Negation as a Stylistic Feature in Joseph Heller's Catch-22: A Corpus Study1

Although the logical, grammatical, and semantic features of negation have been the object of discussion for decades, little attention has been paid to the pragmatic functions of negation in fictional discourse. Thus, few studies have been carried out on negation as a feature of variation, and virtually none on negation as a stylistic feature in fictional discourse. Here, Downing explores the nature of negation in Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22, by observing similarities and differences with the frequency and functions of negation types in the two corpora of fiction, in particular with Brown and the corpus of American fiction.