The first RESILIENCE prototype training taught the use of digital tools for text comparison to identify intertextual relationships.
Under the inspiring leadership of INFAI, RESILIENCE team members were able to develop their knowledge and skills in the use of a digital tool for text comparison, at the same time providing improvement opportunities for the future RESILIENCE training programme. During one full-day online training, preceded by a help desk that ensured the technical requirements were in place, the participants learnt about the possibilities of digital tools for recognising text reuse.
The recognition of intertextual relationships between source texts is an essential and time-consuming task, and this textual criticism is the basis of editions of historical texts. Since the texts in Religious Studies are in a multitude of historical and modern languages and linguistic levels, the software to detect text reuse must be able to operate in different scripts and languages.
The detection of text reuse was demonstrated on the TRACER software, which is used by researchers to compare texts and text versions in order to recognise the reuse of verbatim and near verbatim quotations, paraphrases and even ideas and allusions. The methodology was demonstrated by examining dependencies in English Bible Editions, but the software can be used in the research on all scripts and languages.
At the end of each course section, the participants were asked to solve a task, applying what they had heard and to ensure that they had achieved the learning objective. Even if not every participant had worked in the command line before, all participants were able to solve the tasks.
After learning how to use commands in the command line, the complexity of ‘Historical Text Reuse Detection’ was explained. In order to use a digital tool for text comparison, the researcher must first carry out comprehensive preprocessing of each text to filter out meaningless duplicates of words and phrases that are already common.
In the hands-on session, the trainees were able to work independently with the programme and had the task of comparing the Gospels of Mark and Luke in an English Bible edition. The final presentations of the results showed that all had succeeded in proving the intertextual relationships between the two books in a graphic pattern.
After the intensive training, the organisers were able to gather enough tips and ideas for optimising this part of the future RESILIENCE training programme. The participants also showed their satisfaction. As one of them said: “It seems to be a lot of work with the preprocessing, but then the results will be worth it.”
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