Quantitative Narrative Analysis Workshop

Speaker: Prof. Roberto Franzosi
Date: June 5-6, 2012
Time: 5:30-8:00
Place: Santral Campus, E5-204

The workshop which is organized by PhD Program in Organization Studies will show how to carry out QNA in PC-ACE (PC-ACE, Program for Computer-Assisted Coding of Events). The workshop will also show how to analyze QNA data through network and Geographic Information System tools – tools fundamentally based on actors, actions, time, and space. The approach thus combines quality and quantity, the narrative depth of case studies and the generalization afforded by large numbers.

Quantitative Narrative Analysis (QNA) is a methodological approach to texts that allows researchers to structure the information contained in narrative texts in ways that make possible a statistical analysis of the information. The approach exploits the invariant linguistic structural properties of narrative (namely, the chronological sequential order of narrative clauses and their simple linguistic structure SVO, or Subject-Verb-Object. In narrative, Subjects are typically social actors, Verbs are social actions, and Objects are either social actors or physical objects. Each SVO element can also have attributes, namely, the characteristics of both Subject and Object, such as the name, organization, or type of actor, and the circumstances of action, such as time and space, or reason and outcome. The SVO and their attributes provide an invariant structure of narrative also known as “story grammar,” roughly corresponding to the 5 W’s and H of journalism (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How).

Professor Roberto Franzosı is a core faculty of the Program in Linguistics in emory University. While not a linguist by training, Professor Franzosi has had a long-standing interest in issues of narrative, semantics, semiotics, rhetoric, and quantitative approaches to language. He teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in Textual Analysis, Narrative, and Language and Mass Media. Professor Franzosi's research work in the field of linguistics (himself being a sociologist) has focused on narrative (e.g., see his "Narrative Analysis - Why (And How) Sociologists Should Be Interested in Narrative." 1998, Annual Review of Sociology). He has developed a technique, based on the concept of "story grammar" and relational database systems, for quantifying narrative information for socio-historical research (e.g., narratives of conflict as reported in newspaper articles on strikes, riots, or violent events), publishing several articles and books (From Words to Numbers: Narrative, Data, and Social Science, 2004, Cambridge University Press; Quantitative Narrative Analysis, Sage, 2007; Content Analysis. Benchmarks in Social Research Methods series (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences). 4 vols. Sage, 2008). Franzosi has developed a software, PC-ACE (Program for Computer-Assisted Coding of Events), for quantifying narrative information (available for free download at www.pc-ace.com). Using PC-ACE, Franzosi has carried out a huge data-collection project on the rise of Italian fascism (1919-22), collecting some two-hundred thousand skeleton narrative sentences from three different Italian newspapers.

For participation, RSVP to ahmet.suerdem@bilgi.edu.tr with your name and contact information.
Participants are kindly asked to bring their own laptop and to install the PC-ACE program beforehand. See the following website to download the program:www.sociology.emory.edu/rfranzosi/pc-ace/registration.php

The workshop will be in English. No translation services will be available.