Anthology of Computers and the Humanities · Volume 4

Diagrammes de Sankey et réseaux pour comparer les éditions d’un recueil de textes

Blanche d’Aubigny1 and Philippe Gambette2

  • 1 Sorbonne Université, CNRS, CELLF, Paris, France
  • 2 Université Gustave Eiffel, CNRS, LIGM, Marne-la-Vallée, France
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Permanent Link: https://doi.org/10.63744/lyzeb0Ak2YKc

Published: 21 May 2025

Keywords: text collection genetics, text networks, Sankey diagrams, Kendall’s tau

Mots clés : génétique des recueils, réseaux de textes, diagrammes de Sankey, tau de Kendall

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the interpretation of order changes in successive editions of a collection of texts: do these changes reflect a random rearrangement or do they reveal certain patterns that might lead to interpretive hypotheses? We provide a web interface that allows users to visualize these changes in order using Sankey diagrams (networks with edges of varying thickness), enhanced to display other structural characteristics of the compared editions. These visualizations can be combined to analyze more than two successive editions, and enhanced with interactive features to provide a multi-scale comparison, ranging from the order of texts within the collection, to differences in content between the texts themselves. A few examples drawn from the poetic works of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore illustrate the value of these digital exploration tools for text collection genetics.