Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk › Academic
Description
Word embeddings – vector representations of words that embed words in a so-called semantic space where the vectors of semantically similar words lie close together – are increasingly used for semantic searches in large text corpora. Word vector distances can be used to build semantic networks of words. This closely resembles the notion of semantic fields that humanities scholars are familiar with. We have been working on an implementation of word embeddings, as produced by a popular implementation word2vec, to trace concepts through time without the dependency of particular keywords (Kenter et.al. 2014). In this paper, we would, first, like to show how this technique can add to existing traditions in conceptual history by providing data-driven insights into semantic change. Second, we will address some important challenges that come with the use of word embeddings to represent concepts and conceptual change for the study of history.
Period
23 Sept 2017
Event title
20th International Conference of Conceptual History