Text-mining in the Digital Humanities

Submitted by itirakdogan on Sun, 07/02/2010 - 12:16.
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Text-mining in the Digital Humanities: The Interface between Conceptual History,
Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics
13.05.10-14.05.10
Lancaster University, UK

The aim of this interdisciplinary workshop is to explore the potential for collaboration
between researchers in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Corpus Linguistics (CL) and
Conceptual History (CH), the study of key socio-political concepts in their historical
context (see http://www.concepta-net.org/conceptual_history).

Recent studies by mainly Lancaster-based researchers have suggested the methodological
synergy that can result from combining CDA and corpus-linguistic approaches. Meanwhile,
the discourse-historical approach in CDA developed by Ruth Wodak (Lancaster) overlaps
with CH in its study of the discursive construction of collective identities that can
themselves be seen as concepts, each with their own history. Finally, the development of
increasingly sophisticated software programs, such as Lancaster's UCREL Semantic
Analysis System, opens up exciting new research possibilities for mining the
ever-increasing number of historical texts available in digital form. The workshop will
provide a unique opportunity for researchers in CH, CDA and CL to discover how they
might benefit from mutual collaboration. It should also be of interest to anyone in the
Humanities and Social Sciences who works with texts and/or deals with basic
socio-political concepts, including collective identities.

Guest speakers will include Jan Ifversen (Head of Institute for History and Area
Studies, Aarhus University), Hans-Erich Boedeker (Max-Planck-Institut für
Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin), both from the History of Political and Social Concepts
Group, and Gerlinde Mautner (Vienna University of Economics and Business), who pioneered
the use of corpus-linguistic techniques in CDA. The workshop will also include
demonstrations of various software programs.

Abstracts (200-300 words)
We invite the submission of proposals for 20-minute papers from scholars working in:

?         Conceptual History (including historical semantics and metaphor history)
?         Critical Discourse Analysis (including critical metaphor analysis and
cognitive approaches)
?         Corpus Linguistics (including historical text-mining and keyword extraction)

Possible topic areas for papers include, but are not limited to:

?       Case studies in using historical corpora
?       Concepts, texts and discourses
?       Conceptual history vs historical semantics
?       Conceptual contestation / conceptual innovation
?       Critical metaphor analysis and cognitive approaches
?       Different national approaches
?       Identities as concepts
?       The importance of context(s)
?       Reconstructing semantic fields
?       The role of concepts in the discourse-historical approach
?       What corpus linguistics can and cannot do
?       What makes a key word key?
Workshop fee

Full delegate rate              £40
Postgraduate Researchers        £20
(The fees include lunches and morning and afternoon refreshments on both days.)

Important dates

26 March 2010 Deadline for abstracts, to be sent to Prof. Anne Wichmann
(a.wichmann AT virgin.net)
1 April 2010    Notification of acceptance
23 April 2010  Deadline for registration and payment of conference fees.

Further information (accommodation, travel etc) will soon be available at
http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/events/chcdacl2010/

For queries in the meantime please contact one of the organisers.

Organisers

Neil Foxlee             n.foxlee AT virgin.net or n.foxlee1 AT uclan.ac.uk
Anne Wichmann   a.wichmann AT virgin.net or awichmann AT uclan.ac.uk
Paul Rayson             p.rayson AT lancaster.ac.uk
Paul Baker              j.p.baker AT lancaster.ac.uk
Dawn Archer             dearcher AT uclan.ac.uk

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful for the support of

Lancaster University, Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS).
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/ias

University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), Preston, UK.
http://www.uclan.ac.uk/ahss/journalism_media_communication/english_linguistics/