Authorship in Computer-Generated Texts

Author(s):  
Leah Henrickson

Natural language generation (NLG) refers to the process in which computers produce output in readable human languages (e.g., English, French). Despite sounding as though they are contained within the realm of science fiction, computer-generated texts actually abound; business performance reports are generated by NLG systems, as are tweets and even works of longform prose. Yet many are altogether unaware of the increasing prevalence of computer-generated texts. Moreover, there has been limited scholarly consideration of the social and literary implications of NLG from a humanities perspective, despite NLG systems being in development for more than half a century. This article serves as one such consideration. Human-written and computer-generated texts represent markedly different approaches to text production that necessitate distinct approaches to textual interpretation. Characterized by production processes and labor economies that at times seem inconsistent with those of print culture, computer-generated texts bring conventional understandings of the author-reader relationship into question. But who—or what—is the author of the computer-generated text? This article begins with an introduction to NLG as it has been applied to the production of public-facing textual output. NLG’s unique potential for textual personalization is observed. The article then moves toward a consideration of authorship as the concept may be applied to computer-generated texts, citing historical and current legal discussions, as well as various interdisciplinary analyses of authorial attribution. This article suggests a semantic shift from considering NLG systems as tools to considering them as social agents in themselves: not to obsolesce human writers, but to recognize the particular contributions of NLG systems to the current socio-literary landscape. As this article shows, texts are regarded as fundamentally human artifacts. A computer-generated text is no less a human artifact than a human-written text, but its unconventional manifestation of humanity prompts calculated contemplation of what authorship means in an increasingly digital age.

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-165
Author(s):  
Ester Alba Pagán ◽  
Aneta Vasileva Ivanova

The performative representation of the Spanish Roma woman reveals a historical journey that brings her closer to many symbolic elaborations of the feminine, giving her a special affinity with the imaginary concerning the colonized woman, particularly with the Orientalist vision. Developed initially by the travelling intellectuals in Spain who sought a fusion of the topics of sexualized exoticism, the myth was reworked by local artists and thinkers without undermining their power to silence and make invisible the reality of the most vulnerable and most represented members of the ethnic group, their women. Today, a growing awareness of the importance of collective action directs Roma women to initiatives such as the revision of their historical memory, at the intersection between the external gaze and self-perception. These searches lead to the pioneering creation of community museum institutions, which have arisen around feminine Roma associations and are a symptom of an emerging desire to be heard. Based on the terminological tools shared by women and memory studies, this article seeks the personal dimension of this invitation to listen. The authors analyse a series of interviews with Roma women that investigate the social agents of representation, self-representation and their conceptual and experiential foundations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Nicholas Overgaard

Although we accept that a scientific mosaic is a set of theories and methods accepted and employed by a scientific community, scientific community currently lacks a proper definition in scientonomy. In this paper, I will outline a basic taxonomy for the bearers of a mosaic, i.e. the social agents of scientific change. I begin by differentiating between accidental group and community through the respective absence and presence of a collective intentionality. I then identify two subtypes of community: the epistemic community that has a collective intentionality to know the world, and the non-epistemic community that does not have such a collective intentionality. I note that both epistemic and non-epistemic communities might bear mosaics, but that epistemic communities are the intended social agents of scientific change because their main collective intentionality is to know the world and, in effect, to change their mosaics. I conclude my paper by arguing we are not currently in a position to properly define scientific community per se because of the risk of confusing pseudoscientific communities with scientific communities. However, I propose that we can for now rely on the definition of epistemic community as the proper social agent of scientific change.Suggested Modifications[Sciento-2017-0012]: Accept the following taxonomy of group, accidental group, and community:Group ≡ two or more people who share any characteristic.Accidental group ≡ a group that does not have a collective intentionality.Community ≡ a group that has a collective intentionality. [Sciento-2017-0013]: Provided that the preceding modification [Sciento-2017-0012] is accepted, accept that communities can consist of other communities.[Sciento-2017-0014]: Provided that modification [Sciento-2017-0012] is accepted, accept the following definitions of epistemic community and non-epistemic community as subtypes of community:Epistemic community ≡ a community that has a collective intentionality to know the world.Non-epistemic community ≡ a community that does not have a collective intentionality to know the world.[Sciento-2017-0015]: Provideed that modification [Sciento-2017-0013] and [Sciento-2017-0014] are accepted, accept that a non-epistemic community can consist of epistemic communities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Vu Cam Nhung ◽  
Lai Cao Mai Phuong

This study has explored and measured the composition of social capital of leaders affecting the capital activities, capital use and service provision of Vietnam commercial banks. The research hypotheses are built on previous studies and developed through expert interviews. The research model uses a system of questions to build out 4 scales of social capital of bank leaders. Research results from 243 leaders of bank branches in Ho Chi Minh show that the social capital of bank leaders, expressed through their social relationships with subjects such as friends, colleagues, business partners and managers at all levels, is is very important to the operations of banks. Based on this finding, the social capital of bank leaders should be considered as an important resource to exploit and improve the business performance of the bank.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-57
Author(s):  
Sidra Mahmood

Linguistically, the word ‘language’ has shifted into ‘discourse’ which is a social phenomenon not only to express the thoughts but also to reflect the mindset and contexts of a specific community. The purpose of this study is to examine the slogans written on Pakistani automobiles and to understand the logic behind the social and cultural affiliations of these slogans. Pakistani culture of the art of making pictures and written phrases, poetic verses and imperative sentences on vehicles is famous all over the world. The study has analysed the writings found on vehicles, and although these writings might look trivial on the automobiles, they address various social issues. The Three-Dimensional Model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by Fairclough (2001) is used as a theoretical framework that explains the study at three levels: lexical, syntactic patterns, interpretations, and social practices. The discourses written on the vehicles are characterised into different categories, which are life’s mission statements, loud messages, mind baffling messages, everyday life annoyances, provoking statements, and religious looms. Twenty images and pictures have been captured from vehicles as a random sample of this study. The results reveal the mindset behind these discourses. They are used to highlight social issues which Pakistan faces, being a developing country. In short, the study discloses the strong link between the vehicles and the people using them to convey messages to the society which can bring harmony among the public. The current study is limited to only Pakistani motor vehicles.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-49
Author(s):  
Piroska DEMÉNY

"Abstract: In Romania, the curriculum for mother tongue education for grade three and four of primary school defines spoken and written text production in various communication situations as a general educational requirement and competence. (see the curriculum for competence-based teaching of the mother tongue approved by Ministerial Decree No. 5003 of 4 December 2014. Hungarian Language and Literature, grade three and four). This experimental study examines the impact of digital storytelling on children’s text production skills. Our aim was to design an interventionprogramme that develops primary school children’s selfexpression, text production skills, creativity but also their digital competencies. The goal is to use digital storytelling to develop children’s composition skills, including staying on the subject, creating the connection between title and content, spelling, text appearance, and reaching the desired length. In order to achieve our objective, we devised experiments involving two cohorts of children in year four of primary school who were given stories selected from Angi Máté’s book Volt egyszer egy… (Once upon a time there was a…). Using these stories as a starting point, the members of the both groups created their own stories, the experimental group applying digital storytelling, while the control group applied the technique of collage."


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 496
Author(s):  
Rafia Bilal ◽  
Wasima Shehzad

This research focuses on the discourse analysis of the text written on Pakistani public transport vehicles. The data were collected from the roads, parking lots and market places in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The text was written in three languages, English, Urdu and Punjabi. The sample size was fifty but in order to delimit the study, the data size was reduced to ten. The data classification was done keeping into consideration the grounded theory, as the thematic categories of data emerged after data collection. They included love for religion, parents, opposite sex and country. Moreover, it highlighted the theme of morality, socio-economic problems, desire for upward mobility and wisdom-based quotations. The data were then analyzed keeping in mind Janks’ rubrics for linguistic analysis. The linguistic analysis showed that the text employs lexicalization, overlexicalization, lexical cohesion and there is extensive use of metaphors, euphemism and personification. It was noted that the text was multilingual as it was in Urdu, Punjabi or English language with a lot of code switching. The data were then further analyzed to highlight the social and moral attributes of language users, the socio-economic problems they face and their struggle for upward mobility. The social analysis provided a deep insight into the life of public transport drivers in Pakistani society.


2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evgeniya Aleshinskaya

Abstract Musical discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary study which is incomplete without consideration of relevant social, linguistic, psychological, visual, gestural, ritual, technical, historical and musicological aspects. In the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, musical discourse can be interpreted as social practice: it refers to specific means of representing specific aspects of the social (musical) sphere. The article introduces a general view of contemporary musical discourse, and analyses genres from the point of ‘semiosis’, ‘social agents’, ‘social relations’, ‘social context’, and ‘text’. These components of musical discourse analysis, in their various aspects and combinations, should help thoroughly examine the context of contemporary musical art, and determine linguistic features specific to different genres of musical discourse.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Brück ◽  
Alex Davies

Bronze Age metal objects are widely viewed as markers of wealth and status. Items of other materials, such as jet, amber and glass, tend either to be framed in similar terms as ‘prestige goods’, or to be viewed as decorative trifles of limited research value. In this paper, we argue that such simplistic models dramatically underplay the social role and ‘agentive’ capacities of objects. The occurrence of non-metal ‘valuables’ in British Early Bronze Age graves is well-documented, but their use during the later part of the period remains poorly understood. We will examine the deposition of objects of amber, jet and jet-like materials in Late Bronze Age Britain, addressing in particular their contexts and associations as well as patterns of breakage to consider the cultural meanings and values ascribed to such items and to explore how human and object biographies were intertwined. These materials are rarely found in burials during this period but occur instead on settlements, in hoards and caves. In many cases, these finds appear to have been deliberately deposited in the context of ritual acts relating to rites of passage. In this way, the role of such objects as social agents will be explored, illuminating their changing significance in the creation of social identities and systems of value.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Uzair Bhatti ◽  
Noralfishah Sulaiman

Corporate Social Responsibility is considered to be an important part of company’s strategy. European and western countries are seriously improving the social, environmental, and economic practices to become a sustainable representatives. Firms which are implementing sustainable practices, likely to have a better business performance and brand image. Furthermore, Companies all over the world are encouraged to invest in the sustainable projects to build a better reputation to attract more investors. Besides, recent studies also showed that the investment in sustainable projects is considered to be a sunk cost for the company which discourages the investors to invest. The higher management needs to consider the investors behavior before investing in sustainable projects. The current study proposes a conceptual model to understand the investor’s behavior especially when management decides to promote the sustainable initiatives. This study will develop into a concrete hypothesis which will explore the shareholders reaction to the sustainable projects especially with mediation of green invention. The resulting model from the study will be taken as useful guide for adopting the sustainability initiatives which shows it will affect the share performance. 


Semantic Web ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 27-51
Author(s):  
Edward Heath Robinson

The agentivity of social entities has posed problems for ontologies of social phenomena, especially in the Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering (DOLCE) designed for use in the semantic web. This article elucidates a theory by which physical and social objects can take action, but that also recognizes the different ways in which they act. It introduces the “carry” relationship, through which social actions can occur when a physical action is taken in the correct circumstances. For example, the physical action of a wave of a hand may carry the social action of saying hello when entering a room. This article shows how a system can simultaneously and in a noncontradictory manner handle statements and queries in which both nonphysical social agents and physical agents take action by the carry relationship and the use of representatives. A revision of DOLCE’s taxonomic structure of perdurants is also proposed. This revision divides perdurants into physical and nonphysical varieties at the same ontological level at which endurants are so divided.


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