Words and Facts: Textual Analysis—Topic-Centred Methods for Social Scientists

This contribution explains how complex statistical methods such as factorial correspondence analysis, both descending hierarchical classification (Alceste, Topics) and ascending hierarchical classifications (Leximappe-Lexinet, Calliope), can be used to study which concepts and topics dominate a particular discourse in society at a certain period in time. The text demonstrates how semantic and thematic shifts can be traced over time and which future developments might be more or less probable. The examples are taken from three projects: first, a geographical and textual analysis of official biographies of members of the last Central Committee of the USSR from the year 1989; the second example, a synchronic and diachronic analysis of a corpus of conference abstracts submitted to the annual conferences of the American, French, and German national associations of sociology; and the third example, drawing from Pete Dale Scott’s concept of ‘World Parapolitics’, focuses on a diachronic perspective on the representation of conflicts in the international press.