DiSCourse Seminar with Mari Hatavara
27 March 2026, 12:00 (CET), hybrid
Digital Science Center, Innrain 15, 1st floor, Open Space Area or Big Blue Button
DiSCourse* - The Digital Science Seminar Series on:
Narrative Detection in Political Talk. Bringing together Computational Recognition and Narrative Theory
Narrative is a powerful tool for argumentation since narratives organize time and communicate human experientiality. Yet, narratives are used sparsely in the Finnish parliament, and therefore first need to be identified from the large volume of parliamentary records data for the experts to analyze. Narratives in the Parliament are often short, intertwined with argumentation and oriented towards the future, which poses challenges to the detection task. For this reason, several definitions of narrative need to be considered to identify key features of narrativity. This talk explores efforts to extract narratives from Finnish parliamentary records (1980–2025) by drawing upon approaches from interdisciplinary narrative theory and computational modeling based on linguistic features. Particular focus is on verbs that portray human experientiality, which are understood as central to narratives. Modeling complex concepts such as narrative creates new possibilities for humanities and computer sciences cooperation in natural language processing.
*featuring a distinguished guest: Mari Hatavara, Tampere University
Mari Hatavara is a Chair Professor of Finnish Literature at Tampere University, Finland. She has published extensively on interdisciplinary narrative theory and analysis, fictionality studies, and narrative minds and voices across narrative environments. Her latest publications include “Computational recognition of narratives: Applying narratological definitions to the analysis of political language use” (Narrative Inquiry 2024, with others), “Analyzing master and counter-narratives in the multilayered narrative communication of literary fiction” (Frontiers of Narrative Studies 2025) and “Narrating violent victimization by positioning self and others” (Narrative Inquiry 2025, with Lois Presser). She is the consortium PI for Political Temporalities. Narrating Continuity and Change in the Finnish Parliament from the Cold War to Covid-19 (2022–2026, Research Council of Finland).