INTRODUCTION TO ARTFL American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language Introduction ARTFL contains the full text of 1880 works, and 42 others exist in a second database not yet incorporated into the greater collection. The works range from the 13th to the 20th century, with greatest concentration on the 18th and 19th centuries. While narrative fiction is the single most prevalent genre, it does not overwhelm the database, which includes the natural sciences, mathematics, theology, political economy, history, drama, poetry, essays and diaries. Women writers, however, lack representation, as do non-metropolitan francophonic authors (of Africa, North American and the Caribbean) and popular works (although you will find Bonjour Tristesse). ARTFL's "representativeness" remains an open question--and those directing ARTFL are aware of it. Uses You can make of ARTFL what you wish. I have used it to generate concordances--something it does very easily. I have used it to search for quotations and to identify where characters or individuals have been mentioned in the texts (the equivalent of using it as an online index). You can examine changes in the meaning or words over time (its original purpose as a tool for helping compile a dictionary) or extraordinary uses of a word by a particular author. You can count word occurrences, use it as a semiotic tool or explore syntax and morphology. For more discussion of the uses of ARTFL in scholarly research, see the articles by Jean-Jacques Thomas ("Texts On-Line") and Mark Wolff ("Poststructuralism and the ARTFL database"). Connecting 1. AIE ARTFL is available through the AIE (While it lasts.). At the $ prompt type AIE ARTFL or if you are within the AIE type ARTFL at the "Type 1-16, option or keyword >" prompt You may also choose it from the AIE menu: Sign on and chose "Library Services" from the menu. Choose the option "Special Electronic Databases" Choose the option "French Language (ARTFL)" When connected, choose "1" for the main database (or "2" for "new additions." When prompted, choose "v" for VT100 emulation At "user identification" press From home, you may dial into the AIE by modem and access ARTFL There is considerable pressure to take users off the AIE as much as possible because of the high traffic on it. A direct Telnet session may be a better way to reach ARTFL, if you have a network connection; or you may use the GOPHER if you have a network connection and an account on silver, nickel or bronze or a Gopher client installed on your machine. 2. TELNET If you have a network connection, you may telnet directly to ARTFL TELNET artfl.uchicago.edu USER: Your username PASSWORD: Your password Select "1" for the "Main ARTFL database" or "2" for "New additions" When prompted choose "v" for VT100 emulation At "User identification" press You may also telnet to our public server Portal TELNET portal and choose "French Language (ARTFL)" For this service you will need a network password. The UCS helpline (855-6789) will help you join the network (joinnet). If you intend to use ARTFL regularly it would be best to get a personal account. A personal account will allow you to store files in your own directory and retrieve them (through FTP to artfl.uchicago.edu) for future use. ARTFL encourages these accounts and has always been extremely accommodating about them. For a personal account you can send e-mail to mark@gide.uchicago.edu You may also ask him to send you a copy of the User Guide and Bibliography. (Also available through the gopher and WWW mosaic) 3. GOPHER You can reach ARTFL through the Library gopher, if you have a gopher client installed on your work station or account on silver, nickel or bronze. The UCS Helpdesk (855-6789) can get an account set up for you and help with details about Gopher over the network. Through the Library Gopher, choose "Library and Research Services," then "LETRS," then "Library supported networked texts- -remote access." Choose "ARTFL--A Textual Database on the Treasury of the French Language." Please note that using the gopher offers access to other ARTFL materials (produced by the ARTFL folks themselves and placed on the Gopher): ARTFL Project--General Description ARTFL Quick Reference Guide ARTFL Users Guide ARTFL--Added Texts ARTFL Newsletter You can download these materials to you home machine. 4. World Wide Web Running Windows (with a network connection) you may use the Netscape browser to access the ARTFL database. The address to define as the URL is: http://tuna.uchicago.edu/ARTFL.html, which you can save to your list. With Netscape ARTFL appears in windows-like guided screens that allow you to enter terms in defined boxes (author, title, date, search corpus for, and other options) and perform searches with the click of a mouse. This attractive graphic interface differs from the more opaque system of the simple telnet access in searching and presentation of results. It also offers more than the ARTFL database itself. You will find connections set up to access various sources for the study of French, the language, the literature and the culture--francophonic Gophers (the one at the University of Montreal especially), listservers, discussion groups, pictures and other potentially useful items. Netscape will not yet create and save word lists, so that the interface does not have all the functions of the command-line system. Navigation The "PhiloLogic Reference Card" explains the keystrokes you will need to search the database, once you have connected and logged in. Arrow keys and mice do not work within PhiloLogic, ARTFL's search engine. You will have to use the "j"=down one line, k=up one line and the rest of the manual commands. At any point in the PhiloLogic search system you may press the question mark (?) to get help, and the help is context- sensitive, explaining the options you have concerning where you are in the program. The colon (:) brings up the MAIN MENU. Once this appears, you are ready to search. Beginning 1. First choose a corpus: entire, author(s), title, date or other (a combination of author, title or date). 2. After choosing a corpus, you are ready to search a word, or words or a phrase in the database. Sample searches, step by step Gide 1. Type the colon (:) (Shift-colon) for the main menu 2. The Main menu appears 3. At the bottom of the screen you will see "corpus:?" 4. Press "j" to set the cursor to "author" and press 5. Type gide or Gide a or Gide Andre (author names, unlike other commands, are not case-sensitive; and you do not need the complete name unless there is another author with the same surname in the databases, as with Balzac h and balzac j l guez de) 6. Press 7. At the top of the screen you will see Gide, followed by the number of "documents" found by this author 8. Enter the colon (:) to return to the main menu; Press "j" to reach "search" and press . Press "j" down word search; Press . (From the earlier general screen you could have used the slash (/) to start a word search directly, bypassing the main menu.) 9. At the bottom you will see "Search word:" 10. Type punaises and 11. When the list of citations appears type "w" and the screen will show the keyword in context (KWIC) Among the entries for "punaises" in Gide you will find reference to Amade/e Fleurissoire's encounter with bedbugs in Les Caves du Vatican. 12. Press "j" to reach a passage you would like to examine in full text. 13. When the cursor is on the entry you want, press "t" to view the full text Note that for works where copyright remains in effect, you will see only 300 characters. For older texts you can scroll through the entire work. 14. Press "x" to quit viewing the text Note that if you press "b" at any entry you will retrieve the bibliographic citation for the work (the edition ARTFL has used to key in the characters). The uppercase "B" will retrieve the citations for all the documents found in a particular corpus. Bovary In Madame Bovary there is a scene at an agricultural fair where awards are given to prize animals and vegetables. During the ceremonies a woman receives a medal for fifty-some years of devoted drudgery on a single farm. We can locate that scene by: 1. Press the colon (:) for the main menu. Select "Corpus" and press 2. Use "j" to get to "Title" and press 3. Type the word "Bovary" and press 4. Return to the main menu and select search; use "j" to reach "co-occurrence" and press 5. Type cinquante mEdaille (or type cinquante me/daille) The capital E means the vowel may be accented or unaccented. The slash following a vowel means an acute accent over it. The capital letter vowel search is very helpful in searching texts before the 19th century when the use of accent marks varied considerably. 6. Press "w" if the screen does not display the keyword in context (KWIC) 7. Use "j" to get to the text of the incident. Press "t" to view the text. Here we will be able to see the entire document, not merely the 300 characters surrounding the word we searched. 8. The capital "J" will take us down a page (or half page) to let us look through the text. Corneille,Racine You may choose more than one author to search at a single time. Use the corpus "other" and type author=Corneille,Racine (no space between the two names) and . Select "word search" from the main menu (or type a slash (/). Type renommEe and . This search will find the uses of renomme/e in the works of both Corneille and Racine. Sand G, with "other" and #chopin Chose the corpus "other" and enter author=Sand G date=1800- 1900. "Other" has allowed you to combine corpuses. Press the question mark (?), and you will see the contact-sensitive help screen. Escape from help (ESC) and choose "word search" from the menu. Search #chopin. The pound sign (#) indicates a proper noun, so this search will find references to Chopin to the works of George Sand in the ARTFL database. (A tilde (~) before a word will retrieve both proper and common nouns, as in ~pierre which yields both Pierre and pierre.) #Ney Choose the "entire corpus" and press . Return to the main menu with the colon (:) or use the slash (/) to begin a word search. Type #Ney and press . This search will find references to Marshal Ney throughout all the texts in the ARTFL database. .* The .* command allows pattern matching. It is a powerful tool and a useful one. You may use it at the beginning of a root or at the end. For example, .*roi.* will retrieve all words with the letters roi within it. dou.* Search the word dou.* in the corpus "title" tristesse (for Francoise Sagan's Bonjour tristesse. You will find 77 entries with the root "dou." If you are searching for the concept of "douceur" you can read through all the entries or you can turn this pattern into a wordlist. Return to the menu with the colon (:) and select "wordlist." Select "expand pattern to wordlist" and press . You may now select the works you want to include in the list by marking them (press the letter "m" and you will see the words in reverse video). When you have finished, the menu will prompt you to keep or delete marked items and prompt you again to save the list and name it. Choose save to a wordlist and create one as you are prompted, naming it $doux, for example. You may now run this list in the corpus "tristesse" (44 occurrences) or you may apply it to any other corpus. moyen simple commode In ARTFL you may search a word root, a word, words (the co- occurrence search, meaning words within the same sentence) or you may search a phrase. The phrase search will look for words appearing in the order you type them in your request. Try the phrase "moyen simple commode" as a phrase search. It will bring up two results, both from Les Liasions dangereuses. Beware, though, because when common words are part of the phrase, the search can take a long time (15 minutes against 15 seconds, more or less, in the example the ARTFL manual gives). A co- occurrence may be a better tactic for phrases--and you may use more than two or three words in co-occurrence searching. It takes less time to search (although some time to look through the results) and it will catch variant phrasing that a phrase search itself will not find. coeur|amour You may construct a word search for either of two words in ARTFL with a bar line separating the two words: coeur|amour and either word will appear in the corpus you defined. r[ia]re You may bracket letters to indicate a search for any of them within a word; r[ia]re will yield rire and rare. If accents are involved you may enter upper case letters in the brackets. ' Remember if searching apostrophes--as in phrase searches-- the apostrophe belongs to the first "word," not the second. So qu'il vienne is searched as qu' il vienne. (Each of those words is searchable separately, although searching qu' or il will take some time and churn out a considerable list). Wordlists You may expand a pattern search (.*) into a wordlist (as in the example dou.*). Or you may use the unix editor (vi) to create one. A wordlist is what the term suggests: a list of words you wish to search, perhaps in more than one corpus. You could create one called, say, $couleur. (The wordlist name always includes the $-sign as the first character; you run it then as a word search within a corpus). You might then type in bleu, blanc, jaune, vert, rouge--all the colors you want to include and run that to discover the uses of color in the work of a certain author. L'Etranger Search the corpus "title" etranger, using the word search with the wordlist $lassitude, composed of: $lassitude lit sommeil fatigue fatigue/ lourd lasse lassitude dormir and $lassitude may help you explore the theme or concept of lassitude and fatigue in this laconic novel. You can build a wordlist with the unix editor. From the menu choose "Edit wordlist." The menu will help you, but remember that each word must be followed by a carriage return. And each word in the list must be on a separate line. You cannot use the .* command or upper case for accent variations. Every term must be exact. You can use the .* command to generate variations from a root, then choose the terms for a wordlist, which you may also combine into another list you have created. Combining wordlists can help you construct a comprehensive and precise set of words to search. The menu will guide you through the steps and the question mark (?) will provide help if you need it. The ARTFL manual and Bibliography There are other features to the database. The ARTFL manual explains them, and is, I think, one of the best manuals I have read. For further information, I suggest you consult it. If you have any questions, we will be happy to try to answer them. We can consult with Mark Olsen, too. He has always been extremely helpful and eager to see that users get as much as they can out of the database he oversees. If you have any questions please let us know. Our e-mail addresses and telephone numbers are: letrs -- for the Library Electronic Text Resource Service (LETRS) -- 855-3877 libref -- for the Library Reference Department -- 855-8028 jcgraf -- for questions directly to me (Jeffrey Graf, Reference) -- 855-8028 Jeffrey Graf September 15, 1994