Meaning, Norms, and the Computational Turn: An Interpretive Approach to Text Analysis

Department seminar with Andrea Voyer, Stockholm University

This presentation argues for an interpretive approach to computational text analysis that places meaning, social organization, and norms at the center of inquiry. Drawing on cultural sociology, institutional ethnography, and recent developments in natural language processing, I conceptualize texts as traces of the social relations and normative structures that organize everyday life.

To demonstrate this approach, I present research using a corpus of nearly one hundred years of Emily Post’s Etiquette. I show how computational methods can be used to study changing norms surrounding social class, and immigrant integration. The examples illustrate how word embeddings and related language technologies supplement what we can observe through conventional qualitative approaches. I conclude by arguing for reflexive and theoretically grounded ways of using computational tools to investigate meaning, norms, and social change.

Bio

In her research, Andrea focuses on social norms and boundaries as they shape social inequality. Andrea works primarily on the topics of immigrant incorporation, class distinction-making, and ethnic and racial inequality. Voyer employs qualitative and computational methodologies, including working with large-scale text analyses and applying cultural sociological theory to empirical investigations.

Her research has been supported by Riksbanken Jubileumsfond, the Swedish Research Council, the National Science Foundation (US), and the Russell Sage Foundation, and the American Political Science Association and the Mathematical Sociology section of the American Sociological Association have recognized the quality of her research output.