Correspondence analysis of the synoptic gospels

Abstract

Taking a recent article by D. L. Mealand (Literary and Linguistic Computing, 10: 171-82, 1995) as the starting-point, this study investigates what correspondence analysis (CA) could contribute towards the stylometric study of the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke). Results from the author's dissertation are presented, based mainly on syntax, in particular the subordination of clauses. Mealand's source investigations of the Gospel of Luke, building on CA and other multivariate techniques, are shown to be flawed because they fail to take into account the discourse-type constitution of the gospels. Stressing the importance of discourse type, the present investigation, by contrast, seeks inspiration from modern sociolinguistic research on register. Because discourse type acts as a third variable - alongside corpus and language - a generalized form of CA is needed, using loglinear analysis to produce restricted models. Generalized CA proves to be a flexible tool to display discourse-type and authorial preferences in an unalloyed form. Finally, it is argued-and exemplified-that multivariate analysis is particularly valuable when used in combination with advanced discourse-functional linguistics