Eveline Wandl-Vogt

How to semantically relate dialectal Dictionaries in the Linked Data Framework

We describe on-going work towards publishing language resources included in dialectal dictionaries in the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud, and so to support wider access to the diverse cultural data associated with such dictionary entries, like the various historical and geographical variations of the use of such words. Beyond this, our approach allows the cross-linking of entries of dialectal dictionaries on the basis of the semantic representation of their senses, and also to link the entries of the dialectal dictionaries to lexical senses available in the LOD framework. This paper focuses on the description of the steps leading to a SKOS-XL and lemon encoding of the entries of two Austrian dialectal dictionaries, and how this work supports their cross-linking and linking to other language data in the LOD.

Point and find: the intuitive user experience in accessing spatially structured dialect dictionaries

Clanek predstavlja dolgorocni projekt izdelave avstrijskega akademskega narecnega slovarja bavarskih narecij v Avstriji – Worterbuch der bairischen Mundarten in Osterreich (WBO). Projekt DBO – Datenbank der bairischen Mundarten (Podatkovna baza bavarskih narecij) se je pricel leta 1993 in je bil namenjen digitalizaciji arhivov. Leta 1998 je bil objavljen nacrt racionalizacije, katerega cilj je bil dokoncanje slovarja do leta 2020 kot (virtualne) enote, sestavljene iz natisnjenega slovarja in komplementarne podatkovne baze. Izsledki projekta elektronsko kartografirane podatkovne baze bavarskih narecij v Avstriji – dbo@ema kažejo, kako lahko poenotenje spletnih slovarjev in podatkovne baze izvirnih materialov z vizualnim dostopom do georeferencnih aplikacij in s t. i. topografskimi navigacijami poveca uporabnost in vodi k vecjemu interdisciplinarnemu vpogledu.

A spatio-temporal visual analysis tool for historical dictionaries

The exploreAT! project aims to give insights into the richness of the German language in the Austrian area through a rich and unique collection of dialect words of the Bavarian dialects recorded during the former Austrian-Hungariann Monarchy period and beyond. Originally collected by means of questionnaires, words were noted in handwriting on individual paper slips, covering topics from nature and food to religious festivities, etc. Once digitized, the full database contains around 3.5 million single data entries with an estimated 200,000 headwords, which requires substantial effort if the analysts want to access specific information from the data set. It should also be noted that the data presents a high heterogeneity in terms of its nature and origin (from questionnaires, collectors, scientists, spoken language, hand written notes, etc.), which calls for the creation of a homogeneous database containing all of the available information. In this paper we present a tool aimed to improve the comprehension of that massive amount of data through visualization means, thus trying to help in the reach of meaningful conclusions and the acquisition of valuable insights in easy and fast ways. With it, analysts can discover cultural issues and access them through means of language and visualization. This is possible thanks to a multidimensional approach to data analysis based on the use of maps, projections and other visualization artifacts. To reach our goal, a team of experts with different backgrounds worked together trying to close the gap between the Humanities and Computer Sciences fields through the creation of our prototype and its multiple iterations.

Designing collaborations: could design probes contribute to better communication between collaborators?

Digital Humanities is an inherently collaborative field of research. The wide range of stakeholders, as well as the ever changing methodologies, hold the potential for innovation but also carry a constant threat of miscommunication. Design is a fixed partner in Digital Humanities and their practices are closely intertwined. However on a practical level, design is most commonly regarded as an implementation technique rather than an equal part of the theoretical framework. We propose to utilize design as a research tool by developing a set of Design Probes which are created to address the specific needs and challenges of collaborative research in Digital Humanities. We describe design and technical implementation methods, as well as the theoretical context and the possible outcome of this proposal.

Spatial-temporal Modeling of Linguistic Regions and Processes with Combined Indeterminate and Crisp Boundaries

The paper elaborates on the spatial-temporal modeling of linguistic and dialect phenomena. Language Geography—a branch of Human Geography—tries to enhance the visual exploration of linguistic data, and utilizes a number of methodologies from GIScience, whereas publications focusing on analyzing linguistic data in GIScience are hard to find. This research work highlights the representation of language and/or dialect regions with combined indeterminate and crisp boundaries—i.e. frontiers and borders. Both boundary “types” are necessary in order to model the spatial-temporal dynamics of language phenomena. The article analyzes the emerging, ending, moving and merging of linguistic/dialect regions and phenomena with respect to space and time and the boundary types. In order to represent frontiers or indeterminate boundaries, fuzzy logic is employed.

Co-Designing Innovation Networks for Cross-Sectoral Collaboration on the Example of exploreAT!

Daily interaction with digital media and devices has become a natural habit for the majority of people across different age ranges in Western cultures. The way we interact with and react to digital media, however, has been constantly evolving and there is a clear trend towards implementing device-oriented interactive engagement in a more meaningful way, where users readily add to shaping and creating digital experiences that not only generate added value for them personally, but also for the various other actors involved. This also concerns the interaction with both virtual as well as real-life objects in cultural settings. Across different sectors, creating a complementary synthesis of the digital and analog has been a primary topic, particularly in the course of the 21st century. In this paper we aim to discuss the establishment of cultural innovation networks between museums and other sectors, exemplify potential links between digital and physical objects in connection with a current Digital Humanities project (exploreAT!) and shed light on user engagement possibilities opening towards open innovation research infrastructures (OI-RI).

A Spatio-Temporal Linked Data Representation for Modeling Spatio-Temporal Dialect Data

Collections of linguistic and dialect data often lack a semantic description and the ability to establish relations to external datasets, from e.g. demography, socio-economics, or geography. Based on existing projects—the Database of Bavarian Dialects in Austria and exploreAT!—this paper elaborates on a spatio-temporal Linked Data model for representing linguistic/dialect data. Here we focus on utilizing existing data and publishing them using a virtual RDF graph. Additionally, we exploit external data sources like DBPedia and geonames.org, to specify the meaning of dialect records and make use of stable geographical placenames. In the paper we highlight a spatio-temporal modeling and representation of linguistic records relying on the notion of a discrete lifespan of an object. Based on a real-world example—using the lemma “Karotte” (engl. carrot) we show how the usage of a specific dialect word (“Karottn”) changes from 1916 until 2016—by exploiting the expressive power of GeoSPARQL.