From Words to Numbers: Narrative, Data, and Social Science

by Roberto Franzosi

• ISBN13: 9780521815208
• ISBN10: 0521815207
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-05-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book illustrates a set of tools - story grammars, relational data models, and network models - that can be profitably used for the collection, organization, and analysis of narrative data in socio-historical research. A story grammar, or Subject-Action-Object and their modifiers, is the linguistic tool the author uses to structure narrative for the purpose of collecting event data. Relational database models make such complex data collection schemes practically feasible in a computer environment. Finally, network models are a statistical tool best suited to analyze this type of data. Driven by the metaphors of the journal (from ... to) and the alchemy (words into numbers), the book leads the reader throughout a number of paths, from substantive to methodological issues, across time and disciplines: sociology, linguistics, literary criticism, history, statistics, computer science, philosophy, cognitive psychology, political science.

Table of Contents

List of tables	xiii
List of figures	xv
Acknowledgments	xvii
Before
The Ant and the Cicada	1	(2)
"It Takes Two to Tango": In Search of the Actor	3	(1)
The Lemon and the Grapefruit	4	(1)
Of Journeys and Alchemies	5	(3)
"The Law of Genre"	8	(3)
"Methodological Pestilence"	11	(3)
An Antiquarian in a Modern World	14	(4)
Breaking the Law	18	(2)
Of Prefaces and Introductions: Guidebook for the Journey	20	(7)
Part I From Words to Numbers: A Journey
Prologue	27	(2)
Chapter 1 "In the Beginning Was the Word"	29	(33)
"In the Beginning Was the Word"	29	(3)
Content Analysis: "Objective, Systematic, and Quantitative"	32	(3)
From Event Counts to Event Characteristics	35	(5)
Turning to Linguistics for Help	40	(5)
Syntax Grammar	41	(2)
Semantic Text Grammar	43	(2)
Psychologists' Story Grammars	45	(2)
A Story Grammar for Sociohistorical Research	47	(5)
Examples of Coding	52	(2)
Running into Problems with Story Grammars	54	(1)
Narrative Discourse	55	(4)
What Have We Gained?	59	(3)
Chapter 2 Ars Memoriae	62	(36)
The Artificial Art of Memory: The Old and the New	62	(4)
Database Design for a Story Grammar	66	(3)
Computer-Assisted Content Analysis	69	(10)
Basic Features of the Software	70	(2)
Some Lessons from Cognitive Psychology	72	(1)
Reliability versus Efficiency	73	(1)
On Sampling: More on Reliability versus Efficiency	73	(1)
And More Lessons from Linguistics: Text Schemata	74	(2)
Data Verification	76	(3)
Navigating a Relational Database	79	(2)
Toy Examples and "Real" Data: The Test of Large Data Sets	81	(8)
From the "Red Years" to the "Black Years" (Italy, 1919-1922)	82	(1)
Simple Counts Tell Complex Stories	82	(7)
Stitching the Thread	89	(2)
Further Advantages of Story Grammars	91	(1)
Scientists' Bitter Fate	92	(6)
Chapter 3 "Everything Is Number"	98	(59)
"Friends of Friends": Grammars and Network Models	98	(2)
Mobilization and Countermobilization Processes (1919-1922): Shifting Networks of Interaction	100	(9)
"Everything Is Number"	109	(4)
Of Thin Threads and Other Threads	113	(5)
And Yet, What Do We Know?	118	(4)
In the Linguists' Tool Bag: Theta Theory	122	(2)
Of Beauty (and Science)	124	(7)
Journeys	131	(106)
"A March it Was"	131	(1)
Pilgrims on the Road	132	(6)
Voyages of Discovery	138	(4)
Ways of Seeing	142	(5)
Silence and Emphasis	147	(7)
"Journeys ... Magic Caskets Full of Dreamlike Promises"	154	(3)
Part II Looking Back: What's in the Numbers?
Prologue	157	(4)
Chapter 4 The Word and the World	161	(32)
Founding Fathers and Disciplinary Mottos	161	(6)
The "Science of Sociology"	161	(3)
"Wie es eigentlich gewesen"	164	(3)
The Newspaper "Black Box"	167	(6)
Why, Then, Newspapers? Social Scientists' Line of Defense	171	(2)
Opening the Box: Behind the Surface of Our 1919-1922 Data	173	(2)
Silence and Emphasis Revisited	175	(2)
How to Go about Validating Data: A Decalogue of Rules	177	(3)
Further Rules: Selecting the Newspaper(s)	180	(1)
Barking up the Wrong Tree: Reliability versus Validity	180	(3)
Data: "Given" or Constructed?	183	(4)
Content and Form	187	(6)
Chapter 5 "A Worlde of Wordes"	193	(44)
Back to the Linguist's World	193	(1)
Stories	194	(2)
An Oxford Story	194	(1)
A Children's Story	195	(1)
The Moral of the Stories: "Where Is Anna Giulia?"	196	(6)
"The Body and its Shadow": Play, Aesthetics, and Language Games	199	(3)
The Language of Science	202	(12)
Poetry and Science	207	(4)
Heart and Mind	211	(3)
Dialoghi Italiani	214	(2)
Confessions of an Ass	216	(3)
Content Analysis Myths (Back to Silence and Emphasis)	219	(3)
Debunking the Myths: What Is Meaning?	222	(4)
True Believers	226	(3)
Modern Alchemists: What We Do with the Numbers	229	(8)
What's to Be Done? Alchemists' Recommendations to the Novice	232	(5)
Chapter 6 Journeys' Ends	237	(72)
Sta Viator	237	(1)
From Words to Numbers	238	(9)
From Thin Explanations to "Thick Descriptions"?	238	(2)
From Variables to Actors	240	(2)
From Synchronic to Diachronic Time	242	(1)
From Statistical Causality to Narrative Sequences	243	(2)
From Structures to Events	245	(2)
Unexpected Crossings	247	(8)
Sociology Meets History	248	(4)
The Centrality of the Verb (Linguistics and Sociology)	252	(3)
Sociology as the Study of Social Relations	255	(9)
Georg Simmel (1858-1918): "The Stranger in the Academy"	256	(4)
Von Wiese's "Specificum Sociologicum"	260	(3)
Simmel's Cash Among the Heirs	263	(1)
"Fatti Maschi, Parole Femmine"	264	(6)
The Feminist Critique	266	(4)
Memorabilia	270	(4)
Tales of Measurement	274
Tales of Horror	274	(2)
Tales of Pressure	276	(3)
Social Science Tales	279	(8)
Wars of Words	282	(3)
What Have We Lost?	285	(2)
"Garçon, l'addition!" Counting What?	287	(8)
Classification and the Numbers	288	(5)
Classification in Practice: The Secret of Secrets	293	(2)
The Words (and the Worlds) of Science and Metaphor	295	(3)
Tales of Time and Space	298	(3)
Faust and His World: What Was in the Beginning?	301
And After
"So Long as We Get Somewhere"	309	(3)
Poupinel and His World: In the Beginning Was Meaning	312	(3)
On the Road, Again	315	(3)
"Know Thyself": Notes on Reflexive Sociology	318	(6)
Origin and Originality: Limits to Innovation	324	(4)
"Murmure Againste Me"	328	(4)
Farewell to the Reader	332	(7)
Appendix	339	(4)
Notes	343	(56)
References	399	(46)
Index	445