Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Analyzing political formation through historical isiXhosa text analysis: Using frequency analysis to examine emerging African Nationalism in South Africa

Schoots, Jonathan LU (2023) p.65-75
Abstract
This paper showcases new research avenues made possible by applying computational methods to historical isiXhosa text. I outline a method for isiXhosa computational text analysis which adapts word frequency analysis to be applied to isiXhosa texts focusing on root words. The paper showcases the value of the approach in a study of emerging political identities in early African nationalism, examining a novel dataset of isiXhosa newspapers from 1874 to 1890. The analysis shows how a shared identity of ‘Blackness’ (Abantsundu and Abamnyama) dynamically emerged, and follows the impact of leading intellectuals as well as African voter mobilization in shaping communal political discourse.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Nationalism, anti-colonial nationalism, Xhosa, Africa, Race, Newspapers, natural language processing (NLP)
host publication
Proceedings of the Fourth workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL 2023)
editor
Mabuya, Rooweither ; Mthobela, Don ; Setaka, Mmasibidi and Van Zaanen, Menno
pages
65 - 75
publisher
Association for Computational Linguistics
external identifiers
  • scopus:85175065317
DOI
10.18653/v1/2023.rail-1.8
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
a7495682-cdc3-47bc-b4a6-5b02bf26991a
date added to LUP
2024-10-14 11:01:37
date last changed
2025-04-04 14:52:34
@inproceedings{a7495682-cdc3-47bc-b4a6-5b02bf26991a,
  abstract     = {{This paper showcases new research avenues made possible by applying computational methods to historical isiXhosa text. I outline a method for isiXhosa computational text analysis which adapts word frequency analysis to be applied to isiXhosa texts focusing on root words. The paper showcases the value of the approach in a study of emerging political identities in early African nationalism, examining a novel dataset of isiXhosa newspapers from 1874 to 1890. The analysis shows how a shared identity of ‘Blackness’ (Abantsundu and Abamnyama) dynamically emerged, and follows the impact of leading intellectuals as well as African voter mobilization in shaping communal political discourse.}},
  author       = {{Schoots, Jonathan}},
  booktitle    = {{Proceedings of the Fourth workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL 2023)}},
  editor       = {{Mabuya, Rooweither and Mthobela, Don and Setaka, Mmasibidi and Van Zaanen, Menno}},
  keywords     = {{Nationalism; anti-colonial nationalism; Xhosa; Africa; Race; Newspapers; natural language processing (NLP)}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{65--75}},
  publisher    = {{Association for Computational Linguistics}},
  title        = {{Analyzing political formation through historical isiXhosa text analysis: Using frequency analysis to examine emerging African Nationalism in South Africa}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.18653/v1/2023.rail-1.8}},
  doi          = {{10.18653/v1/2023.rail-1.8}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}