Computational Communication Science| When the Journey Is as Important as the Goal: A Roadmap to Multilingual Dictionary Construction

Authors

  • Fabienne Lind University of Vienna
  • Jakob-Moritz Eberl jakob-moritz.eberl@univie.ac.at Postdoctoral Researcher University of Vienna, Austria
  • Tobias Heidenreich University of Vienna Austria
  • Hajo G. Boomgaarden hajo.boomgaarden@univie.ac.at Professor University of Vienna Austria

Keywords:

multilingual dictionaries, dictionary construction, multilingual text analysis, migration frames

Abstract

Communication scientists have made rapid advances in the computer-assisted analysis of large quantities of media data, but research has focused on monolingual corpora and most often on English-language text. This study works toward the application of computer-assisted analysis in the framework of multilingual media content. Taking the measurement of migration frames in the news coverage in 7 languages as a case study, it systematically compares different strategies (i.e., keyword preselection, translation, evaluation) for the construction of a multilingual dictionary. Classification results are contrasted to each other and to results of English monolingual dictionaries that are applied to the translated text corpus version. Even though we do not yet achieve perfect agreement between manual coding and dictionary classification decisions, with the strategies compared here, we outline methodological techniques that may bring researchers closer to this goal.

Author Biographies

Fabienne Lind, University of Vienna

M.Sc. Research AssociateUniversity of ViennaAustria

Jakob-Moritz Eberl, jakob-moritz.eberl@univie.ac.at Postdoctoral Researcher University of Vienna, Austria

Postdoctoral ResearcherUniversity of Vienna,Austria

Tobias Heidenreich, University of Vienna Austria

Research AssociateUniversity of ViennaAustria

Hajo G. Boomgaarden, hajo.boomgaarden@univie.ac.at Professor University of Vienna Austria

ProfessorUniversity of ViennaAustria

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Published

2019-09-08

Issue

Section

Special Sections