Abusive Love: A Tongue to Speak But No Ear to Listen; Computational Linguistics to Assess Female Agency in The Taming of the Shrew and Tamer Tamed Restricted; Files Only
Cohen, Becca (Spring 2023)
Published
Abstract
This honors thesis applies Martin Sap’s Connotation Frames of Power and Agency as a computational model to compare female agency in a play most often read as misogynistic (Taming of the Shrew) to a satire of that play (Tamer Tamed). Many literary critics and adaptions of Taming have attempted to mitigate the misogynistic ending of the play where Katherine (the shrew who is “tamed” by her husband Petruchio) gives a speech on how women should be obedient and submissive to their husbands. These critics either claim that Katherine is simply performing these ideals, or that she is being ironic. Some computational models have previously come to a similar conclusion through word counts as a measure of agency (Hicke). Both interpretations suggesting that witty women gain agency through marriage (Maurer). My connotation frames achieved similar results, suggesting that Katherine gains agency once she is “tamed.” However, through close reading and a secondary computational method of BERT word similarity analysis of the connotation frames’ verbs in context of the two plays, I argue that the agency measured by the connotation frames is illusory: that the computational model is manipulated to believe Petruchio’s promises of love and agency in the same way that Katherine is. This illusory agency results from a bigoted love that Petruchio displays for Katherine, one that trades her the illusion of agency in return for oppressing other women, and thus further oppressing herself simultaneously. Petruchio maintains control over the language defining reality in Taming, while in Fletcher’s Tamer Tamed Maria and Petruchio define the language of service and duty together in companionate terms. Overall, the key intervention of my argument is to suggest that agency should be attributed to whoever has the power to define the language that is spoken, rather than simply attributing agency to the speaker or subject of the sentence.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction: The Nuances of Agency, Language and Power
II. Chapter 1: Agency Debates in Taming of the Shrew: Katherine’s Agency
III. Chapter 2: Agency Debates in Tamer Tamed: Maria’s Promise of Service and Misogynistic Men
IV. Chapter 3: Methodology-Creating the Dataset and Connotation Frames
V. Chapter 4: Results-Speaking Powerful Verbs
VI. Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion
VII. Chapter 6: Future Results
About this Honors Thesis
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