Lab Session: Digital Humanities

    

Lab Session: Digital Humanities

                                                          

As part of our Digital Humanities lab session, we have been given a set of activities to explore and reflect upon. This blog is written in response to that exercise, which has been assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir to enhance our academic learning and provide us with practical experience in the subject.

Here are a few links that will help you gain deeper insight into the topic and broaden your understanding. You can access them here. Click Here.

1. Understand how once we used to debate on if machines can write poems.

At the outset, we explored an age-old question: Can machines create poetry? For this task, we were given a poem and asked to judge whether it was written by a human or produced by a computer. The exercise encouraged us to think critically about the essence of creativity, the role of language, and the line separating human from artificial expression. Although it was fascinating to see how convincingly a machine could mimic human imagination, the experience also highlighted that genuine emotional depth and delicate nuances still remain hallmarks of human artistry.

Exploring 19th-Century Fictional Speech: Insights from Jane Austen and the 19C Corpus

As part of our Digital Humanities lab under the guidance of Dr. Dilip Barad, I used the CLiC tool to investigate fictional speech in 19th-century novels, with a particular focus on Jane Austen. My aim was to explore how characters’ dialogues reflect politeness, curiosity, social negotiation, and irony, and to compare these patterns with those found in the broader 19C corpus. Practically, I carried out a series of activities (17.1–17.5) examining frequent speech clusters, their functions, and their distribution in both character speech and narration. This process allowed me to see how Austen and her contemporaries shaped fictional dialogue to mirror, refine, and sometimes critique real social interaction.

Exploring 19th-Century Fictional Speech: Insights from Jane Austen and the 19C Corpus

The study of fictional dialogue in 19th-century literature provides fascinating insights into social etiquette, politeness strategies, and narrative conventions. Using the CLiC (Corpus of Literary English) tool, I explored speech clusters in 19th-century novels, compared them to Jane Austen’s works, and examined how character dialogue differs from the narrator’s voice. Through Activities 17.1 to 17.5, I observed patterns of wording, repetition, and stylistic choices that shape fictional conversations, gaining a deeper understanding of how dialogue reflects social interaction and literary style.

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Activity 17.1: Speech in the 19th-Century Reference Corpus (19C)

In this activity, I focused on the 15 most frequent speech clusters in the 19C corpus, which contains 29 novels from the 19th century. The aim was to understand the conventions of fictional dialogue and how characters communicated emotions, navigated social hierarchies, and maintained politeness. The analysis revealed recurring patterns that reflected the stylistic and social norms of the period.

Categories and Key Clusters:

• Expressing Curiosity or Inquiry

  • Clusters: i should like to know, what do you think of, what is to be done, what am i to do

  • Function: Questioning / Seeking Advice / Curiosity

  • Context: Used when characters seek knowledge, guidance, or advice, often showing uncertainty or curiosity.

• Expressing Desire, Intention, or Request

  • Clusters: i should like to see, i want to speak to, i should like to have, i have a right to

  • Function: Polite Requests / Expression of Desire / Asserting Rights

  • Context: Indicates wants or intentions; softened commands reflect societal politeness.

• Time and Measurement References

  • Cluster: a quarter of an hour

  • Function: Timekeeping / Narrative Structuring

  • Context: Marks temporal precision in narrative events or daily activities.

• Refusing or Denying

  • Cluster: i am not going to

  • Function: Refusal / Assertion of Will

  • Context: Shows defiance or determination, reflecting agency against social pressure.

• Speculative or Evaluative Statements

  • Clusters: it seems to me that, as well as i do

  • Function: Opinion / Speculation / Comparison

  • Context: Expresses opinions, judgments, or comparisons; reflects polite hedging.

• Apology and Politeness Markers

  • Cluster: i am sorry to say

  • Function: Apology / Politeness Strategy

  • Context: Introduces bad news or criticism politely.

• Reassurance and Encouragement

  • Cluster: i am sure you will

  • Function: Encouragement / Persuasion

  • Context: Used in persuasive, reassuring, or encouraging dialogues.

Takeaway:

19th-century novelistic dialogue was formulaic yet socially nuanced, reflecting politeness, negotiation, agency, and temporal structuring.

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Activity 17.2: Comparing “It seems to me that” Then and Now

This activity compared the cluster “it seems to me that” in 19C novels and in modern spoken English using the British National Corpus (BNC). The comparison highlighted how opinion markers function similarly across time but differ in form and style.

Observations:

• Similarities:

  • Both serve as hedging devices to present opinions cautiously.

  • Softens statements for politeness and diplomacy.

  • Reflects subjectivity rather than assertion of fact.

• Differences:

  • Literary 19C usage: long, complete, polished sentences.

  • Modern BNC usage: includes fillers, repetitions, and interruptions.

  • Stylistic purpose: novels use it for characterisation; in speech, it buys thinking time or avoids confrontation.

Takeaway:

The core function of hedging opinions remains, but stylistic execution shifts from polished literary forms to casual, disfluent conversation.

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Activity 17.3: Speech in Jane Austen’s Novels

I examined the most frequent clusters in Austen’s character quotations and compared them to the broader 19C corpus. This allowed me to see how Austen’s dialogue reflects broader social conventions while also demonstrating her distinct style.

Key Insights:

• Overlap:

  • Clusters like I do not know what and I am sure you will appear in both corpora.

• Distinctive Features:

  • 19C corpus: clusters for requests, opinions, and narrative time markers.

  • Austen: clusters emphasizing social negotiation, politeness, hedging, and irony.

• Contexts of Use:

  • 19C novels: broader everyday life contexts, supporting plot and moral reflection.

  • Austen: socially nuanced, highlighting relational negotiation and conversational subtlety.

Conclusion:

Austen shares era conventions but enhances dialogue with refined hedges and polite rejections to reflect social discourse.

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Activity 17.4: The Speech of Austen’s Characters

This activity focused on how specific clusters function differently in character speech compared to the general 19C corpus.

Observations:

• In the general corpus, I do not know what expresses uncertainty or rhetorical flourish.

• In Austen’s novels, it often appears in polite social negotiation, irony, or playful commentary.

  • Example: “I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston” (Emma).

• Functions in Austen: politeness, irony, social negotiation.

• Comparison: Austen sharpens generic clusters into socially nuanced tools, unlike the wider, more generic usage in other 19C fiction.

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Activity 17.5: Speech of Austen Characters vs. Austen’s Narrator

Comparing character speech and narration in Austen’s novels highlighted how she differentiates voices.

Observations:

• Character speech: direct, conversational, uses clusters like what do you think of; reflects dialogue, gossip, persuasion.

• Narration: formal, expository, syntactically elaborate; clusters structure the narrative rather than mimic conversation.

Interpretation:

Austen’s technique gives realism to dialogue while maintaining narrative polish, clearly distinguishing between conversational and literary voices.

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Experience of Using CLiC and Learning Outcomes

Working with CLiC was highly insightful. It allowed me to explore frequency, context, and patterns of speech clusters across different corpora, providing a quantitative and qualitative perspective on fictional dialogue. Observing clusters in both character quotations and narration helped me appreciate how authors like Austen carefully modulate language to distinguish voices.

Learning Outcomes:

• Gained practical experience in corpus-based literary analysis.

• Understood the social and historical dimensions of 19th-century speech.

• Learned how fiction polishes speech differently from real conversation.

• Developed insight into how linguistic patterns convey politeness, agency, hedging, and irony.

• Observed diachronic changes in English speech from Victorian novels to contemporary English.

Overall Takeaway:

These activities revealed the importance of both form and function in literary dialogue and showed how corpus tools can make these patterns visible in a structured, research-oriented way.

Concluding Reflection

Exploring 19th-century fictional speech through CLiC has been an enlightening journey into the subtleties of literary dialogue. I realized that language in novels is carefully crafted to reflect social norms, politeness strategies, and interpersonal dynamics, and that even recurring clusters carry nuanced meanings depending on context. Jane Austen’s dialogue, in particular, stood out for its delicate balance of irony, social negotiation, and emotional expression, showing how fiction can shape speech to convey character and society simultaneously. This corpus-based approach deepened my understanding of the interplay between form and function in literary language and highlighted how digital tools can reveal patterns that might remain invisible in traditional close reading. Overall, the experience reinforced the value of combining computational methods with literary analysis to gain richer, evidence-based insights into historical and stylistic dimensions of language.

Voyant Activity :Jude the obscure

      

Methodology

I uploaded the full text of Jude the Obscure into Voyant Tools to explore Thomas Hardy’s language and narrative style. The platform generated multiple visualizations, including a word cloud, frequency list, trends graph, as well as advanced tools like StreamGraph, TermsBerry, Mandala, Knotes, DreamScape, and Cirrus. These features provided both a broad overview of recurring words and themes and a detailed, interactive exploration of patterns, relationships, and contextual usages within the novel. By examining these visualizations, I could trace key motifs, character emphasis, and stylistic tendencies throughout the text, gaining a richer understanding of Hardy’s literary techniques.     

  Cirrcus

 

The Cirrus visualization in Voyant Tools displays the most frequently used words in Jude the Obscure as a word cloud, where the size of each word reflects its frequency. Words like “Jude,” “Sue,” “Christminster,” and “marriage” appear prominently, emphasizing the central characters and key themes of the novel. This tool provides a quick, intuitive overview of Hardy’s focus points and recurring motifs, allowing readers to grasp the novel’s thematic structure at a glance.

DreamScap

The DreamScape visualization in Voyant Tools offers an interactive view of word associations and co-occurrences within Jude the Obscure. It highlights how certain words and themes are connected throughout the text, revealing patterns in character interactions, settings, and recurring ideas

Knotes

The Knotes visualization in Voyant Tools provides a network-style view of key words and their contextual relationships throughout Jude the Obscure. It allows us to see which words frequently appear together and how themes, characters, and motifs are interconnected. For instance, clusters involving “Jude,” “Sue,” “education,” and “society” reveal the novel’s focus on personal struggle, social pressures, and the pursuit of knowledge. This tool is particularly useful for tracing thematic connections and understanding how Hardy structures relationships between concepts across the text

 Mandala

The Mandala visualization in Voyant Tools presents a circular layout of word frequency and relationships across Jude the Obscure. Central words like “Jude,” “Sue,” “Christminster,” and “education” are highlighted, showing their prominence throughout the novel. The visualization allows readers to see how themes and characters are distributed and interconnected, providing a clear, at-a-glance understanding of Hardy’s narrative focus and recurring motifs. This tool is particularly useful for observing the structural and thematic patterns that run throughout the text.

TermsBerry

The TermsBerry visualization in Voyant Tools displays clusters of related words in Jude the Obscure, showing how frequently certain terms co-occur and their relationships across the text. Words like “Jude,” “Sue,” “Christminster,” and “aspiration” appear in interconnected clusters, highlighting the novel’s central characters and recurring themes such as ambition, love, and societal constraints. This tool helps to visualize the network of ideas in Hardy’s narrative, making it easier to trace patterns of meaning and thematic connections throughout the novel.

StreamGraph

 

The StreamGraph visualization in Voyant Tools illustrates how the frequency of words changes throughout Jude the Obscure. It provides a visual representation of the flow of themes, motifs, and character mentions across the novel. For instance, words like “Jude,” “Sue,” and “Christminster” appear prominently in different sections, highlighting their importance at key points in the narrative. This tool helps track the development of ideas and recurring topics, making it easier to see how Hardy structures the story and emphasizes particular themes, relationships, and social concerns over time.

Learning Outcomes

• Gained practical experience using digital humanities tools like Voyant for literary analysis.

• Learned to visualize and track word frequency and thematic patterns across the text.

• Understood character prominence and the flow of recurring motifs using visualizations like StreamGraph and Cirrus.

• Explored relationships between words and ideas through tools like TermsBerry, Knotes, and DreamScape.

• Observed how Hardy emphasizes themes of social constraint, personal aspiration, and relationships throughout the novel.

• Learned to combine quantitative data (word counts, clusters) with qualitative interpretation for deeper textual insights.

• Appreciated the ability of digital tools to reveal patterns and structures not easily visible in traditional close reading.

References 

Barad, Dilip. “What If Machines Write Poems.” What If Machines Write Poems, 1 Jan. 1970, blog.dilipbarad.com/2017/03/what-if-machines-write-poems.html. Accessed 30 Sept. 2025.