Authors and characters

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
Reviewed

		Thumbnail	File	Description	Size	Format