The Imitation Game: On the Sociological Reconstruction of the Historical Semantics of "Imitation" with Text Mining Methods

研究建议是基于观察到的一个显着的概念变化的意义和评价“模仿”在18世纪。模仿在过去被认为是稳定社会秩序的一种方式，但现在越来越多地被解释为危及一个社会，在这个社会中，稳定的保障被矛盾地视为新奇、偏离和奇异。因此，它满足了一个更近的社会学话语的渴望，到目前为止，主要集中在日常模仿实践的内隐认知，情感，身体和物质方面。虽然这一论述将模仿视为一种非历史的人类学普遍性，但“模仿”在这里也被理解为一个历史可变的概念，它决定性地影响着在一定历史时期如何观察和评价某种社会行为。这种方法不仅允许社会结构的长期变化的社会学结论。它也铺平了道路，历史上知情的“模仿”作为一个基本的社会学概念的反思，最后，为贡献的跨学科的历史思想“模仿”，这是迄今为止，而不是在人文学科的辩论主题。方法上，研究项目遵循系统理论的方法来语义分析。重点是探索社会结构的转变，一方面和语义学的形式的中心概念和关键区别的相互关系。这种方法是由探索性的文本挖掘方法，这是越来越多地被用于大型文本语料库的分析概念史的应用程序的补充。研究补助金使申请人能够在乌得勒支大学的跨学科环境中学习必要的编程技能的文本挖掘方法。此外，它还促进了快速发展的数字人文领域的国际网络，并满足了在Emmy Noether计划框架内申请跨学科DFG初级研究小组的正式要求。

The research proposal is based on the observation of a significant conceptual change in the meaning and evaluation of “imitation” during the 18th century. Whereas imitation was previously seen as a way of stabilizing social order, it is increasingly interpreted as endangering a society in which guarantees of stability are paradoxically seen in novelties, deviations and singularities.The aim of this research project is to reconstruct the historical, linguistic and socio-structural conditions of this process of semantic change. Thus, it fulfills a desideratum of a more recent sociological discourse, which until now has primarily focused on implicit cognitive, affective, bodily and material aspects of everyday practices of imitation. While this discourse regards imitation rather as an ahistorical anthropological universal, "imitation" is also understood here as a historically variable concept, which decisively influences how a certain social behavior is observed and evaluated in a certain historical period. This approach not only allows for sociological conclusions about the long-term change of social structures. It also paves the way for a historically informed reflection on "imitation" as a basic sociological concept and, finally, for contributions to an interdisciplinary history of ideas on "imitation", which has so far rather been the subject of debates within the Humanities.Methodologically, the research project follows a systems-theoretical approach to semantic analysis. The focus is on exploring the interrelationship between the transformation of social structures on the one hand and semantics in the form of central concepts and key distinctions on the other. This approach is complemented by the application of explorative text mining methods, which are increasingly being used in conceptual history for the analysis of large text corpora.The research grant enables the applicant to learn the necessary programming skills for text mining methods in an interdisciplinary environment at Utrecht University. In addition, it facilitates international networking in the fast-growing field of Digital Humanities and the fulfilment of formal requirements for applying for an interdisciplinary DFG junior research group within the framework of the Emmy Noether Programme.