In my environmental theory course, we are searching for Big Words, which I define in terms of three criteria:
- Conceptual scope: Big Words subsume, and thus bring together, a number of specifics
- Cultural resonance. Big Words are meaningful to many people
- Practical significance: Big Words inform practice, policy, and politics
This coming week we’ll look for Big Words invoked in the context of support for, and opposition to, the Malheur occupation and its larger Sagebrush Rebellion, Wise Use Movement, and other roots. One question: how do we identify and probe Big Words? Here are some simple strategies we’ll deploy:
- Identifying text (e.g., occupation leader interviews, founding documents, opposition statements) and performing simple text analysis in order to obtain count frequencies (using Wordle or TagCrowd), or frequencies and more sophisticated patterns (using Voyant Tools; see analysis screenshot of Dave Bundy letter).
- Performing a deep history of resultant common terms (Big Words) using the Oxford English Dictionary; and a shallow history (2004–) of their usage via Google Trends. (See an example of the latter below; you’ll need to be logged into a Google account to see it.)
- These are just for starters; any deep inquiry into Big Words would rightly end up looking something like what Raymond Williams did via his magisterial Keywords.
[trends h=”400″ w=”800″ q=”freedom,government,private,public” geo=”US”]
As suggested here and here, this sort of work often takes us places we’d rather not go…but here we go! I and my students will check back in next week on how it went.
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