DIGI405-26S1 (C) Semester One 2026

Texts, Discourses and Data

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 16 February 2026
End Date: Sunday, 21 June 2026
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 1 March 2026
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 10 May 2026

Description

This course examines computer-aided methods used in digital humanities and the social sciences for analysing discourses, an object of study that draws together multiple ways that language reflects and shapes social meanings. Within this context, it introduces concepts and methods for analysing natural language data and applies these through a series of practical lab classes. The first part of the course focuses on classic discourse analysis methods drawn from corpus linguistics, as well as the essential preprocessing steps used to prepare texts for a range of analytical purposes. In the second part of the course we study topic modeling, a technique for unsupervised, exploratory data analysis that has been widely used in digital humanities, and, finally, consider supervised text classification methods to identify discursive attributes such as sentiment, genre, or style.

Prerequisites

Subject to approval of the Programme Coordinator.

Timetable 2026

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Lecture A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 13:00 - 14:00 E16 Lecture Theatre
16 Feb - 29 Mar
20 Apr - 31 May
Computer Lab A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Wednesday 09:00 - 11:00 Jack Erskine 248 Computer Lab
16 Feb - 29 Mar
20 Apr - 31 May
02 Wednesday 15:00 - 17:00 Jack Erskine 248 Computer Lab
16 Feb - 29 Mar
20 Apr - 31 May
03 Friday 16:00 - 18:00 Ernest Rutherford 212 Computer Lab
16 Feb - 29 Mar
20 Apr - 31 May

Examinations, Quizzes and Formal Tests

Test A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 19:00 - 20:00 Ernest Rutherford 140
27 Apr - 3 May
02 Tuesday 19:00 - 20:00 F3 Lecture Theatre
27 Apr - 3 May

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Christopher Thomson

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Learning Journal / Active participation 20% Each week you should make non-trivial contributions to active learning. Expectations for this will be set at the start of the course.
Corpus exploratory analysis 30% Analyse written texts using corpus linguistics techniques.
Written test 15% A closed-book written test completed during class time.
Final project 35% Apply skills and concepts learned throughout the course to produce a final project on a selected problem or topic.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,150.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Humanities .

All DIGI405 Occurrences