Noise, Novels, Numbers. A Framework for Detecting and Categorizing Noise in Danish and Norwegian Literature

We present a framework for detecting and categorizing noise in literary texts, demonstrated through its application to Danish and Norwegian literature from the late 19 th century. Noise, understood as "aberrant sonic behaviour," is not only an auditory phenomenon but also a cultural construct tied to the processes of civilization and urbanization. We begin by utilizing topic modeling techniques to identify noiserelated documents, followed by fine-tuning BERT-based language models trained on Danish and Norwegian texts to analyze a corpus of over 800 novels. We identify and track the prevalence of noise in these texts, offering insights into the literary perceptions of noise during the Scandinavian "Modern Breakthrough" period (1870-1899). Our contributions include the development of a comprehensive dataset annotated for noise-related segments and their categorization into human-made, non-humanmade, and musical noises. This study illustrates the framework's potential for enhancing the understanding of the relationship between noise and its literary representations, providing a deeper appreciation of the auditory elements in literary works, including as sources for cultural history.