Computation Into Criticism: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels and an Experiment in MethodMost readers and critics behave as though common prepositions, conjunctions, personal pronouns, and articles--the parts of speech which make up at least a third of fictional works in English--do not really exist. But far from being a largely inert linguistic mass which has a simple but uninteresting function, these words and their frequency of use can tell us a great deal about the characters who speak them. In Computation into Criticism, he reveals that even in so early a novel as Northanger Abbey the major characters differ very sharply in the frequency with which each uses such words as "the," "of," "it," and "I." When, especially in the later novels, there is evidence of consistent and meaningful change in even the simplest idioms of the heroines, it becomes possible to study character development in an even clearer light than before. What emerges from this fascinating study is not a game with numbers, but rather the groundwork for more authoritative literary judgments. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
A Set of Pronouns | 15 |
The Chisquared Test as a Register of Significant | 34 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
Admiral Croft Anne Steele Austen's major characters Awkward Age Brandon character narrative chi-squared coefficients Collins common words contracted forms correlation correlation-coefficients Darcy differences differentiation Distribution as raw EDMUND EDWARD FERRARS Eleanor Tilney ELINOR Elizabeth Bennet Elton Emma Emma's evidence Fanny Fanny's Frank Churchill Frederica Gardiner Georgette Heyer Harriet Smith HENRY TILNEY heroines Howards End idiolects idioms Jane Austen's dialogue Jane Austen's major Jane Austen's novels Jane Austen's six Jennings John Dashwood John Thorpe Knightley Lady Bertram Lady Catherine language less linguistic Lucy Steele Lydia Bennet Mansfield Park Marianne Mary Crawford Mary Musgrove Miss Bates Miss Bingley Norris Northanger Abbey novelists overall pattern Pride and Prejudice pronouns pure narrative range relationships resemblances Sanditon scores segments Sense and Sensibility shows Sir Thomas six novels speaking-parts statistical analysis sub-idiolects Table thirty most common thought-idiolect Tom Bertram VECTOR WENTWORTH Weston whole dialogue Wickham Willoughby Woodhouse word-types Words In Jane z-scores