Abstract
Quantitative text analysis refers tothe application of one or more methods for drawingstatistical inferences from text populations. Afterbriefly distinguishing quantitative text analysisfrom linguistics, computational linguistics, andqualitative text analysis, issues raised during the1955 Allerton House Conference are used as a vehiclefor characterizing classical text analysis as aninstrumental-thematic method. Quantitative textanalysis methods are then depicted according to a2 × 3 conceptual framework in which texts areinterpreted either instrumentally (according to theresearcher's conceptual framework) orrepresentationally (according to the texts' sources'perspectives), as well as in which variables arethematic (counts of word/phrase occurrences),semantic (themes within a semantic grammar), ornetwork-related (theme- or relation-positions withina conceptual network). Common methodological errorsassociated with each method are discussed. Thepaper concludes with a delineation of the universeof substantive answers that quantitative text analysisis able to provide to social science researchers.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Altheide, D. L. (1996). Qualitative Media Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Berg, B. L. (1995). Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Boston: Bacon & Allyn.
Carley, K. M. (1986). An approach for relating social structure to cognitive structure. Journal of Mathematical Sociology 12: 137–189.
Carley, K.M. (1988). Formalizing the social expert's knowledge. Sociological Methods and Research 17: 165–232.
Carley, K. M. (1997). Network text analysis: The network position of concepts. In: C. W. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 79–100.
Carley, K. M. & Palmquist, M. E. (1992). Extracting, representing, and analyzing mental models.Social Forces 70: 601–636.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.
Cuilenburg, J. J. van, Kleinnijenhuis, J. & de Ridder, J. A. (1986). A theory of evaluative discourse: Towards a graph theory of journalistic texts. European Journal of Communication 1: 65–96.
Cuilenburg, J. J. van, Kleinnijenhuis, J. & Ridder, J. A. de (1988). Artificial intelligence and content analysis: Problems of and strategies for computer text analysis. Quality & Quantity 22: 65–97.
Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (eds) (1994). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Eltinge, E. M. (1997). Assessing the portrayal of “science as a process of inquiry” in high school biology textbooks: An application of Linguistic Content Analysis. In: C. W. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 159–170.
Feldman, M. S. (1994). Strategies for Interpreting Qualitative Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fielding, N. G. & Lee, R. M. (eds) (1991). Using Computers in Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Franzosi, R. (1989). From words to numbers: A generalized and linguistics-based coding procedure for collecting event-data from newspapers. In: C. Clogg (ed.), Sociological Methodology, 1989.Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 263–298.
Franzosi, R. (1990). Computer-assisted coding of textual data: An application to semantic grammars.Sociological Methods and Research 19: 225–257.
Franzosi, R. (1997a). Labor unrest in the Italian service sector: An application of semantic grammars.In: C. W. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 131–145.
Franzosi, R. (1997b). Comment: On ambiguity and rhetoric in (social) science. In: A. Raftery (ed.), Sociological Methodology, 1997. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 135–144.
George, A. (1959). Quantitative and qualitative approaches to content analysis. In: I. de S. Pool (ed.), Trends in Content Analysis. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp. 7–32.
Gerner, D. J., Schrodt, P. A., Francisco, R. & Weddle, J. L. (1994). The analysis of political events using machine coded data. International Studies Quarterly 38: 91–119.
Goldhamer, D. H. (1969). Toward a more general Inquirer: Convergence of structure and context of meaning. In: G. Gerbner, O. R. Holsti, K. Krippendorff, W. J. Paisley & P. J. Stone (eds), The Analysis of Communication Content: Developments in Scientific Theories and Computer Techniques. New York: Wiley, pp. 343–354.
Gottschalk, L. A. (1995). Content Analysis of Verbal Behavior: New Findings and Computerized Clinical Applications. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Gottschalk, L. A. & Bechtel, R. (1989). Artificial intelligence and the computerization of the content analysis of natural language. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine 1: 131–137.
Gottschalk, L. A. & Kaplan, S. M. (1958). A quantitative method of estimating variations in intensity of a psychologic conflict or state. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 78: 656–664.
Gray, J. H. & Densten, I. L. (1998). Integrating quantitative and qualitative analysis using latent and manifest variables. Quality & Quantity 32: 419–431.
Griemas, A-J. (1984 [1966]). Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Grishman, R. (1986). Computational Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 2nd edn. London: Arnold.
Holsti, O. R. (1969). Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Honey, J. (1983). The Language Trap: Race, Class and the 'standard English' Issue in British Schools. Harrow, UK: National Council for Academic Standards.
Kelle, U. (ed.) (1995). Computer-Aided Qualitative Data Analysis: Theory, Methods, and Practice.London: Sage.
Kleinnijenhuis, J., Ridder, J. A. de & Rietberg, E. M. (1997). Reasoning in economic discourse: An application of the network approach to the Dutch press. In: C. W. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 191–207.
Krueger, R. A. (1994). Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lasswell, H. D. (1948). The structure and function of communication in society. In: L. Bryson (ed.), The Communication of Ideas. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 37–51.
Lee, T.W. (1999). Using Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Markoff, J. (1988). Allies and opponents: Nobility and the third estate in the spring of 1789.American Sociological Review 53: 477–496.
Markoff, J., Shapiro, G. & Weitman, S. (1974). Toward the integration of content analysis and general methodology. In: D. R. Heise (ed.), Sociological Methodology, 1975. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 1–58.
Marshall, C. & Rossman, G. B. (1995). Designing Qualitative Research, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
McEnery, A. M. (1992). Computational Linguistics: A Handbook and Toolbox for Natural Language Processing. Wilmslow, UK: Sigma.
Miles, M. B. & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Namenwirth, J. Z. & Weber, R. P. (1987). Dynamics of Culture. Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin.
Osgood, C. E. (1959). The representational model and relevant research methods. In: I. de S. Pool (ed.), Trends in Content Analysis. Champaign, Ill: University of Illinois Press, pp. 33–88.
Pool, I. de S. (1955). The Prestige Press: A Comparative Study of Political Symbols. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Pool, I. de S. (ed.) (1959). Trends in Content Analysis. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Popping, R. (1997). Computer programs for the analysis of texts and transcripts. In: C. W. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 209–221.
Riessman, C. K. (1993). Narrative Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Roberts, C. W. (1989). Other than counting words: A linguistic approach to content analysis. Social Forces 68: 147–177.
Roberts, C. W. (1991). Linguistic content analysis. In: H. J. Helle (ed.), Verstehen and Pragmatism: Essays on Interpretative Sociology. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 283–309.
Roberts, C. W. (ed.) (1997a). Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Roberts, C. W. (1997b). Semantic text analysis: On the structure of linguistic ambiguity in ordinary discourse. In: C. W. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 55–77.
Roberts, C. W. (1997c). A generic semantic grammar for quantitative text analysis: Applications to East and West Berlin radio news content from 1979. In: A. Raftery (ed.), Sociological Methodology, 1997. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 89–129.
Roberts, C.W. (1997d). Reply: The curse of Chauvin. In: A. Raftery (ed.), Sociological Methodology, 1997. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 169–176.
Rosner, M. & Johnson, R. (eds.) (1992). Computational Linguistics and Formal Semantics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Savaiano, S. & Schrodt, P. A. (1997). Environmental change and conflict: Analyzing the Ethiopian famine of 1984-85. In: C. W. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 147–158.
Schrodt, P. A. (1993). Machine coding of event data. In: R. L. Merritt, R. G. Muncaster & D. A. Zinnes (eds), Theory and Management of International Event Data: DDIR Phase II. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 117–140.
Shapiro, G. (1997). The future of coders: Human judgments in a world of sophisticated software.In: C. W. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Transcripts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 225–238.
Shapiro, G. & Markoff, J. (1998). Revolutionary Demands: A Content Analysis of the Cahiers de Doléances of 1789. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Silverman, D. (1993). Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analyzing Talk, Text, and Interaction. London: Sage.
Smith, C. P. (ed.) (1992). Motivation and Personality: Handbook of Thematic Content Analysis.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Stone, P. J., Dunphy, D. C., Smith, M. S. & Ogilvie, D. M. (eds) (1966). The General Inquirer: A Computer Approach to Content Analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Strauss, D. & Ikeda, M. (1990). Pseudolikelihood estimation for social networks. Journal of the American Statistical Association 85: 204–212.
Walker, M. E., Wasserman, S. & Wellman, B. (1994). Statistical models for social support networks.In: S. Wasserman & J. Galaskiewicz (eds.), Advances in Social Network Analysis: Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 53–78.
Wasserman, S. & Faust, K. (1994). Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Weitzman, E. A. & Miles, M. B. (1995). Computer Programs for Qualitative Data Analysis: A Software Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Wolcott, H. F. (1994). Transforming Qualitative Data: Description, Analysis, and Interpretation, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Roberts, C.W. A Conceptual Framework for Quantitative Text Analysis. Quality & Quantity 34, 259–274 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004780007748
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004780007748