In my study on the recorders of the Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類 (Conversations of Master Chu, Arranged Topically), I use MARKUS to identify personal names, place names, and official titles in the text.

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Then I extract the recorders’ main geographical addresses and the associated geographical coordinates by linking the person ids provided in MARKUS to the China Biographical Database (CBDB).

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Putting these addresses on a map, we can observe the geographical distribution of the recorders.

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Figure 1 Geographical Distribution of the Recorders (by Mao Yuan-heng)

We can also get all Zhu Xi’s disciples from CBDB and do a comparison with the previous distribution map.

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Figure 2 Geographical Distribution of Zhu Xi’s Disciples (by Mao Yuan-heng)

Some items in the Zhuzi yulei have more than one recorder -- probably a result of transcription or because multiple disciples heard the same conversation from Zhu Xi. We can use this as a criterion to group the recorders. If we suppose that those who recorded the same item share a tie and group them together, we can obtain the following social network graph.

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We can simplify the graph by only counting those who recorded the same item more than five times:

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Thus in terms of recording, we can separate the recorders into groups based on those who recorded the same items.

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MARKUS also makes it easy and fast to get some specific information in a text, such as which place names, personal names or official titles are mentioned most frequently.

Chu Ping-tzu, Associate Professor, National Tsing Hua University