scholarly journals Smoothly moving through Mental Spaces: Linguistic patterns of viewpoint transfer in news narratives

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kobie van Krieken ◽  
José Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Narrative Space ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Intermediate Space ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Crime News ◽  
Mental Spaces ◽  
Linguistic Structures

AbstractThis article presents a Mental Space model for analyzing linguistic patterns in news narratives. The model was applied in a corpus study categorizing various linguistic markers of viewpoint transfers between the mental spaces that readers must conceptualize while processing news narratives: a Reality Space representing the journalist and reader’s projected here-and-now viewpoint; a News Narrative Space representing the newsworthy events from a there-and-then viewpoint; and an Intermediate Space representing the information of the news actors provided from a temporal viewpoint in-between the newsworthy events and the present. Viewpoint transfers and their markers were examined in a corpus of 100 Dutch crime news narratives published over a period of fifty years. The results reveal clear patterns, which indicate that both linguistic structures and narrative-based as well as genre-based inferences play a role in the processing of news narratives. The results furthermore clarify how these narratives have been gradually crystallizing into a genre over the past decades. These findings elucidate the complex yet fluent process of conceptually moving between mental spaces, thus advancing our understanding of the relation between the linguistic and the cognitive representation of narrative discourse.

scholarly journals Temporal references in pain narratives: The cognitive perspective

Porta Lingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Monika Gyuró
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Cognitive Representation ◽  
Event Space ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Pain Experience ◽  
Narrative Space ◽  
Intermediate Space ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Model ◽  
Representation Of Time

The present study investigates how pain experience affects the cognitive representation of time and viewpoint in a particular genre and narrative. In patients’ reports, temporality of pain experience does not follow the objectively measurable time. The ongoing character of pain contains not only the present issues but also retains the preceding aspects of the here-and-now moment and anticipates the future notes as time unfolds. To describe this particular experience, I employ the cognitive -linguistic model of mental spaces and blending (Fauconnier – Turner, 2002). I analyze blog posts of patients with chronic diseases on the use of temporal deixis and tense focusing on the shifts realized between the Narrative Space embedding the Event Space in which the past events occurred and the Here-and-Now Space which comprises the narrator’s viewpoint as an Origo. Moreover, I presuppose the Intermediate Space between the Event Space and the Reality Space, providing a transition between the aforementioned spaces and legitimization of the reconstruction of the events (Van Krieken et al., 2016). Temporal overlapping proves that subjective experience steers tenses and temporal deixis which govern the construal of viewpoint and time in the narratives; therefore, time and viewpoint are immediately connected in the cognitive representation of the narratives.

scholarly journals Were they really laughed at? That much? Gelotophobes and their history of perceived derisibility

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
René T. Proyer ◽  
Christian F. Hempelmann ◽  
Willibald Ruch
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Zurich

AbstractThe List of Derisible Situations (LDS; Proyer, Hempelmann and Ruch, List of Derisible Situations (LDS), University of Zurich, 2008) consists of 102 different occasions for being laughed at. They were retrieved in a corpus study and compiled into the LDS. Based on this list, information on the frequency and the intensity with which people recall being laughed at during a given time-span (12 months in this study) can be collected. An empirical study (N = 114) examined the relations between the LDS and the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia), the joy of being laughed at (gelotophilia), and the joy of laughing at others (katagelasticism; Ruch and Proyer this issue). More than 92% of the participants recalled having been laughed at at least once over the past 12 months. Highest scores were found for experiencing an embarrassing situation, chauvinism of others or being laughed at for doing something awkward or clumsy. Gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism were related about equally to the recalled frequency of events of being laughed at (with the lowest relation to katagelasticism). Gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism yielded a distinct and plausible pattern of correlations to the frequency of events of being laughed at. Gelotophobes recalled the situations of being laughed at with a higher intensity than others. Thus, the fear of being laughed at exists to a large degree independently from actual experiences of being laughed at, but is related to a higher intensity with which these events are experienced.

scholarly journals Plural Marking in Spoken and Written Narratives: A Corpus-based Study of Japanese Learners of English

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 224
Author(s):  
Yumiko Yamaguchi ◽  
Hiroko Usami
Keyword(s):  
Picture Book ◽  
Developmental Sequence ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Written Narratives ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Japanese Learners Of English ◽  
L2 Development ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
Linguistic Structures

This paper aims to present the results of a learner corpus study on spoken and written narratives by Japanese learners of English using Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998). PT assumes that there is a universal hierarchy of second language (L2) development and many studies (e.g., Di Biase, Kawaguchi, & Yamaguchi, 2015; Pienemann, 1998) have shown support for PT stages for English L2. However, few PT studies have addressed the issues of whether learners use linguistic structures in the same way in spoken and written tasks. The current study focuses on learners’ use of plural marking on nouns, since contradictory results have been reported for the developmental sequence of lexical plural -s and phrasal plural -s (Charters, Dao, & Jansen, 2011). The participants in this study comprised 291 university students learning in English programs in Japanese universities. Each of them performed spoken and written narratives using a picture book titled Frog, where are you? (Mayer, 1969) containing 24 wordless pictures. The learner corpus including both 291 audio-recorded and transcribed spoken narratives and 291 written narratives was compiled. The results of the analyses showed a connection between learners’ use of plural marker -s in speaking and that in writing, while a small number of students were found to perform differently in two different tasks. Moreover, this study demonstrated support for the developmental sequence of lexical and phrasal plural marking predicted in PT. 

scholarly journals Special Issue “Formal Approaches to Grammaticalization”: Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Martín Fuchs ◽  
Joshua Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Research Program ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
The Past

Across languages and language families, it has been observed that some changes in the conventions of interpretation of specific functional meanings and their corresponding linguistic markers are not random, but follow clear and consistent patterns. In light of these systematicities, unidirectional grammaticalization “pathways” or “trajectories” have been proposed to capture these diachronic phenomena. Less well-understood, however, is how and why these particular changes occur, why they should be unidirectional or cyclic, and what (communicative) mechanisms and (semantic) representations support them. This special issue of PLSA assembles work from a number of scholars working across different empirical domains—and with different theoretical backgrounds and commitments—to take stock of both advances in this research program over the past decade, as well as the development of new ways of understanding semantic change phenomena.

Evidence and Evidentiality in Quechua Narrative Discourse

2018 ◽  
pp. 221-242
Author(s):  
Rosaleen Howard
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
The Other ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Narrative Performance ◽  
The One

This chapter discusses the working of evidentiality in Quechua narrative performance from the central highlands of Peru. In the Quechua narratives analysed, the grammatical marking of source and status of knowledge, and discursive ways of expressing evidence for knowing what is known, are shown to vary strikingly according to performance related factors. On the one hand, narrators base discursively expressed evidence for knowledge, and the veracity and authenticity of the stories they tell, on lived experience. On the other hand, in Huamalíes Quechua the assertion of knowledge and affirmation of validity are grammatically marked by evidential, epistemic modality, and tense suffixes. Taken together, the performative dimensions of discursively expressed evidence, and grammatical choices around evidentiality, constitute the epistemological underpinning of stories about the past in Huamalíes Quechua; both are taken into account in the mixed methods approach to the analysis of Quechua narrative adopted here.

Evolution of an Optimal Lexicon under Constraints from Embodiment

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Zuidema ◽  
Gert Westermann
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Language And Cognition ◽  
Linguistic Structures

Research in language evolution is concerned with the question of how complex linguistic structures can emerge from the interactions between many communicating individuals. Thus it complements psycholinguistics, which investigates the processes involved in individual adult language processing, and child language development studies, which investigate how children learn a given (fixed) language. We focus on the framework of language games and argue that they offer a fresh and formal perspective on many current debates in cognitive science, including those on the synchronic-versus-diachronic perspective on language, the embodiment and situatedness of language and cognition, and the self-organization of linguistic patterns. We present a measure for the quality of a lexicon in a population, and derive four characteristics of the optimal lexicon: specificity, coherence, distinctiveness, and regularity. We present a model of lexical dynamics that shows the spontaneous emergence of these characteristics in a distributed population of individuals that incorporate embodiment constraints. Finally, we discuss how research in cognitive science could contribute to improving existing language game models.

A corpus study of Chinese regulated verse: phrasal stress and the analysis of variability

Phonology ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
San Duanmu
Keyword(s):  
Variable Cross ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Linguistic Patterns

I introduce 1460 lines of Chinese regulated verse and offer an analysis of the data. I also compare Chinese with English and discuss two approaches to variability in linguistic patterns (such as regular vs. exceptional forms, or perfect verse lines vs. lines with metrical tension). I argue that, whereas word stress is often more important than phrasal stress in English, it is crucial to understand the latter in Chinese. However, stress maxima play a central role in both languages. This suggests that metre is probably less variable cross-linguistically than previously thought. Moreover, while a correlation is thought to exist between metrical tension and frequency, it is difficult to see it in the present corpus. I argue that non-phonological factors can influence frequency patterns and that the presence of variable patterns does not necessarily imply the presence of marked forms. Rather, even fully well-formed patterns may occur rarely.

scholarly journals The extravagant progressive: an experimental corpus study on the history of emphatic [be Ving]

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER PETRÉ
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Psycholinguistic Research ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cognitive Motivation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cognitive Motivations ◽  
Insight Into

This article combines methodologies from corpus linguistics with an experimental-like setup more affiliated to psycholinguistic research. The resulting methodology allows us to gain more insight into cognitive motivations of language use in speakers from the past, and consequently to better assess their similarity to present-day speakers (the Uniformitarian Principle). One such cognitive motivation thought to be relevant in the early stages of grammatical constructionalization (grammaticalization) is covered by the evasive concept of ‘extravagance’ (i.e. the desire to talk in such a way that one is noticed). The methodology is tested on the Early Modern English extension of the [be Ving]-construction to progressive uses in present-tense main clauses. It is argued, on the basis of recurrent contextual clues, that [be Ving] in this novel use is motivated by extravagance. Interestingly, a comparison of two speaker/writer generations that are among the earliest to use this innovation with some frequency suggests that the encoding of extravagance shifted between them. At first, extravagance was signalled by coercion of the still stative semantics of [be Ving] into a progressive reading. In the second generation it had become an entrenched characteristic of the construction itself.

scholarly journals Linguistic Areas

Linguistics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rik van Gijn ◽  
Pieter Muysken
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Areal Linguistics ◽  
Theoretical Issues

“Linguistic areas” are defined as social spaces (regions, countries, (sub-)continents) in which languages from different families have influenced each other significantly, leading to striking or remarkable structural resemblances across genealogical boundaries. Since the early work of Trubetskoj and his contemporaries, work on other parts of the world, for example the Indian subcontinent, has unveiled a number of other regions where contact between languages has led to convergence, and thus the general field of areal linguistics has developed. This article surveys the different proposals for linguistic areas roughly continent by continent, and then lists a number of general overviews and contributions in textbooks and handbooks. As the notion of “linguistic area” was further developed, a number of definitional and theoretical issues came up. During most of the past century, linguistic areas were thought of as something special, out of the ordinary. In addition, the view arose that there were regions which qualified as linguistic areas and others which did not. At the beginning of the 1990s awareness grew that many linguistic patterns and features, both typological and historical, could and should be studied in an areal perspective. This areal turn led to a reconceptualization of many of the issues involved in areal linguistic studies, many of them involving problems of scale and operationalization. Even though the notion of “linguistic area” has been much criticized in the strict sense, the areal perspective keeps gaining ground in the study of the distribution of linguistic features. A final section of this survey will be devoted to psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic mechanisms and scenarios leading to linguistic areas. While earlier approaches had been mostly structural and historical, recent work in areal linguistics tries to bridge the gap with meso-level language contact studies: how do languages actually converge and what are the mechanisms promoting or blocking this type of convergence? Languages do not converge by themselves; rather, it is the agency or unconscious behavior of speakers that has this effect.

scholarly journals The Abortion Act (1967): a biography

Legal Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Sheldon ◽  
Gayle Davis ◽  
Jane O'Neill ◽  
Clare Parker
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Linguistic Structures

AbstractIn this paper, we set out what it means to offer a ‘biography’ of a law, illustrating the discussion through the example of the Abortion Act (1967), an important statute that has regulated a highly controversial field of practice for five decades. Biography is taken as a useful shorthand for an approach which requires simultaneous attention to continuity and change in the historical study of a law's life. It takes seriously the insight that written norms are rooted in the past, enshrining a certain set of historically contingent values and practices, yet that – as linguistic structures that can impact on the world only through acts of interpretation – they are simultaneously constantly evolving. It acknowledges the complex, ongoing co-constitution of law and the contexts within which it operates, recognising that understanding how law works requires historical, empirical study. Finally, it suggests that consideration of a law can offer a unique window through which to explore these broader contexts.

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