Computational Models of Discourse Analysis

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

Warm-Up Discussion • How does the notion of positioning in today’s chapter connect with Engagement? • How does it connect with perspective? • Is there any connection with Personality? Identity How does this connect with the idea of frames? Does that suggest a particular way of computationalizing positioning? Personality Perspective

What Jim Gee concept does this remind you of?

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

Connection between Heteroglossia and Attitude But is this really different from a disclaim? And is this really different from a proclaim?

Can you explain why this concept is important in the context of this class?

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).

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

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 don’t have a reason to question norms because “they’re working for them” • We learn more about language processes from observing those defined as deviant -- that’s why there’s so much focus on “deviant language” in sociolinguistics

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 same…That’s why theory is a big focus in their work.

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

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.

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?

* Where does language change and language differentiation come from?

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?

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?

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?

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.

Questions?

Computational Models of Discourse Analysis