Observatoire des droits humains (anglais seulement)

How linguists are unlocking the meanings of Shakespeare’s words using numbers

(Version anglaise seulement)

par Jonathan Culpeper, Chair professor in English Language and Linguistics, Lancaster University

Today it would seem odd to describe a flower with the word “bastard” – why apply a term of personal abuse to a flower? But in Shakespeare’s time, “bastard” was a technical term describing certain plants.

Similarly, associating the word “bad” with success and talking of a “bad success” would be decidedly odd today. But it was not unusual then, when success meant outcome, which could be good or bad.

Corpus linguistics is a branch of linguistics which uses computers to explore the use of words in huge…

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