Literary scholar Dr. Liam Sterling analyzed stylistic markers in the correspondence networks of nineteenth-century British authors. Sterling hypothesized that authors who coauthored novels or essays with peers would show a marked, long-term increase in stylistic similarity in their private letters specifically to those collaborators, rather than experiencing a generalized shift in style that affected their correspondence with other contemporaries.
Which finding, if true, would most directly support Sterling's hypothesis?
- AFollowing their collaboration, Lamb and Coleridge both adopted new stylistic conventions that appeared consistently in all of their subsequent letters, regardless of the recipient.
- After collaborating on joint essays, the letters written by essayist Charles Lamb to his coauthor Coleridge exhibited a high density of Coleridge's signature syntactic patterns, whereas Lamb's letters to his other correspondents during the same period showed no such syntactic changes.Answer
- CEssayists Charles Lamb and Coleridge wrote more personal letters to each other during the period of their collaboration than they did after the collaboration had concluded.
- DMany nineteenth-century authors chose to collaborate because they already shared similar stylistic tendencies prior to writing together.
Answer
The finding that an author's letters to a collaborator showed increased stylistic similarity while their letters to other contemporaries remained unchanged in style.
The correct answer describes a scenario where an author's stylistic convergence is limited strictly to letters sent to a collaborator, with no corresponding shift in letters written to other correspondents. This directly supports the hypothesis of a dyad-specific stylistic shift rather than a generalized shift.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Command of Evidence: Textual