Digital Editions for Corpus Linguistics (DECL)

The purpose of this project is to develop a new type of online edition that combines the accurate description of historical documents with the flexibility of search tools developed for linguistic computing. Our premise is that by offering tools which are useful for both historians and linguists we will help to bridge the gap between the two disciplines, increasing interdisciplinary co-operation and making electronic editions useful for a wider public.

Aims

1. To create editions that function as both editions and corpora — allowing equally the comparison of manuscript image and diplomatic transcript, and intricate textual searches of the transcripts and linguistic tags.
2. To create a framework which makes the creation of such editions easy and is readily adaptable to different types of historical texts.

Background

DECL was formed by three postgraduate students at Varieng in late 2007. We shared a dissatisfaction with extant tools and resources, believing that digitized historical texts and manuscripts generally failed to live up to expectations. What was needed, we thought, was a more versatile and user-friendly model for these resources.

At the same time, we recognized that digitization was time-consuming and complicated, and for this reason compromises had been made in digital editions and corpora. Therefore a user-friendly framework for the creation of such editions would be desirable, one created from extant standards, tools and solutions.

Technical principles

The DECL project encoding standard is based on and compliant with the latest TEI XML Guidelines (P5, published 1.11.2007), compatible with a wide range of software platforms. We use open source models and software, and DECL editions will allow access to the XML code. We advocate open access publication, and welcome collaboration with scholars working on historical manuscripts.

Conference abstracts and presentations

• Alpo Honkapohja, Samuli Kaislaniemi & Ville Marttila. "Digital Editions for Corpus Linguistics: Encoding Abbreviations in TEI XML Markup". Paper presented at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK, 13-16 July 2009. Link to session details.


• Alpo Honkapohja. "Digital Editions for Corpus Linguistics: Encoding Abbreviations in TEI XML Markup". Poster presented at the Digital Humanities 2009 conference at Maryland, USA, 22-25 June 2009. Abstract (pdf). Poster (pdf).

• Alpo Honkapohja, Samuli Kaislaniemi & Ville Marttila. "Digital Editions for Corpus Linguistics: A new approach to creating electronic editions of historical manuscripts". Paper presented at the Digital Humanities 2008 conference in Oulu, Finland, 25-29 June 2008. Abstract (html). Presentation (pdf). Handout (pdf).


• Alpo Honkapohja, Samuli Kaislaniemi & Ville Marttila. "Digital Editions for Corpus Linguistics: Representing manuscript reality in electronic corpora". Poster presented at the ICAME 29 conference in Ascona, Switzerland, 14-18 May 2008. Abstract (html). Poster (pdf). Handout (pdf).

Publications

Our first publication is a theoretical manifesto of the DECL project from a corpus linguistic viewpoint:

• Alpo Honkapohja, Samuli Kaislaniemi & Ville Marttila. 2009. "Digital Editions for Corpus Linguistics: Representing manuscript reality in electronic corpora". In: Corpora: Pragmatics and Discourse. Papers from the 29th International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 29). Ascona, Switzerland, 14-18 May 2008. Ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, Daniel Schreier & Marianne Hundt. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Abstract (html). Preprint paper (pdf).

Links

• The Middle English Grammar Corpus (MEG-C), created by the Middle English Grammar Project , a collaboration between the University of Stavanger and the University of Glasgow.
• The Corpus of Scottish Correspondence, 1500-1730 (CSC) here at VARIENG, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow.
• A Corpus of Middle English Scientific Prose at the University of Malaga, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow.
• Digital Archive of Letters in Flanders (DALF), created by the Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (Centrum voor Teksteditie en Bronnenstudie – CTB) at the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature (KANTL) in Ghent.
• Project CARDS: Cartas Desconhecidas - Unknown Letters at the University of Lisbon.


• Centre for Editing Lives and Letters (CELL) at Queen Mary, University of London.
• VARIANTTI: Tekstikritiikin ja tieteellisten editioiden tutkijaverkosto (Finnish network on textual criticism and scholarly editing).
• The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO).