Big data for the humanities using Google Ngrams: Discovering hidden patterns of conceptual trends

Authors

  • Shai Ophir

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i7.5567

Keywords:

Digital Humanities, Culturomics, Google Ngram Viewer, History of Philosophy, Sorokin

Abstract

“Big data” methodologies bring new potential for humanities research. Google’s Ngram Viewer provides an extraordinary tool for tracking long-term usage of terms. Although this is a very high level trend analysis, it may shed light on hidden relations that can be discovered only at the macro resolution level. This short paper will attempt to analyze the historical hidden patterns of the term “Truth” during the last 500 years. Its relation with the term “Love” will be revealed. The results are also compared with the manual analysis of “Truth Systems,” by Pitirim Sorokin in 1937.

Author Biography

Shai Ophir

Shai Ophir is an independent researcher. He earned a B.Sc. in mathematics cum laude from Tel-Aviv University and M.Sc. in computer sciences from Clayton University (St. Louis).

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Published

2016-06-26

How to Cite

Ophir, S. (2016). Big data for the humanities using Google Ngrams: Discovering hidden patterns of conceptual trends. First Monday, 21(7). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i7.5567