Using Math To Unlock The Meaning Of Shakespeare.

 

Think about it!  Linguists have begun using numbers and math to help unlock the meanings behind many of the words used by Shakespeare. Some of this is because the meanings of words have changed significantly over time and may not mean the same thing now as it did then.  For instance, intercourse meant having a conversation years ago but has acquired a sexual overtone more recently. 

Think about it!  Back when Shakespeare was writing the word bastard was used to describe certain plants while the word success referred to an outcome.  So bad success was a undesirable outcome to something.

Within linguistics, there is a branch called corpus linguistics which uses computers to help explore words and their meanings within huge collections of words.  These numbers, the counts of how often they appear within certain texts is the key to understanding meaning. 

When I say these numbers, I refer to how often words such as often, associations, odd, or unusual appear and  which can be said to be a soft way to actually count things.  In addition, a dictionary was created from the full works of Shakespeare but this dictionary differed from the others because it also was comparative.  In other words, it took the words from Shakespeare works and compared them with other writings and plays of the time.

Consequently, one finds out that the term bastard referred to hybrid plants because they were not the normal offspring and occurred in a multitude of horticultural texts.  The term also appeared in the plays to mean someone born outside of marriage and thought of as a hybrid.  As mentioned earlier, success refers to outcome so bad success meant an undesired outcome.  You might also see the terms, disatrous, unfortunate, ill, or unhappy, or unlucky linked to bad success.  

Furthermore, the researchers took time to see what other words were frequently associated with that base word.  Another thing is to look at words that appear frequently and are classified as high frequency words.  These words are often excluded from early dictionaries yet have a real meaning.  One such word is by and it is associated with religion because it is found with God in by God.

In addition, certain words within Shakespeare's plays are associated with certain characters or sexes.  For instance, alas, or ah are said more often by his female characters showing they provide the emotional work of lamentation within the play. 

On the other hand, infrequent words also provide some interesting thoughts. One such word, ear-kissing in King Lear means whispering and only appears one time.  Other words such as sweet may appear multiple times but due to the differences of spelling, are often more difficult to determine. Sweet is spelled as sweete, swete, or svveet and if you are using a find function, the nonstandardization of spelling can make it difficult to count the number of times it was found. 

It has only been recently that computer programs have been developed that allow researchers to do this type of in depth search.  So we have a new way to use numbers and math.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.