Dotplots und Alignments als Untersuchungsinstrumente für Überlieferungsgemeinschaften am Beispiel von Priameln

Abstract

This paper applies two methods that were originally designed as tools in bioinformatics but have been transferred to research in the humanities, to detect identical or near-identical sequences of individual texts in different manuscripts or textual compilations: thus, in order to pinpoint such sequences, the approach combines dot plots as a way of visualizing these sequences with an automated sequence alignment based on the Smith–Waterman algorithm. Rather than providing an analysis of these texts in terms of traditional or contemporary textual criticism, the aim of the paper is to compare text sequences. In addition to a short description of these methods, the paper discusses how dot plots and the Smith–Waterman algorithm can be applied for the sake of detecting sequences of texts by making reference to selected examples from the textual tradition of the medieval German literary genre of the Priamel.

Keywords

• alignment (biochemie)
• bioinformatik
• priamel
• sequenzanalyse (chemie)
• germanistik