Slavery and Race in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1768-1860): A Text Mining Approach

我将应用数据挖掘技术来研究语言使用的大英百科全书从1768年至1860年，以确定被动和疏远的语言使用的种族和奴隶制的主题。这项研究的目的是揭示有关奴隶制和种族的显性和隐性主题，并提供洞察我们的印刷遗产中明显的态度痕迹。这将寻求解决以下问题;大西洋奴隶制的影响是如何代表或暗示在历史信息来源？在我们的印刷信息环境中，奴隶制的遗产是什么？什么样的文本挖掘方法可以用来识别，分析和可视化这些不同的和有问题的历史？ 《大英百科全书》中涉及与贩卖奴隶有内在联系的活动，如制糖业，似乎是以相对被动的方式处理的，细节较少，作者与主题之间也有距离。与第八版中关于英国羊毛生产的条目相比，这一主题的提出方式不同，语气更温和，讨论更深入。通过分析与奴隶制有关的活动和语言，我的研究将进一步深入了解《大英百科全书》中如何描绘种族和奴隶制，以及这种情况如何随着时间的推移而变化。这些细微差别非常微妙，因此需要进行更深入的文本分析，将这种语言的使用与《大英百科全书》中的其他条目进行比较，以检查具体与奴隶制有关的活动与其他生产或活动之间的差异。可能的主题和分析将集中在身份，擦除，权力动力学和性别，尽管随着进一步的研究，更多的可能会变得明显。 这些见解的结果将是对我们印刷遗产中隐含和明确的态度和主题进行更广泛的讨论，这些态度和主题可能被忽视或没有像以前那样充分探索，因为在没有数字化工具和应用程序的情况下难以分析大型数据集。这将提供一个机会，将调查结果置于更广泛的苏格兰背景和苏格兰与奴隶制的联系中，研究大英百科全书中支持奴隶制和反对奴隶制的活动家的作用以及与之相关的语言使用。将苏格兰遗产和对数据感兴趣的著名人物与苏格兰国家图书馆更广泛的收藏联系起来，将开启关于苏格兰历史和我们与奴隶贸易联系的讨论。 这项研究将涉及来自大英百科全书的大量数据，展示如何在苏格兰国家图书馆数据铸造项目可以被询问和使用，允许讨论数字人文的应用程序来讨论我们过去的沉默和删除的叙述。

I will apply data mining techniques to examine language use in the Encyclopaedia Britannica from 1768-1860 to identify passive and distancing language used in relation to themes of race and slavery. The aim of this research is to uncover explicit and implicit themes relating to slavery and race and provide insight into the traces of attitudes evident in our printed heritage. This will seek to address the following questions; How is the impact of Atlantic slavery represented or alluded to in historical information sources? What is the legacy of slavery in our printed information environment? What text-mining approaches can be used to identify, analyse, and visualise these diverse and problematic histories? Entries in the Encyclopaedia Britannica related to activities intrinsically linked to the slave trade such as sugar production appear to be addressed in a relatively passive manner with less detail and distancing between the author and topic. In comparison with an entry on wool production in Britain in the same eighth edition of the text, this subject is broached differently, with a warmer tone and a more in-depth discussion. By analysing activities and language used in relation to slavery, my research will offer further insights into how race and slavery were depicted in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and how this changed over time. The nuances are very subtle so a deeper textual analysis is required, comparing this language use to other entries in the Encyclopaedia Britannica to examine differences between specifically slavery-related activities and other productions or activities. Likely themes and analysis will focus on identity, erasure, power dynamics, and gender, although many more are likely to be apparent with further research. The outcomes of these insights will be a broader discussion of implicit and explicit attitudes and themes in our printed heritage that may have been overlooked or not explored as fully as they could be previously due to the difficulty of analysing large datasets without digital tools and applications. This will offer the opportunity to contextualise the findings within a broader Scottish context and Scotland's links to slavery, examining the role of pro-slavery and anti-slavery campaigners in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and language use related to them. Making links between Scottish heritage and notable people of interest in the data to the wider collections at the National Library of Scotland will open up discussions about Scottish history and our links to the slave trade. The research will engage with a large quantity of data from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, demonstrating how items in the National Library of Scotland Data Foundry can be interrogated and used, allowing for discussion of the applications of the digital humanities to discussing muted and erased narratives in our past.