A diachronic corpus based case study. The Conceptualisation of Hero compared to Idol

Författare

Joel Lundquist

Summary, in English

William Wallace was what was generally considered to be a hero. With
deceptive military tactics, enormous bravery and a national feeling beyond
the normal, he is truly the concept of a true hero. One interesting aspect is
that you often hear people say that their mother is their true hero.
Furthermore, they may tell you that their mother is also their idol. What has
happened to the original usage of the words, and has the concept of hero
turned more towards the concept of idol? The main aim of this paper is to
examine how the concept of hero has changed throughout the two latest
centuries compared to the usage of idol in the same time-span. Since the
only source from 19th century is fiction, I have compared 19th century
American fiction with 21st century American blogs. The hypothesis with
respect to this study is that the concept of hero has undergone changes
since the 19th century which have turned the meaning towards that of idol.

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