gustavo a. rodríguez-martín universidad de extremadura chicago shaw symposium. 2014
TRANSCRIPT
When Shaw Repeats Himself: Clusters and
Patterns in Shaw’s Plays
Gustavo A. Rodríguez-MartínUniversidad de Extremadura
Chicago Shaw Symposium. 2014.
Quoted everywhere (sometimes apocryphally). A recognizable, idiosyncratic persona. Many of his ideas are debated/relevant today:
Religion Evolution History Politics Animal rights
Shaw as an object of culture
Drama of “incarnate ideas.” (Meisel, 1963) The power of the spoken word. Puppeteer. Sugar-coated pill.“Although with the passage of time I was less and less able to understand him, in the sense of being able to explain him with a formula, I became more and more aware of the inadequacy of the formulae which I and others had up to now made shift with.” (Bentley, 1957)
Shaw as an object of criticism
What does Shaw try to accomplish with his
drama? What is the role of his characters? What is the textual evidence of the above? Is there a formula to (partially) explain all this?
Shaw’s Formula
Clusters & Patterns
Repeated stretches of text Frequency – how often they appear. Relevance – how closely they are connected to
which ideas. Meaning – what their content indicates.
Shaw’s Formula
The skeleton of Shaw’s dramatic dialogue.
"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."
Shaw’s Formula
Shaw’s Formula
Corpus:
54 plays 1,055,564 words 4 to 10-word clusters
Clusters and Patterns
Words Characters (letters + numbers + spaces)
Characters (no spaces)
TOTAL 1,055,564 5,625,963 4,753,764
Clusters and Patterns
Many clusters belong to stage directions.
E.g., “the middle of the,” “end of the table.” The presence of many others has to do with
their presence in stage directions. E.g., “look at one another,” “his back to the.”
35 of the first 100 – deleted. Most frequent cluster: 123 occurrences / 40
plays 100th most frequent cluster: 25 occurrences /
15 plays
Clusters and Patterns
Clusters and PatternsWhat do you mean
I beg your pardon I dont know I dont want Do you mean to
Its no use Do you think I I should like to I am going to Dont want to
You dont know You mean to say Do you mean to say
I am not a Are you going to
Im going to How do you know Do you know what
I dont think You are going to
For the first time Whats the matter I dont want to Do you mean by As a matter of
Ill tell you Im not a I tell you I Do you suppose I Dont know what
For the sake of Its all right That you are a What am I to How do you do
I shall have to Mean to say that Do you want to I want to know What does it matter
When I was a Do you know that Let me tell you The rest of the You mean to say that
Do you mean to say that
That I am not Why dont you What do you mean by
What do you say
Clusters and PatternsI dont care I dont want to If you dont If you want to Do you mean that
I can tell you I tell you that I thought you were
What do you think I assure you I
I did not know What is the matter
And all the rest Have no right to Im sure I
In the name of What can I do Be good enough to
What have you to You will have to
And I dont But I dont For heavens sake
I am not going I am sorry to
I dont mind Is one of the Nothing to do with
That I am a What do you want
What I want to As if I were Have you to say I do not know I want you to
I wish I could That is why I That you are not You want me to Am I to do
And all the rest of As you call it I beg your pardon
I beg your pardon I Im not going
I should not have In the face of It seems to me There is only one To get rid of
Patterns are patterned.
Clusters of a feather I put together.
General features: Syntactically. Semantically. Pragmatically.
Clusters and Patterns
Questions are comparatively far more
frequent.
What do you mean / do you mean to say/ do you mean by / do you know what / do you know that / do you want to / what do you want / Are you going to /Whats the matter / What does it matter / How do you do / Why dont you / what do you say / what have you to say /
High question to statement ratio – who else does that?
Syntactic Features
No third-person pronouns or distal deictic
terms. Face to face interaction – characters who are
not present are seldom mentioned. Proper nouns and patronymics are preferred to
pronouns.
Syntactic Features
Four verb categories stand out:
Cognition: know Speech: say / tell Meaning: mean Volition/intention: want / go to (periphrasis)
89% of all verbs in the clusters. (Auxiliary ‘do’ not included)
Semantic Features
Corollary: Direct expression of opinion has a
testimonial presence in Shaw’s dramatic dialogue: Little use of verbs expressing opinion and/or
argumentation (think, believe, seems to me). Verbs of cognition are usually in the negative:
I dont /do not know / you dont know / I did not know / dont know what /
Verbs of meaning usually appear in question form: What do you mean / do you mean to say / do you
mean by / do you mean that / do you mean to say that /
Semantic Features
Two types of clusters in terms of the ideas and
actions two different types of characters express. Proactive. Passive, submissive.
Pragmatic Features
Powerlessness
Questions Apologies for their actions: I beg your pardon / I
am sorry to / I should not have. No other course of action seems possible: What
can I do / What am I to do / What am I to / I wish I could / Do you suppose I / Do you think I /
Apathy: Its no use / Its all right / I dont care / I dont mind.
Seek justification – explicatives: For the sake of / in the name of / That is why I / In the face of
Pragmatic Features
Empowered
Knowledge of “human nature”: I am not a / Im not a / that I am not / that I am / that you are not / that you are a.
Express intentions and commands: Im going to / I am going to / you are going to / Im not going / You will have to / I want you to
Pragmatic Features
All characters:
Question one another. Show interest in the opinions and ideas of others. Question the motives and rationales of others
What do you mean by…? Do you mean to say that…?What do you think?How do you know?What do you say?What do you want?Are you going to…?
Pragmatic Features
