Institute for Natural Language Processing
A Pilot Experiment on Exploiting Translations
for Literary Studies on Kafka’s Verwandlung
Fabienne Cap, Ina Rösiger, Jonas Kuhn
June 4th, 2015
Computational Linguistics for Literature
NAACL 2015
Institute for Natural Language Processing
Identification of Characters in Literary Studies
Kafka’s Metamorphosis: Gregor Samsa and father
And so he ran up to
his father , stopped
when his father stopped,
scurried forwards again when
he moved, even slightly.
June 4th, 2015: A Pilot Experiment on Exploiting Translations for Literary Studies on Kafka’s Verwandlung
2/5
Institute for Natural Language Processing
Identification of Characters in Literary Studies
Kafka’s Metamorphosis: Gregor Samsa and father
And so he ran up to
his father , stopped
when his father stopped,
scurried forwards again when
?? he
moved, even slightly.
June 4th, 2015: A Pilot Experiment on Exploiting Translations for Literary Studies on Kafka’s Verwandlung
3/5
Institute for Natural Language Processing
Identification of Characters in Literary Studies
Kafka’s Metamorphosis: Gregor Samsa and father
English Translation
And so he ran up to
his father , stopped
when his father stopped,
scurried forwards again when
?? he
moved, even slightly.
German Original
Und so lief er vor
dem Vater her, stockte,
wenn
der Vater
stehen
blieb,
und eilte schon
wieder vorwärts, wenn sich
der Vater
nur rührte.
June 4th, 2015: A Pilot Experiment on Exploiting Translations for Literary Studies on Kafka’s Verwandlung
4/5
Institute for Natural Language Processing
The Bigger Picture: Digital Humanities
∎
Some tasks are similar to NLP tasks,
in our case: co-reference resolution
∎
NLP tools exist, but: adaptation required → expensive
∎
Idea: simplify adaptation by using available resources
e.g. translations
⇒ Pilot study on Kafka’s Metamorphosis:
Can translations help to improve co-reference resolution
for literary studies?
June 4th, 2015: A Pilot Experiment on Exploiting Translations for Literary Studies on Kafka’s Verwandlung
5/5