Identify Themes within a Text
Introduction
This example uses this Recipe to identify simple themes within a sample text.
It applies a recipe to real textual example which is freely available on the Internet so you can do the steps yourself and see the results.
Exercise Steps
- This exercise uses Volume 2 of Thomas Macaulay's History of England which can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
- Run the TAPoR List Words Tool to generate a word list sorted by frequency. The result should resemble the following:
Word Count The ---- 3591 Of ---- 2057 And ---- 1360 To ---- 1234 A ---- 850 Was ---- 848 In ---- 758 Had ---- 686 Been ---- 265 Be ---- 255 Not ---- 246 At ---- 240 On ---- 213 From ---- 212 Who ---- 201 They ---- 187 Their ---- 174 All ---- 153 King ---- 139
- Run the TAPoR List Words Tool again, applying a list of words to exclude from the list. One useful stop list, the Glasgow stop words list, is available here. The result should be similar to:
Word Count King ---- 139 Great ---- 115 Parliament ---- 92 England ---- 86 House ---- 83 Men ---- 81 Time ---- 75 Government ---- 74 Charles ---- 73 Power ---- 68 Party ---- 66 Public ---- 59 Years ---- 57 France ---- 56 Long ---- 56 English ---- 55 Court ---- 54 Commons ---- 53 State ---- 52 Church ---- 51 New ---- 46 Man ---- 46 Country ---- 46
- Now that we have found some interesting words to explore, let's see how these are used within the context of the text.
- Using the TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool will list places in the text that a particular word appears.
- This search returns a list of these key words and the five words on either side of the target word. Several themes and paths for further exploration emerge from this process:
- How is power referred to in the text? Use the TAPoR Find Collocates Tool to explore the use of the word power.
- What is the author's attitude towards the common man? Use the TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool and input Man as the target.
- What is the author's attitude towards the monarchy? Use TAPoR Find Collocates Tool to see how often the words 'King' and 'Charles' occur together.
- Thus, these simple tools can easily identify the themes of power, monarchy, the common man and time in Macaulay's History of England.
Further Information
Submitted by Jinman on Wed, 03/08/2017 - 13:06