Research Questions
First, it is an learner-orientated site with interface allow users to see the linguistic structures of the poems. Two of the main features we have been working on are Google Earth to show the physical location in poems and use Cytoscape to show the Social Network of Waka authors relationships. We also studies the content and the reference of waka poems. We used graphical representation to show the reference to nature, timeline and gender percentage of the poems. Overall the users can have a basic sense of the time and space in Waka poems.
Methdology
We are analyzing the waka poems from linguistic and content perspectives, our data include 84 Poems from Chapter One for linguistic studies and 156 poems from Chapter one and Two for content studies. First we mark up the poems as XML files with tags indicate their references to nature, time and locations. Then we used XSLT, SVG, and Javascript to display our data on HTML site.
Design Philosophy
We have been interested in the idea of Mono no aware (物の哀れ) literally "a sensitivity to ephemera" in Japanese. The Miyabi (雅), literary translated as "elegance and refinement" is one of the oldest traditional Japanese aesthetic ideals, our design philosophy is to use Origami, as the signifier to signify the layers of meanings in Waka. The ideas of fold and unfold, allow users get to know the linguistic denotation and the content connotation of the waka poems.