Alle Publikationen
2018
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(2018): It's no problem to be polite. Apparent-time change in responses to thanks. In: Journal of Sociolinguistics 22 (2), S. 190-215. DOI: 10.1111/josl.12278
Abstract: This paper reports a rapid and anonymous study of apparent-time change in Toronto among the use of expressions such as you're welcome and no problem as responses to thanks, thank you, and thank you very much. We observe change in progress toward no problem and no worries at the expense of you're welcome. Meanwhile, a change in stylistic stratification is also taking place: for older speakers, no problem is a less formal response, suitable principally for responding to more perfunctory thanks, rather than more formal thank you; among younger speakers, no problem appears at equal rates in response to all levels of thanking expressions. This combination of changes may explain the intensity of the negative attention no problem attracts from prescriptivists and in popular media, in that older people perceive younger speakers as using what to them is an informal variant disproportionately frequently when a formal variant is called for. Cet article rapporte les resultats d'un sondage rapide et anonyme ciblant un changement en temps apparent en anglais torontois concernant les expressions telles que you're welcome et no problem en reponse a thanks, thank you et thank you very much. Nous constatons un changement en cours vers no problem et no worries au detriment de you're welcome. Ce changement est accompagne d'un nivellement stylistique : chez les locuteurs aines, no problem constitue une replique moins polie, convenable en reponse a thanks, variante familiere, plutot qu'a thank you, variante plus soignee; en revanche, chez les jeunes no problem affiche des taux de frequence contextuels qui ne tiennent pas compte de la nature de l'expression de remerciement utilisee. L'emploi de no problem fait couler beaucoup d'encre, ce qui s'expliquerait potentiellement par la complexite de cet ensemble de changements : les aines constateraient dans le discours soutenu des jeunes l'utilisation accrue d'une variante jugee deplacee, alors que les jeunes n'associent aucune marque de formalite a cette variante croissante.
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(2018): Greetings as social action in Finland Swedish and Sweden Swedish service encounters – a pluricentric perspective. In: Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (1), S. 57-88. DOI: 10.1515/ip-2017-0030
Abstract: While greetings are performed in all cultures and open most conversations, previous studies suggest that there are cross-cultural differences between different languages in greeting behavior. But do speakers of different national varieties of the same language organize and perform their greeting behavior in similar ways? In this study, we investigate the sequential organization of greetings in relation to gaze behavior in the two national varieties of Swedish: Sweden Swedish spoken in Sweden and Finland Swedish spoken in Finland. In recent years, the importance of studying pluricentric languages from a pragmatic perspective has been foregrounded, not least within the framework of variational pragmatics. To date, most studies have focused on structural differences between national varieties of pluricentric languages. With this study, we extend the scope of variational pragmatics through adding an interactional, micro perspective to the broader macro analysis typical of this field. For this study, we have analyzed patterns for greetings in 297 videorecorded service encounters, where staff and customers interact at theatre box offices and event booking venues in Sweden and Finland. The study shows that there are similarities and differences in greeting behavior between varieties. There is a strong preference for exchanging reciprocal verbal greetings, one at a time, in both. There is also a similar organization of the greeting sequence, where customer and staff establish mutual gaze prior to the verbal greetings, thus signaling availability for interaction. The duration of mutual gaze and the timing of the greeting, however, differ between the two varieties. We have also conducted a multi modal analysis of gaze behavior in correlation to the greeting. We found that the customers and staff in the Finland Swedish data share mutual gaze before and during the verbal greeting, and often avert gaze after the verbal greetings. However, in the Sweden Swedish data, the participants often avert gaze before the verbal greetings. Our results thus indicate that both similarities and differences in pragmatic routines and bodily behavior exist between the two national varieties of Swedish. The present study on greeting practices in Finland Swedish and Sweden Swedish should contribute to the field of variational pragmatics and to the development of pluricentric theory.
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(2018): Lingvo-Sociocultural Specific Of Talk Show Translation As A Tv Discourse Genre
Abstract: ABSTRACT The article is devoted to the linguistic and sociocultural features of the talkshow translationas a television discourse genre. The results of the research in the sphere of mass-media discourse represent a big value for understanding of different field correlation such as media and culture, sociocultural reality and its representation in media. It also has a big value for detecting of mass-media texts complicated semantic structure and different aspects of linguistic personality communicative behavior. The object of the study is television discourse as a linguistic and sociocultural phenomenon. The subjects of the study are linguistic and stylistic, linguistic and pragmatic, linguistic and sociocultural means that detect talk-show as a genre of TV discourse, realized in the situation of interpersonal communication, complicated by the mass communication conditions and institutional status of a TV presenter, who’s main aim is to affect the TV audience. One of the un explored and quite popular genres of television discourse is the talk show genre. In America the linguistic communication in the talk show genre is focused on the personality expression. The key concepts of such linguistic culture are self (self-presentation, self-made man), "challenge", "success" (only the best, geniuses). Thematic preferences and basic concepts of American linguistic culture are among the universal extralinguistic features of the talk show genre that takes in to account the national and cultural specifics of the communication in the American TV show.
2017
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(2017): Stereotype negation in Frame Semantics. In: Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 2 (1). DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.293Keywords: affixation, contextual coercion, frame semantics, Framesemantik, Frame-Semantik, Intellektualtechnik, Kogn. Architektur, Kontext, lexical negation, lexical rules, Lexik, Linguistik, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Negation, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachverstehen, Status / biologische Marker, Technik
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(2017): The impact of face systems on the pragmalinguistic features of academic e-mail requests. In: Pragmatics and Society 8 (1), S. 61-84. DOI: 10.1075/ps.8.1.04asl
Abstract: This study investigates the impact of power/distance (PD) variables operationalized as face systems on the pragmalinguistic features of academic e-mail requests. A corpus of 90 academic e-mails was classified into four face system groups: hierarchical (sender +P), hierarchical (recipient +P), deference, and solidarity. Request perspectives, strategies, and mitigating supportive moves were analyzed. The analysis revealed that the speaker and hearer dominance were the most frequent request perspectives in the hierarchical (recipient+P) and deference groups. The impersonal perspective was more common in the hierarchical (sender+P) group. The preparatory was the dominant request strategy in all groups, relatively more frequent in the hierarchical (recipient+P) and deference groups. The most common supportive move was the grounder, which occurred more frequently than other supportive moves. The findings of the study indicate that face systems influence the request patterns in academic e-mail communication. The study has implications for future research on pragmatics of computer-mediated communication (CMC).
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(2017): Structured learning for spoken language understanding in human-robot interaction. In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ROBOTICS RESEARCH 36 (5-7), S. 660-683
Abstract: Robots are slowly becoming a part of everyday life, being marketed for commercial applications such as telepresence, cleaning or entertainment. Thus, the ability to interact via natural language with non-expert users is becoming a key requirement. Even if user utterances can be efficiently recognized and transcribed by automatic speech recognition systems, several issues arise in translating them into suitable robotic actions and most of the existing solutions are strictly related to a specific scenario. In this paper, we present an approach to the design of natural language interfaces for human robot interaction, to translate spoken commands into computational structures that enable the robot to execute the intended request. The proposed solution is achieved by combining a general theory of language semantics, i.e. frame semantics, with state-of-the-art methods for robust spoken language understanding, based on structured learning algorithms. The adopted data driven paradigm allows the development of a fully functional natural language processing chain, that can be initialized by re-using available linguistic tools and resources. In addition, it can be also specialized by providing small sets of examples representative of a target newer domain. A systematic benchmarking resource, in terms of a rich and multi-layered spoken corpus has also been created and it has been used to evaluate the natural language processing chain. Our results show that our processing chain, trained with generic resources, provides a solid baseline for command understanding in a service robot domain. Moreover, when domain-dependent resources are provided to the system, the accuracy of the achieved interpretation always improves.
Keywords: Algorithmen, doppelter Treffer, frame semantics, Frame-Semantik, Interaktion, Korpus, Mensch-Maschine-Kommunikation, Mensch-Technik-Interaktion, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), narürliche Sprache, natural language interface, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Realtechnik, Robotik, Serviceroboter, Soziale Angemessenheit, Soziale Robotik, speech processing, Sprache, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachverarbeitung, Sprachverstehen, Status / biologische Marker, structured learning algorithm, Technik -
(2017) : Strategies and mechanisms to enable dialogue agents to respond appropriately to indirect speech acts In: IEEE Ro-Man: Human-robot collaboration and human assistance for an improved quality of life: IEEE RO-MAN 2017 : 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Ineractive Communication : August 28-September 1, 2017, Lisbon, Portugal: Piscataway, NJ: IEEE, S. 323-328
Abstract: Humans often use indirect speech acts (ISAs) when issuing directives. Much of the work in handling ISAs in computational dialogue architectures has focused on correctly identifying and handling the underlying non-literal meaning. There has been less attention devoted to how linguistic responses to ISAs might differ from those given to literal directives and how to enable different response forms in these computational dialogue systems. In this paper, we present ongoing work toward developing dialogue mechanisms within a cognitive, robotic architecture that enables a richer set of response strategies to non-literal directives.
Keywords: Antworten im Rahmen einer Konversation, Computerwissenschaft, indirect speech acts, Indirektheit, Informations- & Kommunikationstechnik, Interaktionspartner, Konversationsanalyse, Korrespondenz, Künstliche Intelligenz, Linguistik, Mensch oder Maschine, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), nicht wörtlich, non-literal meaning, Realtechnik, Semantik, Soziale Robotik, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachroboter, Sprachverarbeitung, Sprechakt, Technik, Unterschiedliche Antworten je nach Direktheit/Indirektheit des vorherigen Sprechaktes -
(2017): Children’s early awareness of the effect of interpersonal status on politeness. In: Journal of Politeness Research 13 (1). DOI: 10.1515/pr-2014-0016
Abstract: This study discusses two Mandarin-speaking children's linguistic politeness through longitudinally observing their uses of request forms with regard to different interactional situations where their interpersonal status may vary accordingly. It seems that the children demonstrate a systematic correspondence between request forms and directness to adhere to politeness at an early age. Although they apparently prefer to utilize comparatively more direct request forms most of the time, a closer investigation reveals a division of labor: they appear to use simple imperatives when their interpersonal status is either superior or equal to their parents and use declaratives with the lexeme WANT when their interpersonal status is inferior. It is therefore suggested that politeness may be mutually negotiated between interlocutors and that children should get socialized with politeness through interaction with adults or other children within various social or interpersonal relationships.
Keywords: Direkte oder indirekte Art der Fragestellung/Formulierung etc., Familie/Eltern-Kinder, Grammatische Elemente (Lexeme u.a.), Kommunikations-/Interaktionsprinzipien, Situationsbedingter Kontext, Social Rank, Soziale Hierarchie, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachverstehen, time, Verhalten von Höherstehenden gegenüber Niedrigstehenden, Verhalten von Niedrigstehenden gegenüber Höherstehenden, want -
(2017) : (Im)politeness and Mixed Messages In: Culpeper, Jonathan; Haugh, Michael; Kádár, Dániel Z. (Hg.): The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness: London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, S. 323-355
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_13 Abstract: This chapter maps out the space occupied by phenomena that do not belong to either politeness or impoliteness, but in some sense fit both. It focuses on mixed or mismatching interpersonal messages that are incongruous on at least one level of interpretation or generate a sense of interpretive or evaluative dissonance. They encompass phenomena that typically attract labels such as sarcasm, banter and teasing. The authors discuss the pragmatic background of such mixed messages, especially drawing on approaches to irony, how they figure in classic politeness theories, and, in particular, how they work. This part of the chapter considers their metapragmatics, the constituents of the ‘mix’ of messages, how particular ‘mixes’ become conventionalised, their functions and also how they are perceived.
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(2017): Regional languages on Twitter. In: Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics 6 (2), S. 174-196. DOI: 10.1075/dujal.16017.jon
Abstract: This paper addressed the question how the use of Dutch and the regional languages Frisian or Limburgish differ on Twitter and which patterns in language choice can be identified. Previous quantitative studies (Jongbloed-Faber, Van de Velde, Van der Meer & Klinkenberg, 2016; Nguyen, Trieschnigg & Cornips, 2015; Trieschnigg, 2015) have already shown that people in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Limburg tweet in Frisian or Limburgish respectively, but most often in Dutch interspersed with some English. In this qualitative study, we compared the tweets from twenty twitterers in Friesland and Limburg who use both Dutch and Frisian or Limburgish regularly in order to get insight into their language use patterns. The following patterns in language use were identified: when a twitterer aims to maximise his/her audience, Dutch is regularly employed. However, as soon as an interpersonal, addressed tweet is formulated, Frisian or Limburgish is often used. General tweets in Dutch may therefore very well get a Frisian or Limburgish continuation. Another mechanism frequently found in responding tweets is following the language used in the original tweet, notwithstanding such a tweet was in Dutch or in a regional language. Finally, the data show that, although Twitter is a global medium which can be accessed at any time and any place provided that one has access to the needed technical equipment and Internet connection, twitterers sometimes construct localness i.e. what is perceived as local culture through using Frisian or Limburgish exclusively.
Keywords: Antworten im Rahmen einer Konversation, Art des Kommunikationsmediums, Design, Konversationsanalyse, Korrespondenz, Kultur, Kultureller Kontext, Lokalkulturalität, Öffentlicher vs. privater Raum, Orientierung am Stil der bereits begonnenen Konversation, Situationsbedingter Kontext, Sozialer Raum, Sprachgebrauch, Wahl der Konversationssprache -
(2017): Conventionalized Politeness Structures. Empirical Evidence from Hindi/Urdu. In: Journal of Politeness Research 13 (2), S. 243-279. DOI: 10.1515/pr-2015-0001
Abstract: This paper discusses the results of a survey undertaken to investigate conventionalized politeness structures in Hindi\Urdu, with specific focus on the ability of native speakers to view politeness as a scalar phenomenon across different utterances vis-a-vis each other. The speakers were provided with utterances that encoded systematic differences in lexical choice (High Perso Arabic\High Sanskritic\neutral native) and construction choice (suggestion\request\ subjunctives, etc.), but nevertheless performed the same act so as to be possible to rank on a politeness scale as realizations of the same speech act. The paper focusses on the correlation between High\formal registers and politeness as well as the correlation between different grammatical structures and politeness to argue that linguistic structures are conventionalized for possible politeness effects.
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(2017): Elaborating time in space. The structure and function of space-motion metaphors of time. In: LANGUAGE AND COGNITION 9 (2), S. 191-253
Abstract: This paper studies the principles according to which spatial and motion concepts metaphorically structure temporal concepts in some languages. There are two types of space–motion metaphor of time, distinguished by whether or not the metaphor is structured by a person’s perspective. “Christmas is approaching” and “We are approaching Christmas” are perspectival. “New Year’s follows Christmas” is not. This contrast in deixis and frame of reference is linguistically relevant whether the contrast has to do with imagination or external reality. Study of experiential motivations and analysis into primary metaphors helps reveal the particular ways spatial and motion concepts function in each type of metaphor. One focus is accounting for the contrasting temporal meanings that words for in-front and behind can have. For example, “Ahead of us” is later than Now, while “ahead of Christmas” is earlier than Christmas. We find that the temporal ‘directions’ expressed in the contrasting frames of reference are not opposites. Rather, they are motivated by different kinds of temporal experience. This project investigates the fundamental spatial relations that structure temporal concepts; for example co-location vs. separation. But since motion involves time, purely spatial structure is limited. Conceptual blending analysis reveals that the source and target frames of the perspectival metaphors share an aspectual – i.e., temporal – generic structure. Thus a dichotomy between ‘space’ and ‘time’ is of limited utility in describing space–motion metaphors of time. Instead, the analysis has to deal with the specific spatial and temporal concepts that function in each metaphor.
Keywords: Bewegungsbasiertes Verstehen, Deiktik, deixis, Embodiment, frame semantics, Kognitionswissenschaft/Social Sciences/Humanities, Linguistik, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Sprache, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachverstehen, Status / biologische Marker, temporal concepts, Zeit in der Sprache, Zeit und raumzeitliche Bewegung, Zeitgefühl -
(2017): The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Increases in the Use of Swear Words in American Books, 1950-2008. In: SAGE Open 7 (3). DOI: 10.1177/2158244017723689
Abstract: Evidence is accumulating that American culture has become more individualistic since the 1950s. In the present research, we focused on one plausible manifestation of individualism, the use of swear words in cultural products. We examined trends in the use of the seven words identified by George Carlin in 1972 as the seven words you can never say on television in the Google Books corpus of American English books from 1950 to 2008. We find a steady linear increase in the use of swear words, with books published in 2005-2008 twenty-eight times more likely to include swear words than books published in the early 1950s. Increases for individual swear words ranged from 4 to 678 times (ds = 6.58-45.42). These results suggest that American culture has become increasingly accepting of the expression of taboo words, consistent with higher cultural individualism.
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(2017): Impoliteness in EFL. Foreign Language Learners’ Complaining Behaviors Across Social Distance and Status Levels. In: SAGE Open 7 (3). DOI: 10.1177/2158244017732816
Abstract: A growing body of literature has investigated impoliteness in many domains. Nevertheless, little research has examined impoliteness done by foreign language learners. Impoliteness used in interlanguage complaints by English as a foreign language learners was observed. The effects of interlocutors' different status levels and social distance on the use of impoliteness were analyzed. Empirical data were elicited by means of oral discourse completion tasks from 50 Indonesian English as a foreign language learners in Central Java, Indonesia. The overall direction of the findings showed trends that status levels and social distance between interlocutors prompted different frequencies and strategies of impoliteness. The frequent use of impolite complaints was instigated by a number of factors such as the learners' understanding about the speech act in question, their perceptions on the social distance and status levels of interlocutors, and the nature of the research instrument.
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(2017): If you want a quick kiss, make it count. How choice of syntactic construction affects event construal. In: Journal of Memory and Language 94, S. 254-271. DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2016.12.001Keywords: Ähnlichkeit, Dauer, Disziplin, Ereignis, Ereignisähnlichkeit, Ereignisdauer, Ereignisinterpretation, Ereignisverständnis, Events, frame semantics, Individuation, Informations- & Kommunikationstechnik, Intellektualtechnik, Interpretation, Kogn. Architektur, Kognitionswissenschaft/Social Sciences/Humanities, kognitive Architekturen, Künstliche Intelligenz, Lexical aspect, Lexik, Light verb constructions, Linguistic framing, Linguistik, Mass–count distinction, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Realtechnik, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachverstehen, Status / biologische Marker, Syntax, Technik, Verständnis
2016
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(2016): Politeness Judgments in Personal Relationships. In: Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (3), S. 297-325. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X970163003
Abstract: Brown and Levinson's politeness theory specifies five strategies for achieving politeness. Although the strategies are presented as ordered and mutually exclusive, there is reason to believe that they are neither The authors offer an alternative means of classifying requests that is grounded in the phenomenology of the social actor and depends on three message features: explicitness, dominance, and argument. Separate samples of judges viewed video clips of one college student attempting to influence another and provided judgments of politeness (n = 100), explicitness and overall dominance (n = 435), linguistic dominance (n = 80), or argument (n = 60). A regression analysis predicting politeness was conducted using message as the unit of analysis. The results showed a strong, negative relationship between politeness and dominance and weaker;positive associations with explicitness and argument.
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(2016): Perceptions of power and interactional dominance in interpersonal relationships. In: Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 22 (2), S. 207-233. DOI: 10.1177/0265407505050944
Abstract: This investigation uses dyadic power theory (Dunbar, 2000, 2004; Rollins & Bahr, 1976) to examine the relationship between dominance and power and the behavioral manifestations of power in close relationships. Ninety-seven couples (58 married, 39 cohabiting) completed a problem-solving task together while being videotaped. The videotapes were coded for a variety of verbal and nonverbal dominant control attempts including dysfluencies, interruptions, frequency of adaptor and illustrator gestures, vocal characteristics, and general perceptions of dominance. The results revealed that individuals' perceptions of power led to more dominant communication behavior during discussions with their partner. Comparisons between the perceptions of participants and observers and the implications for future research are also discussed.
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(2016): Smell in Polish. Lexical Semantics and Cultural Values. In: JOURNAL OF SLAVIC LINGUISTICS 24 (2), S. 273-299
Abstract: Verbs of perception have been typically classified into three semantic groups. Gisborne (2010) calls the three categories agentive (listen class), experiencer (hear class), and percept (sound class). Examples pertaining to the sense of smell in English use the same lexical item (smell), while in Polish, the three senses of smell are expressed with different verbs: wąchać (agentive), czuć zapach (experiencer), and pachnieć (percept). In metaphorical extensions of the verbs of sensory perception these verbs often stand for mental states, as meaning shifts typically involve the transfer from concrete to abstract domains. I show that the metaphorical extensions of pachnieć and percept to smell are quite different. Not only does pachnieć not suggest bad character or dislikeable characteristics, it actually conveys the opposite, as in the expression coś komuś pachnie ‘something is attractive to someone’ or when used without a modifier. These differences stem from the positive meaning of pachnieć and the negative meaning of to smell. Since the percept verbs of smell seem to be intrinsically positively or negatively valued, they do not lend themselves to universal Mind-as-Body extensions. I also consider some of the dramatic frequency contrasts between Polish and English smell constructions and show they can have their root in different cultural scripts underlying modes of speaking (pachnieć jak vs. smell like), framing of experiences (czuć zapach vs. experiencer to smell), polysemy, and different constructional capabilities (wąchać vs. to sniff).
Keywords: Agent, Agentive, Biologische Marker, Disziplin, Erlebender, Experiencer, frame semantics, Geräuschhören, Gisborne, Hear, Hören, Kultur, Kulturdifferenz, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtheorie, Kulturvergleich, Linguistik, Listen, Percept, Perzept, Riechen, schnüffeln, Semantik, Semantische Gruppen, Smell, Smell like, Sniff, sound, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachverstehen, Status, Verben, Wahrnehmung, Wahrnehmung und Sprache, Wahrnehmungsverben, Zuhören -
(2016): Address practices in academic interactions in a pluricentric language. In: Pragmatics 26 (4), S. 631-652. DOI: 10.1075/prag.26.4.05for
Abstract: Following the recent development of address research in pluricentric languages (Clyne et al. 2006), the present study describes address practices in English-speaking academic settings and pursues two main objectives: (a) to provide a profile of address patterns in academic interactions in Australian English; and (b) to compare address practices in higher education across the three dominant varieties of English, namely American English, Australian English, and British English. The data on Australian English are drawn from 235 questionnaires completed by students, who reported on the address strategies adopted by students and teaching staff in classroom interactions in an Australian university. Data on American and British academic settings were retrieved from the research literature on the topic. The findings show a high degree of informality and familiarity in student-teacher relations in Australia, where reciprocal first names are the default pattern of address at all levels. By contrast, in American academia the hierarchical organization of roles and the different professional positions are foregrounded and reinforced through an asymmetrical use of titles, honorifics and first names. Finally, the British university setting displays a non-reciprocal usage of first names and titles between lecturer and students, which gradually evolves into a more generalised reciprocal use of first names, usually after extended contact and collaboration. We argue that the distinctive patterns of address observed in the three varieties of English reflect diverse social and cultural values systems at work in different speech communities.
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(2016): Tweester at SemEval-2016 Task 4: Sentiment Analysis in Twitter Using Semantic-Affective Model Adaptation, S. 155-163
Abstract: We describe our submission to SemEval2016 Task 4: Sentiment Analysis in Twitter. The proposed system ranked first for the subtask B. Our system comprises of multiple independent models such as neural networks, semantic-affective models and topic modeling that are combined in a probabilistic way. The novelty of the system is the employment of a topic modeling approach in order to adapt the semantic-affective space for each tweet. In addition, significant enhancements were made in the main system dealing with the data preprocessing and feature extraction including the employment of word embeddings. Each model is used to predict a tweet’s sentiment (positive, negative or neutral) and a late fusion scheme is adopted for the final decision.
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(2016): Democracy online. Civility, politeness, and the democratic potential of online political discussion groups. In: New Media & Society 6 (2), S. 259-283. DOI: 10.1177/1461444804041444
Abstract: The proponents of cyberspace promise that online discourse will increase political participation and pave the road for a democratic utopia. This article explores the potential for civil discourse in cyberspace by examining the level of civility in 287 discussion threads in political newsgroups. While scholars often use civility and politeness interchangeably, this study argues that this conflation ignores the democratic merit of robust and heated discussion. Therefore, civility was defined in a broader sense, by identifying as civil behaviors that enhance democratic conversation. In support of this distinction, the study results revealed that most messages posted on political newsgroups were civil, and further suggested that because the absence of face-to-face communication fostered more heated discussion, cyberspace might actually promote Lyotard's vision of democratic emancipation through disagreement and anarchy (Lyotard, 1984). Thus, this study supported the internet's potential to revive the public sphere, provided that greater diversity and volume of discussion is present.
Keywords: civility im Kontrast zu politeness, cyberspace, Debattierhaftigkeit, Digitalisierung, Diskurs, doppelter Treffer, Good manners, Höflichkeit, Informations- & Kommunikationstechnik, Internetportale/Blogs, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Politische Sphäre, Realtechnik, Situationsbedingter Kontext, social media, Soziale Angemessenheit, soziale Medien, Sprachgebrauch, Technik -
(2016): Frames, polarity and causation. In: CORPORA 11 (2), S. 259-290
Abstract: A polarity-sensitive item (PSI), as traditionally defined, is an expression that is restricted to either an affirmative or negative context. PSIs like ‘lift a finger’ and ‘all the time in the world’ sub-serve discourse routines like understatement and emphasis. Lexical–semantic classes are increasingly invoked in descriptions of the properties of PSIs. Here, we use English corpus data and the tools of Frame Semantics (Fillmore, 1982, 1985) to explore Israel's (2011) observation that the semantic role of a PSI determines how the expression fits into a contextually constructed scalar model. We focus on a class of exceptions implied by Israel's model: cases in which a given PSI displays two countervailing patterns of polarity sensitivity, with attendant differences in scalar entailments. We offer a set of case studies of polarity-sensitive expressions – including verbs of attraction and aversion like ‘can live without’, monetary units like ‘a red cent’, comparative adjectives and time-span adverbials – that demonstrate that the interpretation of a given PSI in a given polar context is based on multiple factors. These factors include the speaker's perspective on and affective stance towards the described event, available inferences about causality and, perhaps most critically, particulars of the predication, including the verb or adjective's frame membership, the presence or absence of an ability modal like can, the grammatical construction used and the range of contingencies evoked by the utterance.
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(2016): ’Je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots’. The influence of the French Fabliau on two scenes from Henry V. In: CAHIERS ELISABETHAINS (91), S. 34-50
Abstract: Catherine’s language lesson in Henry V turns on the use of two bawdy French words, foutre and con – or rather, on the English words foot and gown which, when pronounced by the French speakers, sound like the bawdy words. In the courtship scene, Harry and Catherine avoid such words, yet each desires what they signify; both play a linguistic game in which they attempt to achieve what decorum prevents them from naming. Instead of direct and clear expression, this linguistic game involves figurative language and euphemism. A source for the linguistic principles underpinning both scenes is the medieval French fabliau.
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(2016): “How” questions and the manner–method distinction. In: Synthese 193 (10), S. 3169-3194. DOI: 10.1007/s11229-015-0924-9
Abstract: How questions are understudied in philosophy and linguistics. They can be answered in very different ways, some of which are poorly understood. Jaworski (Synthese 166: 133-155, 2009) identifies several types: (i) 'manner', (ii) 'method, means or mechanism', (iii) 'cognitive resolution', and develops a logic designed to enable us to distinguish among them. Some key questions remain open, however, in particular, whether these distinctions derive from an ambiguity in how, from differences in the logical structure of the question or from contextual underspecification. Arguing from two classes of responses, adverbs and by gerunds, I give the answer that the logical structure of the question is indeed relevant: loosely, manners are adjuncts but methods are arguments.
2015
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(2015): Variational pragmatics and responding to thanks – revisited. In: Multilingua 34 (4), S. 527-546. DOI: 10.1515/multi-2014-0106
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2014-0106 Abstract: In 2005, Klaus P. Schneider published a fascinating article with the title “‘No problem, you’re welcome, anytime’: Responding to thanks in Ireland, England, and the U.S.A.”. Adopting the then emerging and now established framework of variational pragmatics, Schneider’s pioneering paper presents the results of a study on differences between responses to thanks across different varieties of English using experimental discourse completion tasks (DCTs). The paper at hand revisits this cross-varietal analysis and presents the results of an empirical investigation of this same speech act based on natural data collected with the help of Labovian-style fieldwork methodology common in variationist sociolinguistics. The results reveal fundamental differences between the two data types and underline the fact that these different datasets address different research questions. The findings also highlight the existence of regional variation in the use of this speech act in spontaneous real-life interaction. Finally, the paper also puts forward the term imbalance reducer after thanks (IRAT) as a more appropriate term for the speech act of responding to thanks.
Keywords: Danksagung, Disziplin, Höflichkeit, IRAT, Kultur, Kulturdifferenz, Kulturelle Normen, Kultursensibilität, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtheorie, Linguistik, Pragmatics, Pragmatik, Real-Life Interaction, Regionale Varianz, Soziale Angemessenheit, Soziolinguistik, Sprachgebrauch, Sprechakt, Thanks