Roald Dahls Lexis: The BFG has many lexical features that are very similar in nature and style. He uses a very simple, basic and colloquial language throughout the book.

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Roald Dahl’s Lexis:

The BFG has many lexical features that are very similar in nature and style. He uses a very simple, basic and colloquial language throughout the book. His simple descriptive style with colloquial lexis is modern and unpretentious. Dahl strives to create semantic fields with images of death, cannibalism, war and murder in this tale for children. He describes the giants using terms of brutality and death, using their names to describe their eating habits and techniques when eating humans. Fleshlumpeater, for example is highly evocative as a compound word for he tears lumps of flesh from his victims. The semantic field and use of imagery in terms of butchery, murder and violence is consistently maintained throughout the novel but it does not have a troubling effect on the child readership.

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        The purpose of the book is to be read aloud to children, this suggest the development into an oral tradition in families as a piece of children’s literature. The BFG is ubiquitous and is read all over England and probably in most English speaking countries around the world. Words from the BFG are used as part of a specific lexis within families. I suggest that such use is phatic and acts as an affirmation of familial identity for children and parents.

        In order for Dahl to put emphasis on his characters he uses specific dialects. The BFG ...

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