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The civilizing process at the Old Bailey

Humanities Analytics · Lesson 1 case study

This case study analysed more than a century of spoken testimony from London’s Old Bailey. Trial records were grouped by violent and nonviolent offences, while words were organised into semantic categories so the researchers could measure how distinguishable the two kinds of trial became over time.

The growing difference in their language supplied quantitative evidence for changing bureaucratic practices and social norms around violence. It demonstrated how a measurable textual signal can contribute to a larger historical argument without replacing the contextual work needed to interpret it.

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