Alexis Antonia

Language chunking, data sparseness, and the value of a long marker list: explorations with word n-grams and authorial attribution

The frequencies of individual words have been the mainstay of computer-assisted authorial attribution over the past three decades. The usefulness of this sort of data is attested in many benchmark trials and in numerous studies of particular authorship problems. It is sometimes argued, however, that since language as spoken or written falls into word sequences, on the ‘idiom principle’, and since language is characteristically produced in the brain in chunks, not in individual words, n-grams with n higher than 1 are superior to individual words as a source of authorship markers. In this article, we test the usefulness of word n-grams for authorship attribution by asking how many good-quality authorship markers are yielded by n-grams of various types, namely 1-grams, 2-grams, 3-grams, 4-grams, and 5-grams. We use two ways of formulating the n-grams, two corpora of texts, and two methods for finding and assessing markers. We find that when using methods based on regularly occurring markers, and drawing on all the available vocabulary, 1-grams perform best. With methods based on rare markers, and all the available vocabulary, strict 3-gram sequences perform best. If we restrict ourselves to a defined word-list of function-words to form n-grams, 2-grams offer a striking improvement on 1-grams. .................................................................................................................................................................................

IDENTIFYING ANNE MOZLEY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER : A COMPUTATIONAL STYLISTIC APPROACH

Over the last thirty years the growing academic interest in both Victorian periodicals and womens issues in the nineteenth century has focussed interest on the women journalists who wrote for the serious quarterlies and monthlies published during this period. The part played by such writers as Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Eastlake, and Frances Power Cobbe in the development of Victorian thought is now well known, while that of less prolific contributors is increasingly attracting scholarly attention. One of the authors gradually being rescued from oblivion is Anne Mozley (1809–1891), with her views on both contemporary literature and debates about the social position of women being seen as of interest.

Who wrote 'A Visit to the Western Goldfields'?: Using computers to analyse language in historical research

Determining the authorship of unattributed writings can be a major issue for scholars. As this article demonstrates, computational stylistics provides a valuable methodology in helping to answer the question, ‘Who wrote it?’ Gold occupied much space in the newspapers of colonial Australia in the 1850s-70s. It kept many reporters very busy. Few, however, are known by name. An exception is Charles de Boos, a prolific reporter for the Melbourne Argus and especially the Sydney Morning Herald. Whilst it is possible to identify much of his work, questions arise over the authorship of other columns, such as the series ‘A Visit to the Western Goldfields’. Stylistic analysis has confirmed that this series is not the work of de Boos, but that of another writer who remains anonymous. No methodology answers every question, but this example illustrates the potential of computational stylistics to be an important aid in many areas of historical research. This article has been peer-reviewed.

Identifying another goldfields reporter: Frederick Dalton (1815–80)

Abstract In a previous article, ‘Who Wrote “A Visit to the Western Goldfields”?’, our question was left unanswered. Further stylistic analysis has confirmed that this series and two subsequent ones published in the Sydney Morning Herald in the early 1860s were by the same author. Following a strong suggestion that this mystery author may have been Frederick Dalton, writings known to be by him were incorporated into the analysis. Since the only known writings of Dalton (until now) were mining reports, the stylistic analysis tests involved the comparison of writings in different genres. As well as a reporter, Dalton was a miner and geologist, in California as well as Australia, and subsequently a gold commissioner and mining warden in New South Wales. The identification of Dalton’s considerable goldfields writings has enabled us to learn more of one of the pioneers of gold mining in New South Wales. This article has been peer reviewed.