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Exercises in Unstyling Texts: Formalisation and Visualisation of a Narrative’s [Space, Time, Actors, Motion] Components

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Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2016)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 914))

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Abstract

The research presented in this paper basis on the premise that segmenting textual content into successive situations according to four components - space, time, actors and motion – can help depicting a storyline in a way that facilitates comparative analyses across texts, and ultimately fostering knowledge discovery. The paper presents the original aim of the project and sums up the knowledge modelling choices made in order to formalise the segmentation procedure through which sequences of situations are extracted. We then present several proof of concept visualisations that facilitate visual reasoning on the structure, rhythm, patterns and variations of heterogeneous texts, and summarise how the space, time, actors and motion components are organised inside a given narrative. The approach was tested across various types of text, in three languages, and the paper details some of the potential benefits of the resulting visualisations on the specific case of R. Queneau’s Exercises in style. The paper is concluded with a straight to the point analysis of the approach’s actual weaknesses and limitations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR CNRS/MCC 3495 MAP, Marseille, France

    Jean-Yves Blaise & Iwona Dudek

Authors
  1. Jean-Yves Blaise
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  2. Iwona Dudek
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Iwona Dudek .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Telecomunicações, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Fred

  2. Department of Software Technology, Delft University of Technology, Voorburg, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Jan Dietz

  3. Faculty of Exact Sciences and Engineering, University of Madeira, Funchal, Portugal

    David Aveiro

  4. Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Kecheng Liu

  5. University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Jorge Bernardino

  6. Instituto Politecnico de Setúbal (IPS), Setúbal, Portugal

    Joaquim Filipe

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Blaise, JY., Dudek, I. (2019). Exercises in Unstyling Texts: Formalisation and Visualisation of a Narrative’s [Space, Time, Actors, Motion] Components. In: Fred, A., Dietz, J., Aveiro, D., Liu, K., Bernardino, J., Filipe, J. (eds) Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. IC3K 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 914. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99701-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99701-8_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-99700-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99701-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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