Analysis

Below is our analysis and overall findings. Because we looked at so many different factors not all of them can be explored in detail here however, through careful examination we were able to pull out the factors we thought were the most useful for answering our four sub-research questions.

  1. Do the other features influence insult type? Specifically, is there any correlation between insult count and insult type to play genre (tragedy vs comedy)

  2. Is there a correlation between type of relationship and relationship status (i.e is there animosity or not) and does the state of the relationship lend to distinct insult types?

  3. In order to convey to the insultee that they are indeed being insulted is there a particular maxim that is most often flouted? Is there any correlation between maxim flouted and illocutionary speech act type?

  4. Is there a correlation between the gender of the speaker and the type of speech act (direct vs. indirect)? Are there certain combinations of gender between speaker and hearer that lead to a particular type of speech act and does it effect the direct vs indirectness of the speech act?

Insult type

Does play genre have any influence on insult type? This plot shows the differences in the insult types between comedies and tragedies.

Insult type counts by genre Tragedies Comedies 0 0 10 10 20 20 30 30 40 40 50 50 60 60 70 70 80 80 1 nameCall pAttack 0 nameCall pAttack 2 nameCall pAttack sexGen 0 nameCall pAttack sexGen 4 backComp 0 backComp 4 sexGen 0 sexGen 8 nameCall sexGen 0 nameCall sexGen 4 slander 8 slander 10 pAttack sexGen 6 pAttack sexGen 18 nameCall slander 4 nameCall slander 16 pAttack slander 8 pAttack slander 40 sexGen slander 0 sexGen slander 17 nameCall pAttack 54 nameCall pAttack 34 pAttack 66 pAttack 78 nameCall 76 nameCall

Total insult counts between genres

Between the two tragedies there were a total of: 111 insults and between the two comedies there are a total of 118 insults


Our initial thoughts

Right off the bat there does not seem to be a very meaningful difference between the total insult counts between plays, in fact the counts differ by only a few insults. However, there is more of a difference when we look at the insult type between genres. The most common type, in very even counts for both is name call, followed by personal attack and a combination of the two. These three make up the vast majority of insult types in the tragedies, while insult types in the comedies are most spread out. There are even 6 types that fail to appear in the tragedies altogether.

Relationship state and insult type

What effect do different types of relationships have on the state of those relationships?

friend-friend parent-child self couple-couple acq-acq sibling-sibling child-parent friend-friend parent-child self couple-couple acq-acq sibling-sibling child-parent friend-friend parent-child self couple-couple acq-acq sibling-sibling child-parent friend-friend parent-child self couple-couple acq-acq sibling-sibling child-parent States of Relationship Based on Different Relationships Relationship between insulter and insultee % of insults 25% 50% 75% 100% Positive Relationship State Neutral Relationship State Negative Relationship State

Our initial thoughts

The majority of the insults are given between people who have a negative relationship state. The only positive relationship states are between parents and their child, friends to friends and spouses. The state between acquaintances is almost evenly split between neutral and negative while siblings to siblings and childen to parents are entirely negative. Note that self does not have any relationship state, because while we found it a useful tag it did not fall into scope for this research question as relationship state was mainly a guage of animosty between characters and therefore it would not have been meaningful to examine self.

Speech acts and Gricean maxims

Is there a particular maxim that is most often flouted and does it co-occur with any illocutionary acts in particular?

Flouted maxims and illocutionary act type Illocutionary act type Maxim flouted relevance manner quantity quality representative 12 46 3 22 expressive 4 10 7 declarative 2 directive 1 1 2 commissive 1

Our initial thoughts

As seen on the graph, representative illocutionary speech acts made up the majority of all illoctionary act types, with the major intersection between it and the maxim of manner. The maxim of quality comes next in terms of overall counts, with relevance following. Many other intersections have few to no counts.

Gender and speech acts

Does the gender of either the speaker or the listener have an impact on the indirect versus directness of the speech act?

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Speech act counts between male-male Speech act count Speech act type direct 59 indirect 42 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Speech act counts between male-female Speech act count Speech act type direct 22 indirect 37 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Speech act counts between female-male Speech act count Speech act type direct 21 indirect 14 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Speech act counts between female-female Speech act count Speech act type direct 3 indirect 11

Our initial thoughts

Right off the bat we can see that insults between male characters are by far the most common, with insults between female characters being by far the lowest represented category. There does not appear to be a favored speech act type between direct and indirect, with a count of 105 and 104 respectively. Interestingly, however, while there does not appear to be a correlation between insulter and speech act type, when the insultee is female the speech acts are more often indirect, regardless of the gender of the insulter. The same trend applies in reverse with direct speech acts being more common toward male insultees regardless of the gender of the insulter.