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The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Corpus Linguistics and The Spectator
Paul Brocklebank
Tokyo University of Technology
1. Introduction
Recent work in corpus stylistics (for example, Stubbs 2005, Starcke 2006, Mahlberg
2007, Leech 2008, Fischer-Starcke 2009) has focused on exploring the usefulness of
corpus-based analysis to texts of a fictional nature. Among the main approaches
currently being used are keyword analysis (see Scott 2002) and cluster analysis (as in
Mahlberg 2007, 2009). This paper attempts to illustrate and assess these techniques as
applied to the mostly non-fictional contributions to the early eighteenth-century
periodical The Spectator.
The Spectator 1 , particularly as manifested in those essays contributed by Joseph
Addison (1672-1719), was an important stylistic model for writers in the eighteenth and
nineteenth century, whether as one to imitate or react against. Johnson famously
recommended Addison as a perfect exemplar for those wishing to write in a style
‘familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious’ (Greene 1984: 676).
Addison’s main associate was Richard Steele (1672-1729), but there were a number of
other contributors, including Eustace Budgell and Alexander Pope.
Using Mike Scott’s WordSmith Tools software (Scott 2007), and following
Fischer-Starcke’s approach in her 2009 study of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, I
attempt to use keyword and cluster techniques in order to reveal what makes Addison’s
and Steele’s contributions distinctive within the context of The Spectator. Due to
limitations of space parts of the discussion will be necessarily sketchy; however, by the
end of this paper I hope to have given the reader some idea of the usefulness and
limitations of corpus-based analyses to stylistics.
2. Processing the data
The first seven volumes (1711-1712) of The Spectator were downloaded from Project
Gutenberg 2 . As the WordSmith program can only process text files, the original HTML
1 The most recent full edition is Bond (1965). For a recent selection see Mackie (1998).
2 An electronic copy of Morley (1891). For information about Project Gutenberg e-texts consult:
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