Text Visualization - What Colors Tell About a Text

This article introduces an approach to text visualization by colors. I suggest a color code that displays word classes: noun (black), verb (red), adjective (green), determiner (grey), particle (brown), conjunction (blue), and interjection (yellow). The colored words provide some details about 1. text genre, 2. sentence structure, and 3. writing style. Samples with fictional narratives and scientific articles (both in German) show that fictional texts have a brighter color pattern compared to scientific texts. The color pattern might be related to the hidden sound or melody of a text. Therefore, text visualization could be useful both as a future method to analyze different text genres and as a method helping laypersons getting a better feeling for texts, identifying troublesome phrases, and perhaps improving their writing style.