Hacking stylometry with multiple voices: Imaginary writers can override authorial signal in Delta.

It is a basic assumption of stylometry that texts written by the same person show greater stylometric similarity even if published under multiple pennames. Statistical authorship attribution strongly relies on the ability of Burrows's Delta and its variants to cluster one author together regardless...

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Published in:Digital Scholarship in the Humanities Vol. 38; no. 3; pp. 1247 - 1267
Main Authors: Skorinkin, Daniil, Orekhov, Boris
Format: Article
Published: Oxford University Press / USA Sep2023
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: Hacking stylometry with multiple voices: Imaginary writers can override authorial signal in Delta.
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          Skorinkin, Daniil
          Orekhov, Boris
        affil:
          School of Linguistics, HSE University
          Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House), Russian Academy of Sciences , Russia
      su:
        Pessoa, Fernando, 1888-1935
        Stylometry
        SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant
        Attribution of authorship
        Computer hacking
        Human beings
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        subj:
          Pessoa, Fernando, 1888-1935
          Stylometry
          SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant
          Attribution of authorship
          Computer hacking
          Human beings
      ab: It is a basic assumption of stylometry that texts written by the same person show greater stylometric similarity even if published under multiple pennames. Statistical authorship attribution strongly relies on the ability of Burrows's Delta and its variants to cluster one author together regardless of pseudonyms. At the same time, the very first computational discoveries by the founder of modern stylometry showed that a single author is capable of producing multiple voices (Burrows, 1987 , Computation into Criticism: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels and an Experiment in Method. Clarendon Press). We investigate two authors whose stylistically autonomous pennames seem to deceive Delta and override authorial signals: a Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa and a French novelist Romain Gary. Pessoa managed to create at least three pennames (the author himself used the term 'heteronym') who exhibit all traits of individual human beings from the stylometric point of view. Gary's alter ego Emile Ajar, who was an intentional literary mystification, also demonstrates traits of stylometric autonomy. At the same time, other pseudonyms used by Gary lack that autonomy completely. Our investigation shows that there appears to be a continuum between a purely formal use of a penname, which brings almost no distinction from the real name of an author, and a strong literary sub-personality such as those created by Pessoa.
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    language: English
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