Macro-Etymological Textual Analysis

an application of language history to literary criticism
Jonathan Reeve

English is a Patchwork Quilt

By counting the colors and patterns of these patches, we might learn something new about a text.

Word Resonances

Consider the following near-synonmyms:

• ask / question / interrogate
  
• goodness / virtue / probity
  
• fast / firm / secure

Introducing the Macro-Etymological Analyzer

• a web app written for the LAMP stack
• free and open-source software, licensed under the GPLv3
• available for use on http://jonreeve.com/etym
• find the source code at http://github.com/JonathanReeve/bulk-etym

Trends

• There seems to be a slight decrease in the use of Latinate words in narrative fiction from the early 18th to the early 20th century.
• Non-fiction generally shows a higher proportion of Latinate words than fiction.
• Male writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries show a higher proportion of Latinate words; female writers of the same period show a higher proportion of Germanic words.

Trends 2

• Many of these trends may also be observed in the speech of fictional characters.
• The proportion of Latinate words is correlated, albeit somewhat loosely, with level of discourse, formality, militarism, and scholarly language.
• Religious and scientific language, especially that of physics and geometry, are likely to have a high proportion of Hellenic words.

Opportunities for Further Comparison

• chapters in James Joyce's Ulysses
  
• early Dickens vs. late Dickens
• genres of the Corpus of Historical American English
• ...and many more.

Links

• The webapp: http://jonreeve.com/etym
• Results and discussion: http://jonreeve.com/blog
• This presentation: http://jonreeve.com/dh2014