1. A method for comparing a first document to one or more second documents, the method comprising the steps of: assigning at least one weight to one or more elements in the first document; generating a weighted document in accordance with the at least one assigned weight; computing one or more comparison scores by comparing each of the one or more elements in the first document to each of one or more elements in a given second document in accordance with one or more comparison rules, such that the one or more comparison rules determine if a given element in the first document and a given element in the given second document are compared using at least one of one or more language hierarchies and one or more similarity ranges; generating a similarity score in accordance with the generated weighted document and the one or more computed comparison scores; and retrieving the one or more second documents in accordance with the generated similarity score.