Name: 【TED-Ed】莎士比亞是否真的寫了他的戲劇？ (Did Shakespeare write his plays? - Natalya St. Clair and Aaron Williams)
Uploaded: 2015-03-08T07:46:39.000Z
Duration: 4 min 7 s

基礎被動語態

and others have greatness thrust upon them", quoth William Shakespeare.

「還有些人則被迫偉大」
莎士比亞如是說

Some people question whether Shakespeare really wrote the works that bear his name,

有些人質疑莎士比亞是否
真的寫了聲稱他所著的劇本

They speculate that Shakespeare was a pseudonym for another writer,

他們懷疑莎士比亞
是另一位作家的筆名

Proposed candidates  for the real Shakespeare

他們提出莎士比亞的本尊候選人

include other famous playwrights,  politicians and even some prominent women.

應為其他知名劇作家、政治家
甚至是某些地位顯赫的女性

Could it be true that the greatest writer in the English language

Most Shakespeare scholars  dismiss these theories

based on historical  and biographical evidence.

基於歷史及傳記等證據
都對這些說法嗤之以鼻

But there is another way to test whether Shakespeare's famous lines

但是還有另外一種方法
能驗證莎士比亞的名句

can tell us a great deal about the way we speak and write

可以從檢視語法、文法、語義及字彙
看出我們說話及寫作的習慣

by examining syntax, grammar,  semantics and vocabulary.

波蘭哲學家
文森提·魯托斯拉夫斯基

a Polish philosopher  named Wincenty Lutosławski

正式提出一種稱為
統計文體學的方法

applying this knowledge to investigate  questions of literary authorship.

基本概念就是每一位作家的
寫作風格都具某些特性

The idea is that each writer's style has certain characteristics

這些特性在個別作品中也相當一致

that remain fairly uniform  among individual works.

Examples of characteristics include average sentence length,

and even the number of occurrences of a particular word.

我們來看「汝」這個字
把它看成一維或一軸

Let's look at use of the word thee and visualize it as a dimension, or axis.

把每部莎士比亞的作品
都放在該軸上

Each of Shakespeare's works can be placed on that axis,

就像數據點一樣
根據那個字出現的次數來放

like a data point, based on the number of occurrences of that word.

In statistics, the tightness  of these points

提供我們所謂的變異數
即我們預期的數據範圍

gives us what is known as the variance, an expected range for our data.

但是，這只是在非常
高維空間內的一種特性

But, this is only a single characteristic in a very high-dimensional space.

藉由稱為主成分分析的叢聚工具

With a clustering tool called Principal Component Analysis,

我們能減化多維空間成簡單的主成分

we can reduce the multidimensional space into simple principal components

集體量測莎士比亞作品中的變異數

that collectively measure the variance in Shakespeare's works.

然後我們能以此測試候選人的作品

We can then test the works of our candidates

如果法蘭西斯·培根有足夠多的作品
落在莎士比亞的變異數中

if enough works of Francis Bacon fall within the Shakespearean variance,

證明法蘭西斯·培根
與莎士比亞其實是同一人

that Francis Bacon and Shakespeare are actually the same person.

嗯，進行此試驗的文體學家
做出的結論是

Well, the stylometrists who carried  this out have concluded

that Shakespeare is none other  than Shakespeare.

此吟遊詩人非彼吟遊詩人是也！

冒牌貨的作品跟莎士比亞的
特殊風格就是不符

The pretender's works just don't match up with Shakespeare's signature style.

然而，我們大無畏的
統計學家的確發現

However, our intrepid  statisticians did find

some compelling evidence  of collaborations.

莎士比亞與劇作家克里斯多福·馬羅
合作寫出亨利六世

that Shakespeare worked with playwright Christopher Marlowe on "Henry VI,"

莎士比亞的身分只是
文體學家能解決的許多問題之一

Shakespeare's identity is only one of  the many problems stylometry can resolve.

這門學問還能幫我們
判定作品的寫作時代

It can help us determine when a work was written,

whether a student has committed plagiarism,

或你收到的電郵
是最速件還是垃圾信

or if that email you just received  is of a high priority or spam.

難道這代表著莎士比亞
臺詞中的經典詩句

And does the timeless poetry  of Shakespeare's lines

just boil down to numbers and statistics?

文體分析也許能透露出莎士比亞
作品在結構上的不同之處

Stylometric analysis may reveal what makes Shakespeare's works structurally distinct,

但是它不能捕捉字裡行間
所表達的情感與情緒之美

but it cannot capture the beauty of the sentiments and emotions they express,