Identity researchers are constantly concerned with identifying patterns of meaning in what people express. People’s words are rich in cultural imagery and thus even short utterances are complex and nuanced.
Originally developed for actual semantic analysis (e.g. within linguistics), the now open source Tropes software allows one to plug in text and analysis clusters of words of phrases that might have interesting “meaning making” functions. Done right, this software can really ramp up the ability to visualize a given population’s semantic possibilities. Check it out here.
