The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution ISBN: 9780198869252
بيانات النشر:
Oxford University Press, 2023.
سنة النشر:
2023
الوصف:
This chapter describes how textual scholars have applied computer programs from evolutionary biology to differences among versions of a manuscript text to infer the copying history of those versions (depicted diagrammatically as a ‘stemma’). The chapter presents the similarities between copying of texts and the copying of DNA sequences, and then describes how computer programs used for inferring the evolutionary history of DNA or protein sequences can also be used to infer the copying history of sets of texts. This approach is often referred to as ‘phylomemetics’. The history of phylomemetic analysis of texts is reviewed briefly, along with the steps involved in an analysis of textual material. The chapter discusses tests of the phylomemetic approach, and some of the criticisms that have been made of the approach, or difficulties encountered with it, although these criticisms and difficulties typically apply to conventional textual scholarship as well.
