The Literature-Linguistics Interface -- Bridging the Gap Between Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Literary Texts
10.6092/issn.2532-8816/9601
Questo numero di Umanistica Digitale è dedicato al convegno “Bridging Gaps, Creating Links. The Qualitative-Quantitative Interface in the Study of Literature”, svoltosi presso il DiSLL (Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari) dell’Università di Padova dal 7 al 9 giungo 2018 e organizzato da Rocco Coronato e Sara Gesuato. Il convegno verteva su un argomento oggetto di grande interesse di recente da parte di studiosi di linguistica e letteratura, la combinazione di metodi quantitativi e qualitativi nello studio della letteratura. Questi approcci mixed-method allo studio dei testi letterari offrono prospettive e intuizioni complementari circa la struttura formale, retorica e narrativa, i temi e lo stile dei diversi generi letterari. I risultati conseguiti con i metodi di ricerca misti gettano luce sui temi socio-storici, le credenze, le ideologie e le credenze culturali trasmessi dai testi. Le relazioni del convegno, alcune delle quali sono raccolte in questo numero speciale, hanno mostrato come lo studio di tipo mixed-method serve sia scoprire pattern e temi che altrimenti passerebbero inosservati se non si considerassero il contenuto e il contesto generale delle opere letterarie, sia a raccogliere e sistematizzare riscontri quantitativi per una verifica della validità della loro interpretazione qualitativa.
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The Literature-Linguistics Interface -- Bridging the Gap Between Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Literary Texts
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2019-06-28
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10.6092/issn.2532-8816/9601
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2532-8816
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The Literature-Linguistics Interface -- Bridging the Gap Between Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Literary Texts
https://umanisticadigitale.unibo.it/article/view/9601/9375
    Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.6, 2019
R. Coronato, S. Gesuato - The Literature-Linguistics Interface - Bridging the Gap Between
Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Literary Texts
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/9478


The Literature-Linguistics Interface - Bridging the Gap
 Between Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to
                    Literary Texts

                                     Rocco Coronato, Sara Gesuato

                                    Università degli Studi di Padova
                                      rocco.coronato@unipd.it
                                       sara.gesuato@unipd.it


       Abstract. This issue of Umanistica Digitale is devoted to the conference “Bridging Gaps,
       Creating Links. The Qualitative-Quantitative Interface in the Study of Literature”, which
       took place at the DiSLL (Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies), University of
       Padua, on June 7-9, 2018 and was convened by Rocco Coronato and Sara Gesuato. The
       conference focused on a topic that has recently raised the attention of several scholars
       both in linguistics and in literary studies, namely, the combination of quantitative and
       qualitative methods in the study of literature. Mixed-method approaches to the study of
       literary texts provide complementary insights into the formal encoding, rhetorical-
       narrative structure, topics and wording of various kinds of literary texts. The results
       obtained through such combined research methods cast light on the socio-historical
       themes, beliefs, ideologies and cultural constructs being conveyed. The papers of the
       conference, some of which appear in this special issue, showed how a mixed-method
       investigation can both detect patterns and themes that might otherwise go unnoticed
       without considering the overall content and context of literary works, and collect and
       systematize quantitative evidence for testing qualitative interpretations of those works.
       Questo numero di Umanistica Digitale è dedicato al convegno “Bridging Gaps, Creating
       Links. The Qualitative-Quantitative Interface in the Study of Literature”, svoltosi presso
       il DiSLL (Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari) dell’Università di Padova dal 7 al
       9 giungo 2018 e organizzato da Rocco Coronato e Sara Gesuato. Il convegno verteva su
       un argomento oggetto di grande interesse di recente da parte di studiosi di linguistica e
       letteratura, la combinazione di metodi quantitativi e qualitativi nello studio della
       letteratura. Questi approcci mixed-method allo studio dei testi letterari offrono
       prospettive e intuizioni complementari circa la struttura formale, retorica e narrativa, i
       temi e lo stile dei diversi generi letterari. I risultati conseguiti con i metodi di ricerca misti
       gettano luce sui temi socio-storici, le credenze, le ideologie e le credenze culturali
       trasmessi dai testi. Le relazioni del convegno, alcune delle quali sono raccolte in questo
       numero speciale, hanno mostrato come lo studio di tipo mixed-method serve sia scoprire
       pattern e temi che altrimenti passerebbero inosservati se non si considerassero il
       contenuto e il contesto generale delle opere letterarie, sia a raccogliere e sistematizzare
       riscontri quantitativi per una verifica della validità della loro interpretazione qualitativa.


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     Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.6, 2019


         Preface

      The Conference “Bridging Gaps, Creating Links. The Qualitative-Quantitative Interface
in the Study of Literature” took place at the DiSLL (Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e
Letterari), University of Padua, on June 7-9, 2018. It was convened by Rocco Coronato
(University of Padua) and Sara Gesuato (University of Padua), thanks to the generous funding
provided by the Research Funding Committee of the University of Padua and the Department
of Linguistic and Literary Studies.
      The aim of the conference was to bring together linguists and literary scholars who were
willing to explore the depth and breadth of literary texts across languages, cultures and time
periods in a true spirit of inter-disciplinary collaboration. All contributions showed how a
qualitative analysis of literary texts may be enhanced by quantitative data, how a quantitative
analysis of the same texts can be fruitfully informed by the insights of qualitative analysis, and
how together they can provide a well-rounded description and account of the value and
specificities of literary texts.
      The Organising Committee of the Conference was joined by other experts whose research
interests include mixed-method approaches to the study of literature.

                                   Organising Committee
                             Rocco Coronato (University of Padua)
                              Sara Gesuato (University of Padua)

                                    Scientific Committee
                            Rocco Coronato (University of Padua)
                           Michele Cortelazzo (University of Padua)
                              Sara Gesuato (University of Padua)
                             Aldo Nemesio (University of Turin)
                        Daniela Francesca Virdis (University of Cagliari)

      33 submissions were received, among which 23 individual papers were selected. The
submissions showed how keen all scholars were on investigating the formulation, structure,
content, cultural salience and social import of literary communicative practices in a variety of
languages and across time periods. There emerged a fruitful continuum rather a stark
opposition between qualitative and quantitative approaches.
      The conference brought together 38 scholars from 8 countries. Its programme, organized
in 11 sessions, included 1 workshop, 3 plenary lectures, 1 round-table discussion, and 23
individual paper presentations on a number of topics relevant to literary criticism, stylistics and
literary linguistic analysis such as: corpus-driven investigations of literary form; corpus and
statistical methods for the study of literature; digital editing; computational literary history;
trends and gaps in the history of literature; lexical, morpho-syntactic, stylistic-pragmatic and
prosodic features of literary discourse; term mapping; point of view and character portrayal in
narrative discourse; metaphor analysis and thematic description of literary texts; literary
transfer; authorship attribution, genre identification and dating of literary works. All these


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       R. Coronato, S. Gesuato - The Literature-Linguistics Interface - Bridging the Gap Between
                                      Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Literary Texts

topics were approached from a combined qualitative-quantitative perspective. This closely
tight, mutually curious scientific community eagerly discussed the pros and cons of the
different approaches in an exceptionally lively debate that criss-crossed all plenary lectures and
papers.
      The Conference opening session saw a plenary given by Nigel Fabb about the
representation of literary form as statistical generalizations over literary texts and the
contribution given by corpus studies.
      Session II of the conference was devoted to two closely inked themes at the core of the
conference: the qualitative-quantitative assessment of literature as can be seen in phonology
(Valentina Colonna) and the mixed-method approach to the study of literature, analysed in the
linguistic make-up of literary texts (Marina Gorlach) and in a database on translation and
lyrical tradition between Italy and France (Tobia Zanoni and Sara Giovine) .
      Session III showcased the study of language in literary texts, for instance in Chateaubriand
(Geneviève Henrot) and Camus (Iride Santoro and Liana Tronci), and as a way of
reconstructing early modern syntax (Lucia Assenzi). A parallel session concerned the linguistic,
stylistic and prosodic features of literary texts, with an emphasis on theme and quantification
(Joseph Davis), prose rhythm (Scott Borgeson, Arto Anttila, Ryan Heuser, Paul Kyparsky), and
the use of adjectives (Erik Castello).
      Session IV hosted a workshop held by Arjuna Tuzzi on the use of statistical methods for
the analysis of literary texts.
      Session V was started by a plenary talk given by Michaela Mahlberg on the study of
fiction in the digital age.
      In Session VI the papers dealt with two main topics: authorship attribution and genre
identification in Italian narrative (Fabio Ciotti), early modern English literature (Gabriel Egan-
Paul Brown), and Spanish literary history (Daniel Gutierrez-Trapaga); and metaphor analysis,
gauged through the study of megametaphorical expressions (Daniel C. Strack), the
classification and description of metaphors in Dante (Gaia Tomazzoli), and the presence of
metaphor in literature and the effect on translation (Christos Stavrou-Anna Chita).
      Session VII included two themes: stylistics and literary transfer, with an application of
corpus stylistics to a contemporary work of fiction (Francesca Coccetta-Daniela Cesiri), and
corpus-driven investigations of literary form, for instance the dialogues in Pride and Prejudice
and in two of its cinematic versions (Francesca Bianchi-Sara Gesuato), the creation and
application of an interactive study platform for analytical genetic edition (Ersilia Russo-
Francesca Marocco- Teresa Gargano), and anaphoric markers in literary texts (Anna Bonifazi).
      Session VIII was devoted to the theme of text and context, with a study of medical
terminology in Conan Doyle (Federica Vezzani-Giorgio Maria Di Nunzio-Geneviève Henrot),
and the topic of reconciliation and integration of language and literature, with a study of irony
from a cross-disciplinary perspective (Ines Lozano Palacio) and a survey on research practices
conducted among Italian and international scholars of language and literature (Rocco
Coronato-Sara Gesuato).
      Session IX consisted of a plenary talk given by Jan Christoph Meister, “Phenomenology
vs. empirics? From qualitative to quantitative analysis of literature - and back”, and Session X of


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a plenary talk given by Federica Perazzini on computational criticism and the quality of
quantitative literary research.
     Session XI hosted a round table discussion on the issues raised during the Conference.
The discussant was Paul Brown, and the discussants were Nigel Fabb, Michaela Mahlberg, Jan
Christoph Meister, Federica Perazzini, Arjuna Tuzzi.




                                       PROGRAMME


                                             June 7, 2018

     SESSION I

    10:00am-11:00am Plenary talk - Nigel Fabb (University of Strathclyde), What do we
know when we know a literary form? Corpus studies and weighted expectations

     SESSION II

     11:00am-12:30pm (parallel sessions)

     The qualitative-quantitative assessment of literature
     Valentina Colonna (University of Genoa and University of Turin) Prosodies of ‘Congedo’ –
Comparative Analysis of Twelve Readings
     Kobie van KRIEKEN (Radboud University), Understanding perspective in narrative: from
qualitative analysis to quantitative assessment

      The mixed-method approach to the study of literature
      Marina Gorlach (Metropolitan State University of Denver) The qualitative-quantitative
analysis of ‘Fahrenheit 451’: mapping the linguistic make-up of literary texts”
      Tobia Zanon (University of Padua), Sara Giovine (University of Padua), The TRALYT
research project: translation and lyrical tradition between Italy and France (19th-21st Century)

     SESSION III

     2:00pm-3:30pm (parallel sessions)

    Studying language in literary texts
    Geneviève Henrot (University of Padua) Le Nom propre modifié dans les ‘Mémoires
d’Outre-tombe’ de Chateaubriand. Pour un système des personnages entre Mythe et (petite) Histoire




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        R. Coronato, S. Gesuato - The Literature-Linguistics Interface - Bridging the Gap Between
                                       Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Literary Texts

     Iride Santoro (University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy), Liana Tronci (University for
Foreigners of Siena), Les temps verbaux dans ‘L’Étranger’ de Camus: analyse distributionnelle et
valeurs narratives
     Lucia Assenzi (University of Padua) Quantifying auxiliary ‘tun’ to study 17th century
German linguistic reflection?

     Linguistic, stylistic and prosodic features of literary texts
     Joseph Davis (The City College of New York) Theme and quantification in the service of
linguistics
     Scott Borgeson (Stanford University), Arto Anttila (Stanford University), Ryan Heuser
(Stanford University), Paul Kiparsky (Stanford University) Prose Rhythm and Antimetricality
     Erik Castello (University of Padua) Dickens’s ‘Pictures from Italy’ and Murray’s ‘Handbook to
Northern Italy’: a quantitative/qualitative investigation of the use of adjectives in the two texts

     SESSION IV

      4:00pm-6:00pm             Workshop - Arjuna Tuzzi (University of Padua) Statistical methods
for the analysis of literary texts


                                              June 8, 2018

    SESSION V
    9:00am-10:00am           Plenary talk - Michaela Mahlberg (University of Birmingham)
CLiC: studying fiction in the digital age

     SESSION VI (parallel sessions)

     10:30am-12:00pm

    Authorship attribution and genre identification
    Fabio Ciotti (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”), Italian narrative between Realism and
Modernism: a computational analysis of verbal tenses
    Gabriel Egan (De Monfort University) - Paul Brown (De Monfort University) N-gram
Matching as a Test for Authorship, Genre, and Date-of-composition of London’s Early Modern Plays
    Daniel Gutierrez-Trapaga (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) Qualitative and
Quantitative Approaches to Primary Sources in Spanish Literary History

     Metaphor analysis
     Daniel C. Strack (University of Kitakyushu) Pinnacles in Long-form Literary Texts: Cross-
textual Evidence for the Pervasiveness of Megametaphorical Expression




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     Umanistica Digitale - ISSN:2532-8816 - n.6, 2019

      Gaia Tomazzoli (“Ca’ Foscari” University of Venice), ‘Totus poema eius ubique mirabiliter
figuratus’: Identifying, Classifying and Describing Dante’s Metaphors
      Christos Stavrou (Technological Educational Institute of Epirus) - Anna Chita
(Technological Educational Institute of Epirus) The Metaphor in Literature and the Effect on
Translation

     SESSION VII (parallel sessions)

     1:30pm-3:00pm

     Stylistics and literary transfer
     Francesca Coccetta (“Ca Foscari” University of Venice) - Daniela Cesiri (“Ca’ Foscari”
University of Venice) Narrative Descriptions in Meyer’s ‘Twilight Saga’: a Corpus Stylistics
Perspective

      Corpus-driven investigations of literary form
      Francesca Bianchi (University of Salento) - Sara Gesuato (University of Padua) The
Adaptation of a Novel to Filmic Needs: Similarities and Differences Between the Dialogues in ‘Pride
and Prejudice’ and the Subtitles of Two Cinematic Versions of the Novel
      Ersilia Russo (La Sapienza University of Rome), Francesca Marocco (La Sapienza
University of Rome), Teresa Gargano (La Sapienza University of Rome) PhiloEditor: an
Interactive Study Platform for Analytical Genetic Edition
      Anna Bonifazi (University of Stuttgart) Research on Anaphoric Markers in Literary Texts:
How to Combine Qualitative and Quantitative Analyses?

     3:00pm-3:30pm          Coffee Break

     SESSION VIII (parallel sessions)

     3:30pm-4:30pm

     Text and context
     Federica Vezzani (University of Padua) - Giorgio Maria Di Nunzio (University of Padua) -
     Geneviève Henrot (University of Padua) (Not so) Elementary, my Dear Watson! A Different
Perspective on Medical Terminology

    Reconciling and integrating language and literature
    Ines Lozano Palacio (University of La Rioja) Irony from a Cross-disciplinary Perspective:
Towards an Integrated Account
    Rocco Coronato (University of Padua) - Sara Gesuato (University of Padua) Out of One’s
Comfort Zone into an Uncharted Territory: a Survey




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       R. Coronato, S. Gesuato - The Literature-Linguistics Interface - Bridging the Gap Between
                                      Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Literary Texts




     SESSION IX

    5:00pm-6:00pm          Plenary talk - Jan Christoph Meister (University of Hamburg),
Phenomenology vs. Empirics? From Qualitative to Quantitative Analysis of Literature - and Back”

     6:00pm-6:30pm          Poetry reading by Josh Lonsdale


                                            June 9, 2018

     SESSION X

      9:00am-10:00am       Plenary talk - Federica Perazzini (“La Sapienza” University of
Rome), The Figure in the Discourse: Computational Criticism and the Quality of Quantitative
Literary Research

     SESSION XI

     10.30am-12.00pm Round table discussion “Nihil est in litteris humanioribus quod
prius non fuerit in lingua” - Discussant: Paul Brown (De Montfort University); participants:
Nigel Fabb (University of Strathclyde), Michaela Mahlberg (University of Birmingham), Jan
Christoph Meister (University of Hamburg), Federica Perazzini (La Sapienza University of
Rome), Arjuna Tuzzi (University of Padua)


     12.00pm-12.30pm        Concluding remarks




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