2. 职称英语
  3. Computers have aided in the study of humanities for almost as long as the ma

Computers have aided in the study of humanities for almost as long as the ma

游客2025-04-20  31
问题     Computers have aided in the study of humanities for almost as long as the machines have existed. Decades ago, when the technology consisted solely of massive, number-crunching mainframe computers, the chief liberal arts applications were in compiling statistical indexes of works of literature.
    Mainframe computers helped greatly in the highly laborious task, which dates back to the Renaissance, of cataloging each reference of a particular word in a particular work. Concordances help scholars scrutinize important texts for patterns and meaning. Other humanities applications for computers in this early era of technology included compiling dictionaries, especially for foreign or antiquated languages, and cataloging library collections.
    Such types of computer usage in the humanities may seem limited at first, but they have produced some interesting results in the last few years and promise to continue to do so. As computer use and access have grown, so has the number of digitized texts of classic literary works.
    The niche in academia Donald Foster, an English professor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, is one of the leaders in textual scholarship. In the late 1980s Foster created SHAXICON, a database that tracks all the "rare" words used by English playwright William Shakespeare. Each of these words appears in any individual Shakespeare play no more than 12 times. The words can then be cross-referenced with some 2 000 other poetic texts, allowing experienced researchers to explore when they were written, who wrote them, how the author was influenced by the works of other writers, and how the texts changed as they were reproduced over the centuries.
    In late 1995 Foster’s work attracted widespread notice when he claimed that Shakespeare was the anonymous author of an obscure 578-line poem, A Funeral Elegy(1612). Although experts had made similar claims for other works in the past, Foster gained the backing of a number of prominent scholars because of his computer-based approach. If Foster’s claim holds up to long-term judgment, the poem will be one of the few additions to the Shakespearean canon in the last 100 years.
    Foster’s work gained further public acclaim and validation when he was asked to help identify the anonymous author of the best-selling political novel Primary Colors(1996). After using his computer program to compare the stylistic traits of various writers with those in the novel, Foster tabbed journalist Joe Klein as the author soon after, Klein admitted that he was the author. Foster was also employed as an expert in the case of the notorious Unabomber, a terrorist who published an anonymous manifesto in several major newspapers in 1995. [br] Which of the following is NOT true?
选项 A、A Funeral Elegy was an authentic work from Shakespeare.
B、Computer utilization made Forster’s claim more convincing.
C、In the last 100 years, additional works of Shakespeare have been accepted as authentic.
D、There are still many works whose authors are unknown.
答案 A
解析 根据文章第五段最后一句“If Foster’s claim holds up to long—term judgment，the poem will be one ofthe few additions to the Shakesoearean canon in the last 100 years．”可知，如果福斯特的说法能够经得起长期的考验，该诗作就将成为过去一百年来莎士比亚经典系列的新成员。由此可知，《哀歌》暂时没有被认做是莎士比亚的原创作品，A项表述与此相反。其他三项表述均可从文中推出。据此判断，答案是A。
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