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On the Uses of Word Sense Change for Research in the Digital Humanities

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Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (TPDL 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10450))

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Abstract

With advances in technology and culture, our language changes. We invent new words, add or change meanings of existing words and change names of existing things. Unfortunately, our language does not carry a memory; words, expressions and meanings used in the past are forgotten over time. When searching and interpreting content from archives, language changes pose a great challenge. In this paper, we present results of automatic word sense change detection and show the utility for archive users as well as digital humanities’ research. Our method is able to capture changes that relate to the usage and culture of a word that cannot easily be found using dictionaries or other resources.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://sweclarin.se/sites/sweclarin.se/files/videos/invigning_2016/Johan-Jarlbrink.mp4.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been funded in parts by the project “Towards a knowledge-based culturomics” supported by a framework grant from the Swedish Research Council (2012–2016; dnr 2012-5738). This work is also in parts funded by the European Research Council under Alexandria (ERC 339233) and the European Community’s H2020 Program under SoBigData (RIA 654024). We would like to thank Times Newspapers Limited for providing the archive of The Times for our research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Språkbanken, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Nina Tahmasebi

  2. University Library J.C. Senckenberg, Frankfurt, Germany

    Thomas Risse

Authors
  1. Nina Tahmasebi
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  2. Thomas Risse
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nina Tahmasebi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Universiteit van Amsterdam , Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Jaap Kamps

  2. Library & Information Center, University of Patras , Patras, Greece

    Giannis Tsakonas

  3. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki , Thessaloniki, Greece

    Yannis Manolopoulos

  4. Civil Engineering, University of Thrace , Kimmeria, Greece

    Lazaros Iliadis

  5. Informatics, Ionian University , Kerkyra, Greece

    Ioannis Karydis

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Tahmasebi, N., Risse, T. (2017). On the Uses of Word Sense Change for Research in the Digital Humanities. In: Kamps, J., Tsakonas, G., Manolopoulos, Y., Iliadis, L., Karydis, I. (eds) Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries. TPDL 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10450. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67008-9_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67008-9_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67007-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67008-9

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