Abstract
Book blurb text has been widely acknowledged as a distinct register. Present study conducted a quantitative analysis of linguistic variation of online blurbs for Pakistani books with respect to textual dimensions. It also examined textual relations of book blurb register with the sharply distinguished genres studied by Biber (1988) and the promotional varieties (direct mail letters, non-profit grant proposals, print advertisements), by following the multidimensional approach developed by Biber (1988). Corpus constituted 200 online blurbs for Pakistani fiction and non-fiction books. Findings indicated that book blurb register displayed a pattern of linguistic features which was distinguished from other varieties. Contrary to the claims established by previous studies, book blurbs were found different from spoken text.Their relation with advertising text was also found complex. They did not show close resemblance with advertising text on dimensions 1, 2, and 3, but with respect to dimensions 4 and 5, they displayed mutual similarity. Negative scores of book blurbs on dimension 4 characterized them as non-persuasive texts. The study may be significant for writers, publishers and especially for researchers working on book blurb text as a register
Shahla Qasim, Aleem Shakir. (2016) Linguistic Variation of Pakistani Fiction and Non-Fiction Book Blurbs: A Multidimensional Analysis, The ELF Annual Research Journal, Volume 18, Issue 1.
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