Noise, Novels, Numbers: A Framework for Detecting and Categorizing Noise in Danish and Norwegian Literature

We present a framework for detecting and categorizing noise in literary texts, demonstrated through its application to Danish and Norwegian literature from the late 19-th century. Noise, understood as “aberrant sonic behaviour,” is not only an auditory phenomenon but also a cultural construct tied to the processes of civilization and urbanization.We begin by utilizing topic modeling techniques to identify noise-related documents, followed by fine-tuning BERT-based language models trained on Danish and Norwegian texts to analyze a corpus of over 800 novels.We identify and track the prevalence of noise in these texts, offering insights into the literary perceptions of noise during the Scandinavian “Modern Breakthrough” period (1870-1899). Our contributions include the development of a comprehensive dataset annotated for noise-related segments and their categorization into human-made, non-human-made, and musical noises. This study illustrates the framework’s potential for enhancing the understanding of the relationship between noise and its literary representations, providing a deeper appreciation of the auditory elements in literary works, including as sources for cultural history.