The Zurich LaCoViz Hub aims at bringing together researchers, designers and artists who deal with the visualization of linguistic data or communication. Our common ground is the assumption that visualization is not just a nice-to-have feature at the end of the research process, but a fundamental process of arranging and rearranging data for analysis.
Graphics, diagrams, schemata serve important functions in linguistics: they visualize analytical results, clarify complex theoretical concepts, or enable the analysis of data in the first place. They may come in the shape of axis diagrams, networks, lists, maps, and countless other forms.
But how do such visualizations influence the emergence of scientific facts? What research practices are they involved in and what effects do they have on linguistic data? How exactly do they enable transformations of data to yield new insights?
We examine diagrammatic practices in linguistics from both historical and technical perspectives, and show how these practices are embedded in diagramming cultures and "coding cultures". The diversity of diagrams is traced back to five basic diagrammatic figures, whose specific functions and effects are analyzed.
Our research on visual linguistics is underpinned by semiotics and a strong interest in the history and sociology of science and scientific practices.
We share a broad understanding of linguistics that encompasses pragmatics, interaction, space and body: Communication.
The chances of and needs for visualization in the context of research on communicative phenomena transcends the classic methods of visualization. We therefore experiment with Virtual and Augmented Reality.
Our interest lies in the instrument of virtual reality itself: it is not a consumer instrument, not a means to an end, but part of the experiment to find out which diagrammatic properties it brings along, which styles of thinking it follows (VR glasses are primarily marketed as a consumer and, above all, gaming device) and how the object under investigation is reconstituted with the possibilities of VR.
The following overview gives an impression of projects in the field of language and communication visualization at the University of Zurich.
Prof. Dr. Noah Bubenhofer, Department of German Studies, University of Zurich – LaCoViz Founder
Christoph Hottiger (MA), Department of German Studies, University of Zurich – LaCoViz Project Manager
Larissa Schüller (MA), Department of German Studies, University of Zurich
Daniel Knuchel (MA), Department of German Studies, University of Zurich
Livia Sutter (MA), Department of German Studies, University of Zurich
Teodora Vuković (MA), Department of German Studies, University of Zurich
Maaike Kellenberger (BA), Department of German Studies, University of Zurich
Niclas Bodenmann (BA), Department of German Studies, University of Zurich
In collaboration with:
