A CONCEPT ANALYSIS OF SWIFT,JONATHAN A TALE-OF-A-TUB AND GULLIVERS-TRAVELS

Part 1. The core of the concept analysis method is a dictionary of 43, 000 words to each of which is assigned up to 5 of 168 concepts. Comput er programs read each word of a text and produce a concept frequency p rofile of the text. Part 2. Comparisons of concept profiles of Tub and Gulliver and Swift's own contemporary texts, as well as a composite t ext of 18th century writers, reveal that Gulliver is conceptually diff erent from Tub and its coevals. The fourth book of Gulliver (Houyhnhnm s) is significantly different from the first three books. The last two books of Gulliver (Laputa and Houyhnhnms) are more like Tub than are the first two books (Lilliput and Brobdingnag). Part 3. The concepts a nd words supporting these distinctions suggest two strands in Swift's thinking: the first, pessimism about the human condition; the second, interest in the quotidian world. Finally, such issues as disambiguatio n of homonyms, scoring of phrases, and the role of syntax are consider ed.