- Title
- Authors and characters
- Creator
- Burrows, John; Craig, Hugh
- Relation
- English Studies Vol. 93, Issue 3, p. 292-309
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2012.668786
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2012
- Description
- Scholars sometimes cite the diversity of characters' speech styles as grounds for doubt about the efficacy of authorship attribution. A series of one-on-one comparisons between sets of characters from plays by five early modern English playwrights shows that while characters do vary from each other in styles of speech, authorial differentiation transcends this variation. Even when the same set of word-variables is used, and no selection or adjustment is made for individual comparisons, characters by different authors occupy largely separate areas of the space created by the first two components of a Principal Components Analysis. These numerically-based comparisons display the differentiation of character idiolects, but they also show that this range and variety of speaking styles remains within a larger framework of persistent authorial proclivities and specialisations.
- Subject
- characters; playwrights; authors
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1058163
- Identifier
- uon:16346
- Identifier
- ISSN:0013-838X
- Language
- eng
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