This doctoral dissertation is based on Jiam ilgi, the diary of Yun Yi-hu (pen name; Jiam, 1636-1699), a nobleman who lived in the Honam (i.e. Jeolla) region of Joseon Korea in the late 17th century.
Yun Yi-hu was the grandson of scholar-poet Yun Seon-...
This doctoral dissertation is based on Jiam ilgi, the diary of Yun Yi-hu (pen name; Jiam, 1636-1699), a nobleman who lived in the Honam (i.e. Jeolla) region of Joseon Korea in the late 17th century.
Yun Yi-hu was the grandson of scholar-poet Yun Seon-do and the father of scholar-painter Yun Du-seo. Jiam ilgi is the daily record of his life after his retirement from office in 1692 until his death in 1699, covering 95 months in total. Many aspects of life experienced by countryside literati during the later period of the Joseon dynasty are covered in Jiam ilgi, including farming, weather, visitors, trade, slaves (nobi), communication, travel, exile, literature, disease, medicine, land reclamation, architecture, landscaping, and feng shui, Much information was discovered which can be looked at in connection with historical records such as the Joseon wangjo sillok and the Seungjeongwon ilgi. In this way, by extracting data from Jiam ilgi, which contains abundant information on traditional times, compiling a semantic database, and implementing data visualization results in various contexts, it is possible to recreate and explore various aspects of Yun Yi-hu’s life in the digital environment.
The semantic database compilation methodology for this study, i.e. the overall process of designing an ontology for humanities data, extracting data from target resources based on said ontology design, implementing visual results based on the compiled databases, and exploring the humanistic implications of sharing relevant data in the online environment, was jointly conducted by humanities researchers over a number of years. This dissertation’s author was directly and indirectly involved in such studies, and digital data-based research forms learned during this were applied to this study.
In addition, the various approaches and interpretations of the Jiam ilgi text applied to this study are based on the efforts of several researchers involved in the close reading and interpretation of the data over a period of nearly five years. As a member of the Jiam ilgi Study Group, the author participated in the traditional interpretation of the classical Chinese text, developed a method to utilize the results as more useful collaborative data, and designed a format for the resources that could contribute to this purpose. The joint researchers cooperated in organizing the results of each of the translations according to the data format proposed by the author, and as a result, basic text data archives could be built to enable the use of Jiam ilgi text as digital data.
The main content of this dissertation focuses on the author’s contribution as a digital humanities researcher to the compilation of the Jiam ilgi database, and on the use of Jiam ilgi, transformed into data, as a more expanded collaborative research resource. As this dissertation is the academic accomplishment of an individual degree recipient, the content of the dissertation focuses on the distinctive contributive work carried out the author and the proof of this work’s academic significance. However, considering that the author participated in the interpreting and translating of the data as a member of the Jiam ilgi Study Group, the greater significance of this study is that it was conducted jointly with various humanities researchers who read the original data together with the goal of deepening the various points for investigation and academic knowledge that arose from the compilation and construction of data.
Within the context of this collaborative study, some 80,000 semantic data were extracted from Jiam ilgi in a way which actively reflected the author’s points of investigation. Based on this, databases in various formats, such as XML, Wiki DB, RDB, Graph Database, and LOD, were compiled. Through utilizing these variously compiled databases, the relationships between the data could be viewed from a variety of angles, and the author focused on four kinds of data in particular: Person, Place, Slave, and Lifestyle. Through the personal relationship network implemented from the Person Data, the scope and characteristics of Yun's relationships with relatives and acquaintances were explored in various ways. Various types of electronic maps implemented using Place Data were used to attempt a geographical exploration of Yun's sphere of life and some long-distance trips. And, by looking at Slave Data in conjunction with the Lifestyle Data, clues as to what role nobi played in Yun's life were also discovered.
Such knowledge is only a small fraction of the total knowledge found from the semantic database. In the future, if the semantic database of Jiam ilgi is opened and shared via the Web, it is believed that various knowledge leading to research on the Joseon period can be revealed by researchers in various fields. The data used in this study and the resu lts of visualization of data in various formats are all compiled on the author's thesis Wiki page (http://dh.aks.ac.kr/~red/wiki/index.php/Jiam Diary).