A Methodology for Studying Linguistic and Cultural Change in China, 1900-1950
It addresses an understudied period in computational humanities for researchers in that field, but the approach is incremental as it applies established methods to new data.
This paper tackles the problem of studying linguistic and cultural change in China from 1900 to 1950 by developing a quantitative framework using word counts and word embeddings, resulting in new historical insights into the interplay between Western modernity and Chinese cultural discourse.
This paper presents a quantitative approach to studying linguistic and cultural change in China during the first half of the twentieth century, a period that remains understudied in computational humanities research. The dramatic changes in Chinese language and culture during this time call for greater reflection on the tools and methods used for text analysis. This preliminary study offers a framework for analyzing Chinese texts from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, demonstrating how established methods such as word counts and word embeddings can provide new historical insights into the complex negotiations between Western modernity and Chinese cultural discourse.