A multidimensional and digital humanistic analysis of style in Amy Tan's novels.

This article focuses on a multidimensional stylistic analysis of Amy Tan's six novels using Douglas Biber's multidimensional model (MDA) of lexico-grammatical features, facilitated by the Multidimensional Analysis Tagger (MAT) and statistical software R. The study examines Tan's novels along six dimensions—Involved versus Informational Production; Narrative versus Non-Narrative Concerns; Explicit versus Situation-Dependent Reference; Overt Expression of Persuasion; Abstract versus Non-Abstract Information; and On-Line Informational Elaboration—to identify stylistic variations and test correlations between dimensions. Findings reveal distinct stylistic profiles among the novels, such as The Kitchen God's Wife's high interactivity and involvement, and Saving Fish From Drowning's informational density and explicit referencing, with a statistically significant positive correlation found between dimensions 3 (explicit versus situation-dependent reference) and 5 (abstract versus nonabstract information). The study highlights the value of combining computational and qualitative methods in literary stylistics and suggests that stylistic qualities in Tan's work merit attention alongside cultural and ethnic interpretations.