Functional programming is a paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. Computation is treated as the evaluation of mathematical functions, and it avoids changing-state and mutable data. A program written in a functional style is often a series of nested or chained function (method) calls, which directly matches the description in the question. This approach emphasizes what to compute, not how to compute it.

A. Static refers to static typing, where type checking is done at compile-time, not a programming paradigm based on function composition.

B. Compiled refers to the implementation method where source code is translated into machine code before runtime, not the language's structure.

D. Markup languages, like HTML, are used for annotating documents and are not programming languages designed for computation via method calls.

1. Abelson, H., & Sussman, G. J. (1996). Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (2nd ed.). MIT Press. Section 1.1.6, "Conditional Expressions and Predicates," introduces the concept of computation as the evaluation of expressions composed of functions.

2. Hughes, J. (1989). Why Functional Programming Matters. The Computer Journal, 32(2), 98-107. https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/32.2.98 (This paper extensively discusses the modular design facilitated by composing functions.)

3. The Python Software Foundation. (n.d.). Functional Programming HOWTO. Python 3.12.3 documentation. Retrieved from https://docs.python.org/3/howto/functional.html. The introduction states, "Functional programming decomposes a problem into a set of functions."