Quantitative Linguistics and Histoire des mentalités: Gender Representation in the Trésor de la langue française, 1600–1950

Abstract

Computer processing of textual data in cultural and intellectual history has expanded considerably since the 1960s. In spite of the growth of such applications, however, it would seem that computerized textual research has not had a significant impact on work in history and that text based research has not been subject to the same shift in perspective that accompanied computer-assisted research in more social science oriented forms of quantitative history. By asking traditional questions of traditional texts, computer methodologies in literary and language based research have failed to move from a curiosity to an important and respected position in cultural and intellectual history. By contrast, quantitative social, political and economic history used computer technology to open new kinds of sources, to ask new questions, and to develop new methods. Indeed, the computer fitted nicely into a shift away from political and event based history, to the history of social phenomenon and the long term, la longue durée. The traditional object of historical research, the serial history of events, has not been nearly as revolutionized by the new methods. I argue that computing in textual research requires a corresponding shift in perspective and the development of new objects of research. Quantitative linguistic analysis of large amounts of textual data provides an important corrective to the traditional notions of reading texts, by directing questions to issues that cannot be treated by examination of a small number of texts by hand and adopting methods that are better suited to systematic analysis.

The author received a PhD in French History from the University of Ottawa in 1991 and is currently Assistant Director of CILS and the ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago. Portions of this paper are drawn from “Gender representation and histoire des mentalités: Language and Power in the Trésor de la langue française,” forthcoming in Histoire et mesure.