Discovering the nineteenth-century soundscape through text mining: A big data approach

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This project conducts a digital study of Britain's historical soundscape. Through a fusion ofmultidisciplinary approaches adopted from socio-economic history, corpus linguistics and humangeography, it responds to calls for more developed understandings of humans' sensoryengagements with the environment (Pijanowski et al. 2011), and for the advancement of digitallyorientated sound studies (Clement 2016). The British Library's (BL) unparalleled text and soundarchives make it an ideal partner for this project. In addition to making significant contributions tomulti-media digital history studies, the project's methodology inspires its engagement with the BLto explore how these approaches can allow new access to and means of interpreting theircollections.This project combines traditional historical approaches to text with big data methodologies toexamine the representation of sound in a major nineteenth-century collection. The project willaddress ESRC concerns including: mental health (a strategic priority), inter-disciplinary research (anNWSSDTP priority) and "supporting research that exploits the UK's excellent data resources"(Strategic Plan p. 7). It asks:1. What can we learn about the historical British soundscape from a large corpus ofnineteenth-century writing?2. How can digital approaches be utilised alongside traditional historical research methods togenerate new understandings about the historical soundscape and its relevance to today'sacoustic experiences?3. How did the experience and representation of sound change in light of industrialisation,urbanisation and tourism over the course of the nineteenth century?4. How did these changes to the soundscape impact on contemporary interactions with, andattitudes towards, the natural world and urban environments?5. How did exposure to different types of sound affect people's wellbeing and mental healthin both positive and negative ways, and what can these historical lessons teach us abouttoday's experiences?6. What contributions can digital humanities approaches to the BL's collections make to aheritage organisation's activities?