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

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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School	Emory College
Department	English
Degree	B.S.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Information Science Women's Studies Literature, English
Keyword	Katherine The Woman's Prize discourse Tamer Tamed agency discourse Early Modern literature computational witch Fletcher feminist discourse agency data science Petruchio computational linguistics power connotation frames Shakespeare Taming of the Shrew language
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Patricia Cahill, Emory University Dr. Lauren Klein, Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Jinho Choi, Emory University Dr. Dan Sinykin, Emory University Dr. Chris Beck, Emory University

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