Published on June 15, 2020 | Updated on June 29, 2020

Modeling and digital humanities

The cross-cutting theme "Modeling & Digital Humanities" fosters data based approaches to better understand languages and language as a communication system. The whole gamut of issues are addressed, ranging from ethical and methodological aspects related to data collection, organization and archiving to the development and adaptation of data visualization, analysis and modelling tools dedicated to solving the questions of interest in the ASLAN scientific areas.

The range of data under interest in ASLAN is wide, among which: copora, either oral or written ; databases about languages and linguistic systems ; traces of interactions between speakers or between a digital system and its user(s). The methods used to deal with and analyse data are qualitative as well as quantitative, and they are rooted in various disciplines such as linguistics, computer science, mathematics.... The scope of the cross-cutting theme also encompasses software development aimed at facilitating data understanding (exploration, visualization, analysis, prediction, etc.) for various users (from experts to end-users).

Committed with the Open Science Movement, ASLAN promotes data collection and management complying with the best practices for an ethical and privacy respectful science.
Processing the collected data sheds light on linguistic or interactional phenomena whose duration can span from seconds (in human-human or human-machine interactions) to centuries (in language change and evolution). The design of software also raises needs for rapid prototyping and testing cycles to question practices and impact of the integration of such prototypes. It is thus instrumental to take both fundamental and applied science challenges up with a multidisciplinary approach.