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Computational Models of Discourse Analysis

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Title: Computational Models of Discourse Analysis


1
Computational Models of Discourse Analysis
  • Carolyn Penstein Rosé
  • Language Technologies Institute/
  • Human-Computer Interaction Institute

2
Warm-Up Discussion
  • How does the notion of positioning in todays
    chapter connect with Engagement?
  • How does it connect with perspective?
  • Is there any connection with Personality?

Identity
Personality
Perspective
3
What Jim Gee concept does this remind you of?
4
Gee vs. SFL
  • Heteroglossia is like a tapestry
  • Gee was referring to the individual colored
    threads being woven together
  • The subtance of the perspective
  • Martin and White are referring to what holds the
    threads together
  • More focus on alignment versus disalignment

5
Connection between Heteroglossia and Attitude
But is this really different from a disclaim?
And is this really different from a proclaim?
6
Can you explain why this concept is important in
the context of this class?
7
Student Comment
  • I'm not quite sure how one would go about doing
    this but one way to computationalize emergent
    identity is by creating an us class and a them
    class and then populating each class by finding
    what is attributed to first person pronouns
    versus third person pronouns. To take this a step
    further, one could first identify the us and them
    in question to couple this with pronouns(I
    believe researchers have been working on this, if
    not, some human assistance should be ok too).
    Then we would have to filter for embedded
    clauses/reported speech he said that "we are
    winners" identifies them as winners and
    constructs us as losers. All this would be
    greatly assisted by synonym-antonym lists (if we
    had these, then we could predict implied
    identities too).

8
Processes of Language Adaptation
  • Communities are defined by norms that evolve
    through consensus
  • Linguistic norms can be modeled with
    distributions
  • Those who conform are core members
  • Centripetal participation you can view the
    process of language change as a person moves
    towards core participation over time by measuring
    the distance between their language model and
    that of the community (Nguyen Rosé, under
    review)
  • Core members have power within the community
  • Those who do not conform are part of the out
    group
  • Within conversations, norms can be indexed
    through language behavior to associate people
    with a community, and therefore a more or less
    powerful role within the interaction

9
Processes of Language Adaptation
  • Norms do not need to be taken as given
  • Language innovation tends to happen from below,
    i.e., from less powerful groups within
    communities
  • Those in power dont have a reason to question
    norms because theyre working for them
  • We learn more about language processes from
    observing those defined as deviant -- thats
    why theres so much focus on deviant language
    in sociolinguistics

10
Note Different authors within the Jim Gee style
of research will have their own theories of how
language changes and how that relates to societal
change so although they are working within a
common methodological framework with similar
terminology, their theories are not all the
sameThats why theory is a big focus in their
work.
11
Important!Since language is constantly
changing, models that represent linguistic
norms also need to be relative to the time when
the language was uttered!!
Time variables Age vs. Time Period vs.
Position within a Community
12
What about time?
  • Anyways, I think in class when I said I believed
    that gender is constructed, I had not intended
    that gender is constructed (and constantly
    reinforced and contradicted) through language. I
    had thought of gender as a slightly more
    permanent thing, probably an 'identity' that
    someone has, although it can certainly change.
    Gender is constructed by society. Society tells
    us what makes a male and what defines a female.
    Nature is not the one that tells us that men
    cannot wear dresses and women can't smoke cigars.

13
Student Comment
  • Reading this article didn't change my opinions. I
    still hold the belief that our identity (whether
    it be gender or culture or anything else) is both
    a reflection of the society in which we live and
    the situations in which we express that identity.
    According to pages 292-293 of the reading, the
    author seems to be saying this same thing, except
    adding that these identities are re-constructed
    through discourse. I guess I'm not sure that I
    understand the difference between that and the
    earlier premise.
  • Where does the idea of Hegemony come in? How
    does this relate to the idea of time?

14
Where does language change and language
differentiation come from?
15
What positioning do you see in our two example
blog posts?
  • Find examples of positioning from the Engagement
    perspective
  • Find examples of positioning from the Moita-Lopes
    perspective
  • Do the interpretations line up? Or do they
    communicate something different?
  • Which one is more tricky to computationalize?
  • Can we afford to just focus on the less difficult
    one?

16
Class Follow-Up
  • Any interest in
  • 6 unit Lab class
  • An ongoing reading group?
  • E.g., Digging in to more basics in discourse
    analysis
  • Follow-up on experimentations leading to papers?
  • Collaboration on SIDE extensions?

17
Engagement
  • Already established Positioning a proposition
  • But can it also be primarily positioning between
    people?
  • Patterns of positioning propositions as having
    the same or different alignment between speaker
    and hearer could do this
  • Is positioning in communication always
    positioning by means of propositional content?

18
Hedging and Occupation?
  • And as such, I believe hedging is a much more
    effective tool in showing generational or
    occupational differences rather than gender
    differences.
  • For example, teenagers often use verbs such as
    'like' and 'all' to report speech he was all
    'that's stupid' and then he was like ''but I'm
    stupid too'. The occupational differences I would
    attribute to the differences between people who
    need exact values as opposed to people who can
    accept generalizations or approximations.

19
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