Copyright

Arianna Ciula; Øyvind Eide; Cristina Marras; Patrick Sahle

Published On

2023-12-15

Page Range

pp. 131–205

Language

  • English

Print Length

75 pages

Modelling Text

A Case Study

Chapter 5, Modelling text – a case study, presents a case study examining examples of activities of modelling around the concepts of text and textuality. It qualifies as an anthology, a gallery, an empirical study, and an experiment on finding a different mode of argumentation to “change the launch pad” into future discussions around modelling. In this chapter, models are exposed primarily as specific and situated visual representations we experience when studying and modelling texts. They are presented following a What You See is What You Get approach. The argument takes a different form of expression from the other chapters by discussing models and their visualisations with the presentation of topical quotes extracted from the literature alongside their iconic counterparts, either in their original version or as interpreted visually by the authors and the designers. This effort is in itself an example of modelling as a translation process in action. The chapter spans various disciplines and illustrates different modes of making implicit and explicit models, covering a broad range from theoretical descriptions to concrete applications in the realm of text technologies and knowledge representation. The overall selection for examples aims to offer a “graphical” argument of how different models represent conceptualisations of and perspectives on texts in different ways, illustrating key concepts discussed in the previous chapters, and encouraging the readers to engage with the topic further.

Contributors

Arianna Ciula

(author)
Director and Senior Research Software Analyst, King’s Digital Lab at King's College London

Arianna Ciula is Director and Senior Research Software Analyst, King’s Digital Lab at King's College London. Arianna has over 15 years’ experience in collaborative Digital Humanities (DH) research, and 10 years’ experience in research management, and digital research infrastructures (inclusive of research policy strategy and implementation). She is an active member of the Research Software Engineers (RSE) and DH national and international communities; she researches and advocates for a holistic understanding of digital infrastructures and of modelling processes of cultural-historical objects and phenomena for the application of computational methods. Her personal research interests focus on modelling processes (from data modelling to design and analysis). She lectured and published on humanities computing, in particular on modelling processes, digital manuscript studies and editing; she has organised conferences and workshops in digital humanities, and is an active member of its international community. She holds a PhD in Manuscript and Book Studies (digital palaeography, University of Siena), an MA in Applied Computing in the Humanities (King’s College London) and a BA Hons in Communication sciences (computational linguistics, University of Siena). She worked at King’s in the past as Research Associate (Centre for Computing in the Humanities, 2003-2009). From 2009 to 2012, she worked as Science officer at the European Science Foundation (Humanities) where her primary responsibilities included the supervision of instruments to fund collaborative research in the humanities and the coordination of strategic activities. From 2013 she worked as Research Facilitator at the University of Roehampton for three years, where she expanded the research funding portfolio and supported research strategies across the Humanities and beyond. She was appointed Director of KDL in 2022.

Øyvind Eide

(author)
Professor in Digital Humanities at University of Cologne

Øyvind Eide is a professor in Digital Humanities at the University of Cologne. He holds a PhD in Digital Humanities from King's College London (2013). He was an employee in various positions at The University of Oslo from 1995 to 2013, working as a developer, analyst, and project manager in the area of digital humanities and cultural heritage informatics. From 2013 to 2015 he was a Lecturer and research associate at The University of Passau. He was the chair of The European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH) from 2016–19 and also actively engaged in several other international organisations including ICOM's International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC). His research interests are focused on conceptual modelling of cultural heritage information, with a focus on semiotic and medial aspects of models. He is also engaged in theoretical studies of modelling in the humanities as well as beyond

Cristina Marras

(author)
Director of Research at the Institute for European Intellectual Lexicon and History of Ideas (ILIESI) at National Research Council

Cristina Marras is Director of research at the Institute for European Intellectual Lexicon and History of Ideas (ILIESI) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), she is a G. Wilhelm Leibniz’s specialist, she has been working for more than two decades on research management, and digital research infrastructure for humanities and in particular for philosophy, focusing on modeling of philosophical and scientific concepts. She couples her research in philosophy, philosophy of language and digital humanities with activities to enhance the interdisciplinary dialogue through the exploration of different languages and technologies that favor the sharing of research methods, practices and results. She is responsible of the ILIESI research area “Digital systems to support knowledge: Open Access, Digital Libraries, Digital Preservation”, and of the projects: “Digital infrastructure and tools for humanities and history of ideas”, and “Modelling of concepts, markup and metadata”. She participates in the activities of the ICDI Competence Center, Italian Computing and Data Infrastructure of the GARR consortium and she represents CNR in the Italian Join Research Initiative of the research infrastructure OPERAS. She is currently part of the H2IOSC, “Humanities and Heritage Italian Open Science Cloud” project. She lectured and published on philosophy and humanities computing, she has organised conferences, workshops and training courses in digital humanities and she taught “Digital Humanities for Philosophy” at Sapienza Università in Rome. From 2014 to 2017 member of the Associazione Italiana per l’Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale (AIUCD) board, and from 2014 to 2023 of the editorial staff of the journal “Umanistica Digitale”. List of publications: https://publications.cnr.it/authors/cristina.marras

Patrick Sahle

(author)
Professor of Digital Humanities at University of Wuppertal

Patrick Sahle is a professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Wuppertal. He previously served as the managing director of the Cologne Center for eHumanities (CCeH), one of Germany's leading centers for Digital Humanities. In both positions he was and is responsible for numerous research projects bridging the gap between humanities and digital technologies. His work spans a wide array of disciplines, object types, text genres and methodologies in the humanities and the social sciences. Central to his expertise is the development and implementation of effective modeling solutions to facilitate digital research practices. These models address specific target objects and broader knowledge domains, facilitating advanced analysis and reasoning. Dr. Sahle is particularly renowned for his contributions to theories, models, and concepts related to text, which constitute a fundamental aspect of scholarship across the disciplines.