Journal of Data Mining and Digital Humanities (Jul 2017)
Version Variation Visualization (VVV): Case Studies on the Hebrew Haggadah in English
Abstract
The ‘Version Variation Visualization’ project has developed online tools to support comparative, algorithm-assisted investigations of a corpus of multiple versions of a text, e.g. variants, translations, adaptations (Cheesman, 2015, 2016; Cheesman et al., 2012, 2012-13, 2016; Thiel, 2014; links: www.tinyurl.com/vvvex). A segmenting and aligning tool allows users to 1) define arbitrary segment types, 2) define arbitrary text chunks as segments, and 3) align segments between a ‘base text’ (a version of the ‘original’ or translated text), and versions of it. The alignment tool can automatically align recurrent defined segment types in sequence.Several visual interfaces in the prototype installation enable exploratory access to parallel versions, to comparative visual representations of versions’ alignment with the base text, and to the base text visually annotated by an algorithmic analysis of variation among versions of segments. Data can be filtered, viewed and exported in diverse ways. Many more modes of access and analysis can be envisaged. The tool is language neutral. Experiments so far mostly use modern texts: German Shakespeare translations. Roos is working on a collection of approx. 100 distinct English-language translations of a Hebrew text with ancient Hebrew and Aramaic passages: the Haggadah (Roos, 2015)
