Conceptual Change: Some challenges of modelling meaning in Early English print

Invited research talk by Dr Iona Hine & Prof Susan Fitzmaurice, University of Sheffield

Over the past three years, the Linguistic DNA team has been developing a set of of computational methods for identifying discursive concepts in the universe of early modern English discourse transcribed from Early English Books Online by the Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP). The task of modelling discursive concepts in textual data has been absorbing and challenging, both theoretically and practically.  The architects of EEBO-TCP aimed to incorporate texts printed between the beginning of English print (in the 1470s) and 1700. Information about the more than 50 000 texts included relies on bibliographical scholarship dating back to the early 20th century. At the heart of the Linguistic DNA project is the question of change. But how do we navigate this varied collection of texts? What anchor points can assist us in identifying the variables influencing change? When is variation in language use a sign of genre or text type and when is it a matter of chronological development? In this paper, we explore the problems for discerning, analysing and interpreting change in terms of time and space.