Distributional Concept Analysis and the Digital History of Ideas
Peter de Bolla, Ewan Jones, Paul Nulty, Gabriel L. Recchia, John O. Regan · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2023
This chapter outlines a novel method for discerning the structure and history of concepts and their aggregation as ideas. Based on the analysis of co-ocurrence data in large data sets, the method creates a measure of ‘binding’ that allows one to inspect the larger constellations of words and concepts that comprise ideas which can be tracked diachronically. The chapter also describes the method used for ascertaining the ‘binding’ between concepts, and for modelling ‘ideas’. A detailed account of how the ‘shared lexis tool’ was built is also included.