Lexomic Tools and Methods for Textual Analysis: Providing Deep Access to Digitized Texts

FAIN: PR-50112-11

Wheaton College (Norton, MA 02766-2322)
Michael D. C. Drout (Project Director: July 2010 to December 2013)

Development of computational tools and documentation for applying advanced statistical methods to textual and literary problems. The tools and methods would be demonstrated using material from a variety of languages and time periods, including Old English, medieval Latin, and the 20th-century Harlem Renaissance.

This project hybridizes traditional humanistic approaches to textual scholarship, such as source study and the analysis of style, with advanced computational and statistical comparative methods, allowing scholars "deep access" to digitized texts and textual corpora. Our multi-disciplinary collaboration enables us to discover patterns in (and between) texts previously invisible to traditional methods. Going forward, we will build on the success of our previous Digital Humanities Start-up Grant by further developing tools and documentation (in an open, on-line community) for applying advanced statistical methodologies to textual and literary problems. At the same time we will demonstrate the value of the approach by applying the tools and methods to texts from a variety of languages and time periods, including Old English, medieval Latin, and Modern English works from the twentieth-century Harlem Renaissance.