CLARITY AND COMPLEXITY: A CORPUS-BASED STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF LEXICAL DENSITY AND STRUCTURAL PATTERNS IN GEORGE ORWELL’S ESSAYS

Abstract

This study investigates the interplay between clarity and complexity in George Orwell’s essays through a corpus-based stylistic analysis of lexical density and structural patterns. Drawing on Halliday’s (1985, 1994) model, lexical density was calculated as the proportion of lexical items nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and adverbs to total tokens across seven selected essays: Shooting an Elephant, A Hanging, Politics and the English Language, Why I Write, Looking Back on the Spanish War, Marrakech, and The Prevention of Literature. The compiled corpus of approximately 30,000 tokens was processed using AntConc 4.0.13, with custom stoplists applied to isolate lexical words. Findings reveal a remarkable consistency in lexical density across most essays, ranging from 51% to 55%, indicating Orwell’s balanced integration of content-rich vocabulary with functional words that sustain readability. The notable exception, Shooting an Elephant (37.8%), reflects a narrative mode reliant on descriptive immersion and pacing. Structural analysis demonstrates Orwell’s deliberate alternation between longer, syntactically dense sentences in argumentative passages and shorter, paratactic structures in descriptive or reflective segments. These patterns support Orwell’s rhetorical objectives by maintaining accessibility while embedding conceptual depth. The study contributes to both Orwell scholarship and corpus stylistics by offering quantifiable evidence of stylistic strategies that harmonise informational load with clarity, reinforcing Orwell’s reputation for precision and moral directness in prose.