Dimensions “Assembled”: The Nature of Movie Conversation.

The present study aims to offer an empirical description of an intrinsically creative text-type, i.e. the conversation in a movie. The investigation takes its origin from preceding studies which have demonstrated not only a rather unexpected linguistic similarity between the conversation in movies and real life, but also the surprising presence of linguistic items and textual dimensions which mark both non-specialized and specialized movie language. In this same line of investigation, superhe- roes movies from Marvel and DC Studios are examined to determine whether movies of this genre differ from other movie genres and to see whether the spoken traits which have been found in previous investi- gations also characterise movies containing larger-than-life characters. The methodology adopted is Biber’s Multi-Dimensional Analysis and accordingly the data are retrieved from the American Movie Super He- roes Corpus and then compared to the American Movie Corpus and to the American Movie Trials Corpus. What emerges is a clear picture of the nature of movie language which is confirmed to appear to be In- volved, Non-narrative and Situation-Dependent, like face-to-face con- versation, regardless the genre. The findings, thus, confute the various claims about the inadequacy of movies to represent the general usage of conversation and confirm the potential use they may have in those features of conversation which many authoritative linguists describe as being neglected by the syllabus.