Measuring the Meaning of Words in Contexts: An automated analysis of controversies about Monarch butterflies, Frankenfoods, and stem cells

TL;DR

This paper investigates how words derive different meanings in various contexts, especially across scientific and societal debates, by analyzing controversies about Monarch butterflies, Frankenfoods, and stem cells.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach linking co-word analysis with sociological methods to understand contextual and temporal shifts in meaning.

Findings

Words have context-dependent meanings that vary across scientific and societal domains.

Metaphors and diaphors serve as mechanisms for translating meanings between contexts.

The analysis reveals how controversies influence the evolution of word meanings over time.

Abstract

Co-words have been considered as carriers of meaning across different domains in studies of science, technology, and society. Words and co-words, however, obtain meaning in sentences, and sentences obtain meaning in their contexts of use. At the science/society interface, words can be expected to have different meanings: the codes of communication that provide meaning to words differ on the varying sides of the interface. Furthermore, meanings and interfaces may change over time. Given this structuring of meaning across interfaces and over time, we distinguish between metaphors and diaphors as reflexive mechanisms that facilitate the translation between contexts. Our empirical focus is on three recent scientific controversies: Monarch butterflies, Frankenfoods, and stem-cell therapies. This study explores new avenues that relate the study of co-word analysis in context with the sociological quest for the analysis and processing of meaning.