Semantic Markup for Literary Scholars: How Descriptive Markup Affects the Study and Teaching of Literature

摘要

This paper describes a qualitative study, which investigated the attitudes of literary scholars towards the features of semantic markup for primary texts. The scholars were shown seven variations of the same text in XML format, each varying according to the two main features of semantic markup: the separation of structure from layout, and the ability to add interpretive markup to enhance searchability. The responses suggest that, contrary to many popular assumptions, layout is a vital part of the reading process, which implies that the standardization of DTDs begun with the Text Encoding Initiative should extend to styling as well. Second, interpretive markup achieves problematic results: while searchability is improved, the markup threatens to inhibit the reader's experience of the text.