Categorisation techniques in computer-assisted reading and analysis of texts (CARAT) in the humanities

Abstract

There are two important strategies incomputer-assisted reading and analysis of text(CARAT). The first relates to theclassification process, and the second pertainsto the categorisation process. These twooften-interrelated operations have beenregularly recognised as essential components oftext analysis. However, the two operations arehighly time-consuming. A possible solution tothis problem calls upon more inductive orbottom-up strategies that are numerical andstatistical in nature. In our own research, wehave been exploring a few of these techniquesand their combination. We now know, through ourown past research and others' work, that theclassification methods allow a good empiricalthematic exploration of a corpus. Morespecifically, in this paper we shallconcentrate on the problem of assisting theautomatic categorisation of small segments of aphilosophical text into a set of thematiccategories.