1 Florence M.

Paisey Textual Analysis HoTT: ENG 5933 At Play with TAPoR, Ngram, and Textualyser Textual analysis involves all aspects of a text that characterize it historically, linguistically and interpretively. Each of these aspects may be examined with specific features in mind or, as in this case, a particular feature of a text such as lexicon, sentence structures, subjects, and readability may be identified and studied for changes that occur in language use and subject interest over a period or continuum of time. This particular study explores how online, electronic tools function and operate on given texts. It was difficult deciding on how to play with and explore the use of the online tools, TAPoR, Googles Ngram, and a non-proprietary, online text analysis tool, Textualyser. In the end, I chose to take the first paragraph of eight Pulitzer Prize winning novels that span the middle to the end of the twentieth century. The specific years involved 1955 to 1960 and 1995 to 2000. A Pulitzer for fiction was not awarded in 1957 and the paragraph needed for the 1960 Pulitzer for fiction was not immediately available. Initially, I transcribed the first paragraph of each of the eight Pulitzer-prize winning novels. I then processed each text with with textualyser, then TAPoRs Voyant, and Googles Ngram. Textualyser analyzed each paragraph for length of sentences, density, word count, word frequency and readability. Taking this quantitative information to TAPoRs Voyant, I ran a similar test that produced a visual image with hot words indicating how often a particular word had been employed this was indicated both by the size of the word in the visual as well as a numerical count. Trends in the use of words

2 were indicated on a line graph. Many other functions could be performed on the text, but as an initial effort, my purpose was to observe what the tool might be capable of producing in terms of textual analysis. Finally, I took a specific work from each of the paragraphs and processed it with Ngram, confining the years from 1955 to 2000. Ngram charts word usage over a defined period. I had hoped to see a more granular indication of those words selected. Most of the words chosen had been employed more frequently during the earlier years, but there does not appear to have been any significant difference, on the surface, of their use. What seemed to have changed significantly was the length of initial paragraphs. Those paragraphs of the late 1990s are longer with sentences and words that are more complex, though not necessarily more expressive. Sample Paragraphs 19th c. Booth Tarkington: Alice Adams Total word count : 83 Number of different words : 66 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 79.5% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 8.4 Total number of characters : 743 Number of characters without spaces : 447 Average Syllables per Word : 1.42 Sentence count : 9 Average sentence length (words) : 17.25 Max sentence length (words) : 33 (the patient an old fashioned man thought the nurse made a mistake in keeping both of the windows open and her sprightly disregard of his protests added something to his hatred of her) Min sentence length (words) :6 ( \ keep out of the night air) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 69.1

Pulitzers 1st paragraph 1995 - 2000

1995: The Stone Diaries Carol Shields My mother's name was Mercy Stone Goodwill. She was only thirty years old when she took a stick, a boiling hot day, standing there in her back kitchen, making a Malvern pudding for her husband's supper. A cookery book lay open on the table: "Take some slices of stale bread," the recipe said, "and one pint of currants; half a pint of raspberries; four ounces of sugar; some sweet cream if available." Of course she's divided the recipe in half, there being just the two of them, and what with the scarcity of currants, and Cuyler (my father) being a dainty eater. A pick-and-nibble fellow, she calls him, able to take his food or leave it. Total word count : 69 Number of different words : 63 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 91.3% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 5.7 Total number of characters : 646 Number of characters without spaces : 376 Average Syllables per Word : 1.47 Sentence count : 9 Average sentence length (words) : 13.44 Max sentence length (words) : 31 (\ of course she\ s divided the recipe in half there being just the two of them and what with the scarcity of currants and cuyler my father being a dainty eater) Min sentence length (words) :4 ( four ounces of sugar) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 68.5 1996 Independence Day Ford In Haddam, summer floats over tree-softened streets like a sweet lotion balm from a careless, languorous god, and the world falls in tune with its own mysterious anthems. Shaded lawns lie still and damp in the early a.m. Outside, on a peaceful-morning Cleveland Street, I hear the footfalls of a long joggers, tramping past and down the hill toward Taft Lane and across to the Choir College, there to run in the damp grass. In the Negro trace, men sit on stoops, pants legs rolled above their sock tops, sipping coffee in the growing, easeful heat. The marriage enrichment class (4 to 6) has let out at the high school, its members sleepy-eyed and dazed, bound for bed again. While on the green gridiron pallet our varsity band begins its two-a-day drills, revving up the for 4th: Boom-Haddam, boom-Haddam, boom-boom-ba-boom. 1997: The Tale of An American Martin Dressler Total word count: 90

4 Number of different words: 83 Complexity factor (Lexical Density): 92.2% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 14.4 Total number of characters: 873 Number of characters without spaces : 549 Average Syllables per Word: 1.66 Sentence count: 6 Average sentence length (words): 31 Max sentence length (words): 70 (this was toward the end of the nineteenth century when on any street corner in america you might see some ordinary looking citizen who was destined to invent a new kind of bottlecap or tin can start a chain of five cent stores sell a faster and better elevator or open a fabulous new department store with big display windows made possible by an improved process for manufacturing sheets of glass) Min sentence length (words): 6 (he satisfied his hearts desire) Readability (Alternative) beta: (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 34.8 1998: American Pastoral Roth The Swede. During the war years, when I was still a grade school boy, this was a magical name in our Newark neighborhood, even to adults just a generation removed from from the citys old Prince Street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly Americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a high school athlete. The name was magical; so was the anomalous face. Of the few fair-complexioned Jewish students in our preponderantly Jewish public high school, none possessed anything remotely like the steep-jawed, insentient Viking mask of this blue-eyed blond born into our tribe as Seymour Irving Levov. Total word count : 67 Number of different words : 59 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 88.1% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 10.8 Total number of characters : 599 Number of characters without spaces : 393 Average Syllables per Word : 1.68 Sentence count : 5 Average sentence length (words) : 21 Max sentence length (words) : 56 ( during the war years when i was still a grade school boy this was a magical name in our newark neighborhood even to adults just a generation removed from from the citys old prince street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a high school athlete) Min sentence length (words) :2 (the swede) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 43.7

1999: The Hours Cunningham She hurries from the house wearing a coat too heavy for the weather. It is 1941. Another war has begun. She has left a note for Leonard, and another for Vanessa. She walks purposefully toward the river, certain of what shell do, but even now she is almost distracted by the sight of the downs, the church, and a scattering of sheep, incandescent, tinged with a faint hint of sulfur, grazing under a darkening sky. She pauses, watching the sheep and the sky, then walks on. The voices murmur behind her; bombers drone in the sky, though she looks for the planes and cant see them. She walks past one of the farm workers (is his name John?), a robust, small-headed man wearing a potato-colored nest, cleaning the ditch that runs through the osier bed. He looks up at her, nods, looks down again into the brown water. As she passes him on her way to the river she thinks of how successful he is, how fortunate, to be cleaning a ditch in an osier bed. She herself has failed. She is not a writer at all, really; she is merely a gifted eccentric. Patches of sky shine in puddles left over from last nights rain. Her shoes sink slightly into the soft earth. Total word count : 118 Number of different words : 101 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 85.6% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 5.7 Total number of characters : 1154 Number of characters without spaces : 651 Average Syllables per Word : 1.4 Sentence count : 17 Average sentence length (words) : 12.82 Max sentence length (words) : 45 ( she walks purposefully toward the river certain of what shell do but even now she is almost distracted by the sight of the downs the church and a scattering of sheep incandescent tinged with a faint hint of sulfur grazing under a darkening sky) Min sentence length (words) :2 ( it is 1941) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 75 2000: Interpreter of Maladies Lahiri The notice informed them that it was a temporary matter: for five days their electricity would be cut off for one hour, beginning at eight P.M. A line had gone down in the last snowstorm, and the repairmen were going to take advantage of the milder evenings to set it right. The work would affect only the houses on the quiet tree-lined street, within walking distance of a row of brick-faced stores and a trolley shop, where Shoba and Shukumar had lived for three years. Total word count : 48 Number of different words : 48

6 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 100% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 8.5 Total number of characters : 471 Number of characters without spaces : 271 Average Syllables per Word : 1.54 Sentence count : 5 Average sentence length (words) : 17.6 Max sentence length (words) : 36 ( the work would affect only the houses on the quiet tree lined street within walking distance of a row of brick faced stores and a trolley shop where shoba and shukumar had lived for three years) Min sentence length (words) :1 (m) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 59

1955 - 1960
1955: A Fable Faulkner Long before the first bugles sounded from the barracks within the city and the cantonments surrounding it, most of the city was already awake. These did not need to rise from the straw mattresses and thin pallet beds of their hive-dense tenements, because few of them save the children had ever lain down. Instead, they had huddled all night in one vast tongueless brotherhood of dread and anxiety, about the thin fires of braziers and meager hearths, until the night wore at last away and a new day of anxiety and dread had begun. Total word count : 54 Number of different words : 49 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 90.7% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 12.7 Total number of characters : 531 Number of characters without spaces : 305 Average Syllables per Word : 1.52 Sentence count : 3 Average sentence length (words) : 31.67 Max sentence length (words) : 41 ( instead they had huddled all night in one vast tongueless brotherhood of dread and anxiety about the thin fires of braziers and meager hearths until the night wore at last away and a new day of anxiety and dread had begun) Min sentence length (words) :24 (long before the first bugles sounded from the barracks within the city and the cantonments surrounding it most of the city was already awake) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 46

1956 Andersonville Kantor Sometimes there was a compulsion which drew Ira Claffrey from his plantation and sent him to walk the forest. It came upon him at eight oclock on this morning of October twenty-third; he responded, he yielded, he climbed over the snake fence at the boundary of his sweet potato field and went away among the pines. Total word count : 32 Number of different words : 31 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 96.9% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 8.4 Total number of characters : 315 Number of characters without spaces : 184 Average Syllables per Word : 1.57 Sentence count : 3 Average sentence length (words) : 19.33 Max sentence length (words) : 24 ( he responded he yielded he climbed over the snake fence at the boundary of his sweet potato field and went away among the pines) Min sentence length (words) :15 ( it came upon him at eight oclock on this morning of october twenty third) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 54.3 1957 No Award 1958 A Death in the Family -- Agee At supper that night, as many times before, his father said, Well, spose we go to the picture show. Oh, Jay! his mother said. That horrid little man! Whats wrong with him? his father asked, not because he didnt know what she would say, but so she would say it. Hes so nasty! she said, as she always did. So vulgar! With his nasty little cane; hooking up skirts and things, and that nasty little walk! His father laughed, as he always did, and Rufus felt that it had become rather an empty joke; but as always the laughter also cheered him; he felt that the laughter enclosed him with his father.

Total word count : 64 Number of different words : 47 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 73.4% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 3.3 Total number of characters : 625 Number of characters without spaces : 344 Average Syllables per Word : 1.38 Sentence count : 15 Average sentence length (words) : 8.21 Max sentence length (words) : 19 (at supper that night as many times before his father said well spose we go to the picture show) Min sentence length (words) :2 ( oh jay) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 82.2 1959 The Travels of Jamie McPheeters Taylor On the day when I first learned of my fathers journey, I had come back with two companions from a satisfactory afternoon in the weeds near Kays Bell Foundry, shooting a slingshot at the new bells, which were lying out in the yard and strung up on rafters. Struck with rocks, they made a beautiful sound, although it seemed to upset Mr. William Kay, the proprietor. His sign, Maker of Church, Steamboat, Tavern and other Bells, hung over the doorway of his barnlike shop and had a row of little brass bells swinging beneath, squat and burnished, but these were hard to hit, and it you missed them, you were apt to hit one of the men working inside, and this was what seemed to upset Mr. William Kay most of all. So toward the end of the afternoon he pranced out with a double-barreled shotgun loaded with pepper and blistered Herbert Swanns seat as he zigzagged to safety through the high grass. Total word count : 88 Number of different words : 79 Complexity factor (Lexical Density) : 89.8% Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 11.4 Total number of characters : 900 Number of characters without spaces : 517 Average Syllables per Word : 1.43 Sentence count : 6 Average sentence length (words) : 27.83 Max sentence length (words) : 61 ( his sign maker of church steamboat tavern and other bells hung over the doorway of his barnlike shop and had a row of little brass bells swinging beneath squat and burnished but these were hard to hit and it you missed them you were apt to hit one of the men working inside and this was what seemed to upset mr)

9 Min sentence length (words) :4 ( william kay the proprietor) Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70) 57.4