluster frequencies. Word frequency analysis indicated that the most common content words were character names (V: f=518, Evey: f=340, Finch: f=253, Leader: f=216). The prevalence of characters who resist over the institutional power indicated by the Leader who authored the novel allows for the suggestion that discursiveness in a novel such as this favored resistance over institutional power. A KWIC concordance of the three terms revealed three different registers of power: ideological proclamation, coercive enforcement, and moral-epistemic critique, respectively. The narrative's implicit depiction of the instability of institutional authority was made apparent with the change of Leader's concordance profile from imperative commands to supplicatory. Denial emerged as the four word pattern most frequently mentioned (I didn't do, f=5), as well as the clusters of directives (I want you to, f=3) and the definitional sequences (a man who, f=4). The results indicated that power in V for Vendetta was not only multi-layered but also contestatory. The study set up a repeatable corpus methodology for the verbal analysis of graphic narratives and provided an empirical complement to the existing qualitative interpretation of the text.