18 Maig - Seminari William Beckon
El proper dimarts 18 de maig en Ramon Ferrer i Cancho ha programat un seminari a càrrec de William Beckon a l'aula S208 de l'Edifici Omega del Campus Nord de la UPC.
Us fem notar que l'hora d'inici del seminari serà a les 15:00, és a dir, a la tarda després de dinar.
Aquests són els detalls del seminari:
Títol Patterns of word length distributions, from the Fiji Islands to Shakespeare and Cervantes
Ponent William Beckon
Lloc Omega-S208
Dia 18 Maig 2009
Horari 15:00h - Café
15:15h - Presentació
Abstract In the South Pacific archipelago of Fiji, larger islands generally have shorter names than small islands, an observation that is echoed among European islands. This curious phenomenon may be explained by a tendency to shorten frequently-used words, possibly including the names of larger and more important islands. As early as 1836, it was asserted that such a tendency, termed the “law of brevity”, exists in all languages. However, little hard evidence has been offered to support this assertion. Now a computer-assisted analysis of samples of world literature confirms that this “law” is generally valid, though not strictly so. A detailed comparison of word length distributions in English, Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian literature indicates that such distributions are distinctive for particular languages and some genres, but do not depend on the author’s gender. Similar analysis provides no evidence to support suggestions that Christopher Marlowe was the true author of works attributed to William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes.
Aquesta xerrada està finançada per la Comissió Fulbright España, www.fulbright.es.