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Electronic Texts and Their Study Geoffrey M. Rockwell x 24072 TSH 312 grockwel@mcmaster

Electronic Texts and Their Study Geoffrey M. Rockwell x 24072 TSH 312 grockwel@mcmaster.ca http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~hc-courses/textanalysis/. Research with E-Texts. What can we learn from the texts created? How do we go about doing text analysis?. History of Text-Analysis Tools.

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Electronic Texts and Their Study Geoffrey M. Rockwell x 24072 TSH 312 grockwel@mcmaster

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  1. Electronic Texts and Their Study Geoffrey M. Rockwell x 24072 TSH 312 grockwel@mcmaster.ca http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~hc-courses/textanalysis/

  2. Research with E-Texts • What can we learn from the texts created? • How do we go about doing text analysis?

  3. History of Text-Analysis Tools • Text-analysis tools grew out of concordances: • 1247, Concordance to the Vulgate Bible, Paris • 1949, Father Busa Index Thomisticus • 1970s, Batch Concordancers like OCP • 1989, TACT - Interactive Concordancers • 1990s, Textual Visualization • Text-analysis tools provide by comparison: • Speed, Complex Searches, Reconfigured Views, Statistics The researcher can generate personal concordances interactively

  4. Concordance - Rearranged Text Types of Concordances: verbal - index without context contextual - KWIC (Key Word In Context) glossarial - word-forms conceptual - organized by idea or sense “An alphabetical arrangement of the principal words contained in a book, with citations of the passages in which they occur” (OED)

  5. Concordances and Interpretation • Concordances provide an alternative arrangement of the text that brings disjunct passages together into a concordantia. • Interpretative strategy where answers are drawn from the text (Bible) by assembling passages on the subject in question and reading this rearranged text as a meaningful whole. • Concordance facilitates this rearrangement providing alternative views.

  6. Types of Text-Analysis • Stylistic • Describing author’s style and comparing it • Authorship studies • Linguistic • Create representative corpus • Describe linguistic use • Thematic Analysis • Finding patterns (words) in a text • Following themes through a work • Comparing themes • Asking what a work is about - identifying themes

  7. What is a theme? “Theme, a salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-matter, or a topic recurring in a number of literary works.” (Concise Oxford Dict. Lit. Terms) Oedipus theme, theme of the hero’s return, image of swan, water theme, love theme

  8. Following a Theme • Theme - Scepticism • Identify Patterns to Search for (Thesaurus) • sceptic.* • Look at Distribution • Distribution by part and character • Collocates • What words are used in the neighborhood? • Compare to other themes

  9. Example from my work • Study of Humes “Dialogues” • Problem of Scepticism • Search on “sceptic.*” • Distribution graphs • Look at how characters use the term • sceptic.*; when speaker=cleanthes • sceptic.*; when speaker=philo • Tell a story based on evidence http://tactweb.humanities.mcmaster.ca/dialogs/tactweb.htm

  10. Distribution for Cleanthes 0 | 0 | 1 | 18 |****************** 2 | 0 | 3 | 4 |**** 4 | 1 |* 5 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 12 | 0 | Distribution for Philo 0 | 0 | 1 | 11 |*********** 2 | 2 |** 3 | 0 | 4 | 1 |* 5 | 0 | 6 | 2 |** 7 | 0 | 8 | 1 |* 9 | 0 | 10 | 2 |** 11 | 4 |**** 12 | 8 |******** Looking at Text-Analysis

  11. Looking at Text-Analysis • Scepticism is a framing issue • Cleanthes insults Philo who has positioned himself as a sceptic • Philo avoids answering • Philo returns to it in later passages - he demonstrates what it is to be a sceptic

  12. Surface Measurement (Quantification) Problems Interesting Interpretation (Understanding) That a theme is the passages where a set of words appear Can themes be identified by key words? What about ambiguous words? That concording passages into a new text is an acceptable interpretative strategy Where does the passage start and end around a word? Is reading a rearranged text useful? That the distribution of words indicates the progress of a theme Do the number of hits indicate intensity of theme?

  13. Two Views of Text-Analysis Text-analysis is about proving things about texts Stylistic analysis provides reproducible descriptions of authors style Measurement of surface features allows us to prove more interesting points Reaction to impressionistic reader oriented literary theory Text-analysis is the rereading a text in ways that help one better understand it Text-analysis is only one of many strategies Text-analysis reveals anomalies to be researched Text-analysis is useful precisely because the computer can’t do well what we do well, and can do other things well - Alternative Perspective

  14. Arguments for text-analysis • There is a transfer of meaning for words across contexts • Words can evoke themes Need for theoretical work? • Tradition of concording • Tradition of treating words as belonging to categories (Thesaurus)

  15. Return to the text? • We make soft quantitative claims anyway • It counters impressionistic readings • Reproducable and disputable results • Text-Analysis Playpens • Discipline of identifying what you mean for a machine

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