R. Edirisinghe

Research programme

Textual relations under transformation

How textual relations can be represented, retrieved, judged, and explored when their surface evidence changes.

01

Doctoral research

University College Cork · CASCADE Horizon Europe MSCA Doctoral Network
Sep 2024 – Sep 2027 (expected)

Modelling Intertextual Relations under Transformation

My doctoral research examines how textual relations can be represented, retrieved, judged, and explored when surface similarity is weakened through paraphrase, adaptation, obfuscation, allusion, historical variation, and other forms of textual change.

The work combines information retrieval, language modelling, benchmark construction, evaluation, and visual analytics to support analysis across large textual collections.

02

Research architecture

One connected line of inquiry

The stages form a trajectory from representing an unstable relation to interpreting the evidence around it.

Doctoral research object pipelineTexts become representations, a candidate space, ranked relations, evidence, and visual exploration through the operations represent, retrieve, judge, and explore.TEXTSREPRESENTATIONSCANDIDATESPACERANKEDRELATIONSEVIDENCEVISUALEXPLORATION
Object 01 / TEXTS

Source and target passages enter the pipeline as texts situated in context.

Within REPRESENT: Computational representations for relations that persist across paraphrase, adaptation, obfuscation, allusion, historical variation, and related transformations.
Layered textual-relation research pipelineResearch objects move upward through texts, embedding representations, candidate retrieval, ranked relations, evidence, and visual exploration.INPUTTEXTSREPRESENTREPRESENTATIONSRETRIEVECANDIDATESPACERANK / JUDGERANKEDRELATIONSEVIDENCEEVIDENCEEXPLOREVISUALEXPLORATION
Layer 01 / TEXTS

Source and target passages enter the pipeline as texts situated in context.

  1. TEXTS

    Source and target passages enter the pipeline as texts situated in context.

  2. REPRESENT REPRESENTATIONS

    Texts become computational representations that preserve signals relevant to relation.

  3. RETRIEVE CANDIDATE SPACE

    Retrieval narrows a large collection to passages that may warrant comparison.

  4. JUDGE RANKED RELATIONS

    Candidate relations are ordered for closer assessment rather than treated as equivalent.

  5. JUDGE EVIDENCE

    Judgement returns to the textual evidence that supports or complicates a relation.

  6. EXPLORE VISUAL EXPLORATION

    The resulting evidence can be explored across a corpus and returned to close reading.

Intertextual transformation · demonstration

Watch lexical evidence recede while a relation trace remains.

Milton and Shelley are the historical anchors; intermediate stages are constructed to illustrate changing recognition conditions.

John Milton

Paradise Lost · Book X

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man, did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?”

QUOTATION

Milton quotation

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man, did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?”

  1. 01

    QUOTATION

    historical anchor
    “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man, did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?”

    The relationship is easy to recognise because Milton’s wording is still present.

  2. 02

    PARAPHRASE

    constructed demonstration
    “I never asked my creator to make me or to bring me into life.”

    The same roles remain, although characteristic words have been replaced.

  3. 03

    ADAPTATION

    constructed demonstration
    “A created being confronts the one who gave it life and questions an existence imposed without consent.”

    The situation survives, but its wording and structure have been reorganised.

  4. 04

    OBFUSCATION

    constructed demonstration
    “Existence became an obligation before assent was possible, leaving its origin as the object of accusation.”

    The people and act of creation are no longer named directly; the relation must be reconstructed from dispersed clues.

  5. 05

    ALLUSION

    historical anchor
    “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel...”

    Recognition now depends on literary knowledge: Adam and the fallen angel reconnect Shelley’s creature to Milton’s creation narrative.

Miltontransformation pathShelley

What still connects them

Relation persists
  1. created being
  2. creator / maker
  3. creation / origin
  4. consent / grievance
Adam → created being Fallen angel → Miltonic creation / fall

The relationship is easy to recognise because Milton’s wording is still present.

Surface wording
high
Evidence comes from
direct wording
Explore the relation model

Computational relation view

The fuller model separates conceptual roles and the evidence used to connect them.

Concept graph for the active transformation stateThe creator, created being, origin, consent, and responsibility remain structurally connected; Adam and the fallen angel appear at the allusion stage.
Surface wording
high
Transformation distance
local
Relation evidence
direct

Upcoming engagement · 28 Sep–2 Oct 2026

Digital History Autumn School 2026

Herder Institute · Marburg, Germany

Accepted participant in From Data Acquisition to Data Publication: Quality Control, Tool Assessment, and Methodological Challenges in Digital History.