Quantitative Methods to Determine the Semantic Values of “Fashion” in the Nineteenth Century Romanian Novel (1845–1900)
Quantitative Methods to Determine the Semantic Values of “Fashion” in the Nineteenth Century Romanian Novel (1845–1900)

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to perform a semantic micro-analysis of the term “fashion” as it appears in the nineteenth-century Romanian novel. The research employs digital techniques and focuses on the corpus supplied by The Digital Museum of the Romanian Novel: The Nineteenth Century. This study posits that the prevalent lexeme “fashion”, as manifested in both narrative and dialogical discourses, encapsulates the effervescent substance of modernity and reflects the character’s aspiration for social emancipation. Through a quantitative analysis of the frequency of the recurrent term “fashion” within a sub-corpus of 46 illustrative contextual excerpts, this study determines that the semantic associations of fashion predominantly evoke negative connotations. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that over 60% of the negative connotations associated with the concept of “fashion” are representative of the novels of manners.

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