Professur für Kognitive Linguistik und SpracherwerbsforschungHead of Research Unit Prof. Dr.Heike BehrensOverviewMembersPublicationsProjects & CollaborationsProjects & Collaborations OverviewMembersPublicationsProjects & Collaborations Projects & Collaborations 11 foundShow per page10 10 20 50 Linguistic Manifestations of Different Attachment Types Research Project | 3 Project MembersLinguistic Manifestations of Different Attachment Types Screen-to-text: The pragmatics of subtitles, transcripts and written viewer comments Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn this cumulative habilitation project, I offer a multi-perspective exploration of meaning-making through textual discourses that are directly informed by and oriented towards telecinematic artefacts, i.e. fictional films and television series. This includes interlingual and intralingual subtitles as a site of meaning for viewers, written comments from the perspective of fans, and transcription by scholars. The different screen-to-text discourses I explore share that they centre around a process of intersemiotic transfer from multimodal telecinematic discourse with spoken dialogue at its linguistic centre to a genre of written text that contributes to the individual and/or collaborative negotiation of meaning: The linguistic researcher employs transcription to highlight aspects of scholarly interest and make tangible the multimodal context in which conversation in film and television takes place; the subtitler translates meaning for a new target audience; the commenter contributes to collaborative negotiation of meaning by and for an international fan community. Part 1: Interlingual subtitles Interlingual subtitles are understood as a form of situated language use and a means of mediated communication, which is theorised from the point of view of audiences (rather than translators). The subtitled film is not primarily regarded as the product of a translation process, but as a particularly multimodal and collaborative artefact with a conglomerate authorship that is by definition multilingual and multicultural. Part 2: Intralingual subtitles Intralingual subtitles are understood either... as the separate communicative acts of subtitle writers who as agents offer their interpretation of the spoken source dialogue; as communication by characters and as an extension of the same ventriloquism effect that makes it possible to unite audible dialogue and visible character actions into a unified act of communication; as one of many voices at the disposal of the collective sender. These readings are not mutually exclusive, but subtitles can facilitate one of the readings through particular linguistic choices, whereas viewers' perspectives will also favour any of these readings Part 3: Transcription Scholarly transcripts are related to subtitles insofar as they are based on the same source text and include a similar transfer from speech to writing. I explore the impact transcription choices have on the potential of transcripts to make accessible and foreground particular pragmatic aspects of language. Crucially, this includes the transcription of subtitled film. I discuss different transcription conventions and their consequences for the representation of subtitled film and television. Part 4: Community subtitles and comments The last section is based on a corpus of comments viewers of Korean television Drama post while they are watching streams of episodes on Viki (K-TACC - K-drama Time Aligned Comment Corpus), on which I have been collaborating with Miriam Locher. Listing and lists in French and Spanish conversational interactions Research Project | 1 Project MembersLists are a recurrent phenomenon in everyday conversation and have common structural features. Listing can be considered a universal, language-independent practise for the structuring of ideas and show to be a resource for a variety of purposes in interaction. Considering their omnipresence, they have received relativly little attention in interactional research, especially in French and Spanish conversational interactions. The main purpose of this project therefore is to analyze lists in different conversational context as complex structures that are oriented to by speakers and recipients as holistic entities. It contributes to constructional, prosodic and narrative properties of listing. Its main focus lies on multimodal aspects of list constructions. Ladenburger Kolleg: Sprachstandsermittlung bei Kindern mit Migrationshintergrund (Daimler & Benz-Stiftung) Research Project | 3 Project MembersFast ein Drittel der Kinder, die derzeit in Deutschland eingeschult werden, besitzen einen Migrationshintergrund. Auch wenn dieser Befund nicht zwingend zu der Schlussfolgerung führen sollte, dass diese Kinder die deutsche Sprache schlechter beherrschen als ihre deutschsprachigen Altersgenossen, so findet in der Praxis doch oft eine entsprechende Gleichsetzung statt. Aus dieser mangelhaften Diagnose können in der Folge massive Nachteile für den Lebensweg der betroffenen Kinder entstehen, aber auch für die Gesellschaft, in der sie leben. Um diesem Mangel durch wirksame Förderprogramme zu begegnen, bedarf es einer klaren Analyse der jeweiligen individuellen sprachlichen Probleme der einzelnen Kinder. Diese Notwendigkeit wird inzwischen auch von den Verantwortlichen in Bund und Ländern gesehen und mit hoher Priorität behandelt. Ohne eine klare Vorstellung von den sprachlichen Problemen und Potenzialen dieser Kinder lassen sich aber weder der Förderbedarf noch etwaige Fortschritte durch die Förderung adäquat bestimmen. Ziel des neuen Forschungsvorhabens ist es daher, ein Verfahren der Sprachstandsermittlung bei Kindern im Alter zwischen vier bis fünf Jahren zu entwickeln, das nicht nur präzise Ergebnisse liefert, sondern auch in der Praxis einfach anzuwenden ist. Nach intensiver Vorbereitung startete das neue Ladenburg Kolleg im Oktober 2014 unter der wissenschaftlichen Leitung von Prof. Dr. Jörg Roche von der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Ladenburger Diskurs "Sprachstandsmessung" Research Project | 1 Project MembersPreparatory meetings for an interdisciplinary project on language assessment in the preschool period. Headed by Prof. Jörg Roche (LMU Munich) and Prof. Wolfgang Klein (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen). Funded by Daimler und Benz Stiftung Framing Sensory Adjectives: A Semantic Analysis of Sensory Language Research Project | 1 Project MembersThis PhD project deals with the relationship between language and perception, with a focus on the conceptual knowledge structures we draw on to understand specific lexical items found in food discourse. The study includes an analysis of the usage of sensory descriptors in the scientific field of sensory science as well as a corpus-based approach to everyday language. An application of Fillmore's theory of Frame Semantics (cf. 2006, 1976) has proven successful in order to detect the conceptual frames that are evoked by specific lexemes. Moreover, a close analysis of the syntactic realizations of sensory adjectives shows the linguistic realizations of these knowledge frames. Gastprojekt am Freiburg-Institute for Advance Studies (FRIAS): Re-representation processes in syntax and morphology Research Project | 1 Project MembersRe-representation processes in syntax and morphology Constructivist studies in language acquisition start out from the assumption that children process the information in the input available to them and "reconstruct" the underlying linguistic system. Most studies so far focussed on the form side of language, identifying input frequency, perceptual salience, and transparency as the most important determinants of the actual course of language development. The aim of my FRIAS-project is two-fold: first, I will examine the existing cross-linguistic research more closely to see how the affordances of a particular language system interact with general learning processes. Second, I will examine the acquisition data for German noun and verb inflection to study processes of re-representation, as children have to go through multiple stages to identify the full range of functions encoded by the morphological paradigms. Graduiertenkolleg GRK DFG 1624⁄1 "Frequenzeffekte in der Sprache": Frequenz als Faktor in gebrauchsbasierten Modellierungen von Sprachwandel, Sprachverarbeitung und Spracherwerb Research Project | 9 Project MembersZiel des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs (GRK) sind umfangreiche und untereinander koordinierte empirische Untersuchungen zu Frequenzeffekten vornehmlich in den bzw. anhand der europäischen Sprachen und ihrer Varietäten. Unter Frequenz wird die Vorkommenshäufigkeit einer bestimmten sprachlichen Struktur (items, strings, types, tokens) in einem bestimmten Ausschnitt der Sprachwirklichkeit (der durch ein passendes Korpus approximiert wird) verstanden. Sie wird im Rahmen gebrauchsbasierter Theorien modelliert, die davon ausgehen, dass die Häufigkeit eines linguistischen Phänomens in der mentalen Repräsentation von Sprache einen Niederschlag findet. Das Graduiertenkolleg geht aber über diese oft nur unterstellte Annahme hinaus, indem es die Wirkung dieses Niederschlags untersucht, und zwar in verschiedenen empirisch mit den Methoden der Linguistik und Kognitionswissenschaft erfassbaren Gebieten: im Sprachwandel, in der Sprachverarbeitung und im Spracherwerb. Auf diese Weise soll erstmalig in systematischer Weise die Tragweite des Faktors Frequenz untersucht werden, und zwar in einer Weise, die auch seine Grenzen sichtbar werden lässt. In diesem hohen empirischen und theoretischen Anspruch liegt das innovative Potential des Graduiertenkollegs. Sprecher: Stefan Pfänder (Freiburg) & Heike Behrens (Basel) ________ Frequency as a determinant in usage-based models of language change, language processing and language acquisition The research training group (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg) aims to carry out empirically rich and methodologically co-ordinated research on frequency effects in language, with an empirical focus on standard and non-standard varieties of European languages. Frequency is defined in terms of number of occurrences of a given linguistic structure in a particular linguistic system or sub-system (as approximated by a suitable corpus). Frequency is assumed to be a possible determinant in usage-based models of language change, language acquisition and language processing. While the default assumption is that there is a non-trivial relation between frequency of occurrence thus defined and mental and structural representation, the frequency factor will be investigated with a view both to its explanatory potential and to its limitations. In its integration of descriptive-linguistic and cognitivist approaches and its broad empirical corpus base, the envisaged research is without parallel, both on the national and international levels, and opens up a new, constructively critical approach to usage-based modelling in linguistics. The two-pronged approach - extending the breadth of empirical coverage, while at the same time increasing the sophistication of the theoretical models - is a timely one that has great innovative potential. Speakers: Stefan Pfänder (Freiburg) & Heike Behrens (Basel) Typisierte Sprache - in Geschichte, Diskurs und Ontogenese Research Project | 9 Project MembersTypisierte Sprache - in Geschichte, Diskurs und Ontogenese Die klassische strukturelle Linguistik hat die Analyse von Sprache in ihre kleinsten und atomaren Bestandteile und die Ermittlung der Regeln ihrer Verknüpfung zum Ziel. Obwohl die klassisch strukturelle Linguistik seit mehreren Jahrzehnten überwunden ist, hat sich an diesem Aspekt der relevanten Einheit in Theorie und Empirie der Linguistik wenig geändert. In den letzten Jahren gibt es aber Befunde aus ganz verschiedenen Richtungen - von der Kognitionsforschung über die theoretische und Computerlinguistik bis zur Diskursanalyse - dass sprachliche Verarbeitungseinheiten oft grösserer Natur sind, und dass typische Verwendungsmuster (je nach theoretischem Hintergrund Syntagmen, Kollokationen oder Konstruktionen genannt) ganzheitlich gespeichert und verarbeitet werden. Das vorliegende Forschungsmodul will Charakteristik, Entstehung, Leistung und Veränderung von typisiertem Sprechen aufzeigen und gleichzeitig konvergierende Forschungstrends aus drei unterschiedlichen Richtungen zusammenführen: der historischen Linguistik, der linguistischen Diskursanalyse und des Spracherwerbs. The Semantics of Taste: Linguistic Categorization of Crispy and Crunchy Research Project | 1 Project MembersWhile we have no difficulties in communicating sensory perceptions in everyday conversation, we hardly reflect on what they actually mean. This Ph.D. project examines the language of taste expression from a cognitive linguistic perspective with the aim to highlight the range of meanings of certain taste terms. How we speak about taste on an everyday basis can differentiate strongly from how taste is measured and described in sensory science. An initial analysis is on the terms crispy and crunchy which show a strong sense of polysemy and synaesthetic usage. The aim is to semantically frame these results and to categorize them according to the meaning that is activated. The meaning of such an adjective describing taste is not fixed but derives in the discussion and may change according to its respective context. A corpus linguistic method is used to conduct the data. The material has been collected from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The method of corpus research further serves as a tool for an inter-linguistic (English/ German) approach which can prove useful e.g. in the field of product advertising. A further aim is to highlight such fields of application of the research, interesting from both a linguistic as well as commercial point of view. This work connects to the interdisciplinary project Sensory Language and the Semantics of Taste [1] in which sensory scientists, linguists and cognitive scientists capture and observe the German vocabulary of taste. The aim of the project is an online dictionary of taste terms which can be used for both scientific and commercial reasons. The Ph.D. observes the English language focusing on how such bodily perceptions are conceptualized and put into words. [1] http://www.sensorysemantics.ch/ 12 12 OverviewMembersPublicationsProjects & Collaborations
Projects & Collaborations 11 foundShow per page10 10 20 50 Linguistic Manifestations of Different Attachment Types Research Project | 3 Project MembersLinguistic Manifestations of Different Attachment Types Screen-to-text: The pragmatics of subtitles, transcripts and written viewer comments Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn this cumulative habilitation project, I offer a multi-perspective exploration of meaning-making through textual discourses that are directly informed by and oriented towards telecinematic artefacts, i.e. fictional films and television series. This includes interlingual and intralingual subtitles as a site of meaning for viewers, written comments from the perspective of fans, and transcription by scholars. The different screen-to-text discourses I explore share that they centre around a process of intersemiotic transfer from multimodal telecinematic discourse with spoken dialogue at its linguistic centre to a genre of written text that contributes to the individual and/or collaborative negotiation of meaning: The linguistic researcher employs transcription to highlight aspects of scholarly interest and make tangible the multimodal context in which conversation in film and television takes place; the subtitler translates meaning for a new target audience; the commenter contributes to collaborative negotiation of meaning by and for an international fan community. Part 1: Interlingual subtitles Interlingual subtitles are understood as a form of situated language use and a means of mediated communication, which is theorised from the point of view of audiences (rather than translators). The subtitled film is not primarily regarded as the product of a translation process, but as a particularly multimodal and collaborative artefact with a conglomerate authorship that is by definition multilingual and multicultural. Part 2: Intralingual subtitles Intralingual subtitles are understood either... as the separate communicative acts of subtitle writers who as agents offer their interpretation of the spoken source dialogue; as communication by characters and as an extension of the same ventriloquism effect that makes it possible to unite audible dialogue and visible character actions into a unified act of communication; as one of many voices at the disposal of the collective sender. These readings are not mutually exclusive, but subtitles can facilitate one of the readings through particular linguistic choices, whereas viewers' perspectives will also favour any of these readings Part 3: Transcription Scholarly transcripts are related to subtitles insofar as they are based on the same source text and include a similar transfer from speech to writing. I explore the impact transcription choices have on the potential of transcripts to make accessible and foreground particular pragmatic aspects of language. Crucially, this includes the transcription of subtitled film. I discuss different transcription conventions and their consequences for the representation of subtitled film and television. Part 4: Community subtitles and comments The last section is based on a corpus of comments viewers of Korean television Drama post while they are watching streams of episodes on Viki (K-TACC - K-drama Time Aligned Comment Corpus), on which I have been collaborating with Miriam Locher. Listing and lists in French and Spanish conversational interactions Research Project | 1 Project MembersLists are a recurrent phenomenon in everyday conversation and have common structural features. Listing can be considered a universal, language-independent practise for the structuring of ideas and show to be a resource for a variety of purposes in interaction. Considering their omnipresence, they have received relativly little attention in interactional research, especially in French and Spanish conversational interactions. The main purpose of this project therefore is to analyze lists in different conversational context as complex structures that are oriented to by speakers and recipients as holistic entities. It contributes to constructional, prosodic and narrative properties of listing. Its main focus lies on multimodal aspects of list constructions. Ladenburger Kolleg: Sprachstandsermittlung bei Kindern mit Migrationshintergrund (Daimler & Benz-Stiftung) Research Project | 3 Project MembersFast ein Drittel der Kinder, die derzeit in Deutschland eingeschult werden, besitzen einen Migrationshintergrund. Auch wenn dieser Befund nicht zwingend zu der Schlussfolgerung führen sollte, dass diese Kinder die deutsche Sprache schlechter beherrschen als ihre deutschsprachigen Altersgenossen, so findet in der Praxis doch oft eine entsprechende Gleichsetzung statt. Aus dieser mangelhaften Diagnose können in der Folge massive Nachteile für den Lebensweg der betroffenen Kinder entstehen, aber auch für die Gesellschaft, in der sie leben. Um diesem Mangel durch wirksame Förderprogramme zu begegnen, bedarf es einer klaren Analyse der jeweiligen individuellen sprachlichen Probleme der einzelnen Kinder. Diese Notwendigkeit wird inzwischen auch von den Verantwortlichen in Bund und Ländern gesehen und mit hoher Priorität behandelt. Ohne eine klare Vorstellung von den sprachlichen Problemen und Potenzialen dieser Kinder lassen sich aber weder der Förderbedarf noch etwaige Fortschritte durch die Förderung adäquat bestimmen. Ziel des neuen Forschungsvorhabens ist es daher, ein Verfahren der Sprachstandsermittlung bei Kindern im Alter zwischen vier bis fünf Jahren zu entwickeln, das nicht nur präzise Ergebnisse liefert, sondern auch in der Praxis einfach anzuwenden ist. Nach intensiver Vorbereitung startete das neue Ladenburg Kolleg im Oktober 2014 unter der wissenschaftlichen Leitung von Prof. Dr. Jörg Roche von der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Ladenburger Diskurs "Sprachstandsmessung" Research Project | 1 Project MembersPreparatory meetings for an interdisciplinary project on language assessment in the preschool period. Headed by Prof. Jörg Roche (LMU Munich) and Prof. Wolfgang Klein (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen). Funded by Daimler und Benz Stiftung Framing Sensory Adjectives: A Semantic Analysis of Sensory Language Research Project | 1 Project MembersThis PhD project deals with the relationship between language and perception, with a focus on the conceptual knowledge structures we draw on to understand specific lexical items found in food discourse. The study includes an analysis of the usage of sensory descriptors in the scientific field of sensory science as well as a corpus-based approach to everyday language. An application of Fillmore's theory of Frame Semantics (cf. 2006, 1976) has proven successful in order to detect the conceptual frames that are evoked by specific lexemes. Moreover, a close analysis of the syntactic realizations of sensory adjectives shows the linguistic realizations of these knowledge frames. Gastprojekt am Freiburg-Institute for Advance Studies (FRIAS): Re-representation processes in syntax and morphology Research Project | 1 Project MembersRe-representation processes in syntax and morphology Constructivist studies in language acquisition start out from the assumption that children process the information in the input available to them and "reconstruct" the underlying linguistic system. Most studies so far focussed on the form side of language, identifying input frequency, perceptual salience, and transparency as the most important determinants of the actual course of language development. The aim of my FRIAS-project is two-fold: first, I will examine the existing cross-linguistic research more closely to see how the affordances of a particular language system interact with general learning processes. Second, I will examine the acquisition data for German noun and verb inflection to study processes of re-representation, as children have to go through multiple stages to identify the full range of functions encoded by the morphological paradigms. Graduiertenkolleg GRK DFG 1624⁄1 "Frequenzeffekte in der Sprache": Frequenz als Faktor in gebrauchsbasierten Modellierungen von Sprachwandel, Sprachverarbeitung und Spracherwerb Research Project | 9 Project MembersZiel des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs (GRK) sind umfangreiche und untereinander koordinierte empirische Untersuchungen zu Frequenzeffekten vornehmlich in den bzw. anhand der europäischen Sprachen und ihrer Varietäten. Unter Frequenz wird die Vorkommenshäufigkeit einer bestimmten sprachlichen Struktur (items, strings, types, tokens) in einem bestimmten Ausschnitt der Sprachwirklichkeit (der durch ein passendes Korpus approximiert wird) verstanden. Sie wird im Rahmen gebrauchsbasierter Theorien modelliert, die davon ausgehen, dass die Häufigkeit eines linguistischen Phänomens in der mentalen Repräsentation von Sprache einen Niederschlag findet. Das Graduiertenkolleg geht aber über diese oft nur unterstellte Annahme hinaus, indem es die Wirkung dieses Niederschlags untersucht, und zwar in verschiedenen empirisch mit den Methoden der Linguistik und Kognitionswissenschaft erfassbaren Gebieten: im Sprachwandel, in der Sprachverarbeitung und im Spracherwerb. Auf diese Weise soll erstmalig in systematischer Weise die Tragweite des Faktors Frequenz untersucht werden, und zwar in einer Weise, die auch seine Grenzen sichtbar werden lässt. In diesem hohen empirischen und theoretischen Anspruch liegt das innovative Potential des Graduiertenkollegs. Sprecher: Stefan Pfänder (Freiburg) & Heike Behrens (Basel) ________ Frequency as a determinant in usage-based models of language change, language processing and language acquisition The research training group (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg) aims to carry out empirically rich and methodologically co-ordinated research on frequency effects in language, with an empirical focus on standard and non-standard varieties of European languages. Frequency is defined in terms of number of occurrences of a given linguistic structure in a particular linguistic system or sub-system (as approximated by a suitable corpus). Frequency is assumed to be a possible determinant in usage-based models of language change, language acquisition and language processing. While the default assumption is that there is a non-trivial relation between frequency of occurrence thus defined and mental and structural representation, the frequency factor will be investigated with a view both to its explanatory potential and to its limitations. In its integration of descriptive-linguistic and cognitivist approaches and its broad empirical corpus base, the envisaged research is without parallel, both on the national and international levels, and opens up a new, constructively critical approach to usage-based modelling in linguistics. The two-pronged approach - extending the breadth of empirical coverage, while at the same time increasing the sophistication of the theoretical models - is a timely one that has great innovative potential. Speakers: Stefan Pfänder (Freiburg) & Heike Behrens (Basel) Typisierte Sprache - in Geschichte, Diskurs und Ontogenese Research Project | 9 Project MembersTypisierte Sprache - in Geschichte, Diskurs und Ontogenese Die klassische strukturelle Linguistik hat die Analyse von Sprache in ihre kleinsten und atomaren Bestandteile und die Ermittlung der Regeln ihrer Verknüpfung zum Ziel. Obwohl die klassisch strukturelle Linguistik seit mehreren Jahrzehnten überwunden ist, hat sich an diesem Aspekt der relevanten Einheit in Theorie und Empirie der Linguistik wenig geändert. In den letzten Jahren gibt es aber Befunde aus ganz verschiedenen Richtungen - von der Kognitionsforschung über die theoretische und Computerlinguistik bis zur Diskursanalyse - dass sprachliche Verarbeitungseinheiten oft grösserer Natur sind, und dass typische Verwendungsmuster (je nach theoretischem Hintergrund Syntagmen, Kollokationen oder Konstruktionen genannt) ganzheitlich gespeichert und verarbeitet werden. Das vorliegende Forschungsmodul will Charakteristik, Entstehung, Leistung und Veränderung von typisiertem Sprechen aufzeigen und gleichzeitig konvergierende Forschungstrends aus drei unterschiedlichen Richtungen zusammenführen: der historischen Linguistik, der linguistischen Diskursanalyse und des Spracherwerbs. The Semantics of Taste: Linguistic Categorization of Crispy and Crunchy Research Project | 1 Project MembersWhile we have no difficulties in communicating sensory perceptions in everyday conversation, we hardly reflect on what they actually mean. This Ph.D. project examines the language of taste expression from a cognitive linguistic perspective with the aim to highlight the range of meanings of certain taste terms. How we speak about taste on an everyday basis can differentiate strongly from how taste is measured and described in sensory science. An initial analysis is on the terms crispy and crunchy which show a strong sense of polysemy and synaesthetic usage. The aim is to semantically frame these results and to categorize them according to the meaning that is activated. The meaning of such an adjective describing taste is not fixed but derives in the discussion and may change according to its respective context. A corpus linguistic method is used to conduct the data. The material has been collected from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The method of corpus research further serves as a tool for an inter-linguistic (English/ German) approach which can prove useful e.g. in the field of product advertising. A further aim is to highlight such fields of application of the research, interesting from both a linguistic as well as commercial point of view. This work connects to the interdisciplinary project Sensory Language and the Semantics of Taste [1] in which sensory scientists, linguists and cognitive scientists capture and observe the German vocabulary of taste. The aim of the project is an online dictionary of taste terms which can be used for both scientific and commercial reasons. The Ph.D. observes the English language focusing on how such bodily perceptions are conceptualized and put into words. [1] http://www.sensorysemantics.ch/ 12 12
Linguistic Manifestations of Different Attachment Types Research Project | 3 Project MembersLinguistic Manifestations of Different Attachment Types
Screen-to-text: The pragmatics of subtitles, transcripts and written viewer comments Research Project | 1 Project MembersIn this cumulative habilitation project, I offer a multi-perspective exploration of meaning-making through textual discourses that are directly informed by and oriented towards telecinematic artefacts, i.e. fictional films and television series. This includes interlingual and intralingual subtitles as a site of meaning for viewers, written comments from the perspective of fans, and transcription by scholars. The different screen-to-text discourses I explore share that they centre around a process of intersemiotic transfer from multimodal telecinematic discourse with spoken dialogue at its linguistic centre to a genre of written text that contributes to the individual and/or collaborative negotiation of meaning: The linguistic researcher employs transcription to highlight aspects of scholarly interest and make tangible the multimodal context in which conversation in film and television takes place; the subtitler translates meaning for a new target audience; the commenter contributes to collaborative negotiation of meaning by and for an international fan community. Part 1: Interlingual subtitles Interlingual subtitles are understood as a form of situated language use and a means of mediated communication, which is theorised from the point of view of audiences (rather than translators). The subtitled film is not primarily regarded as the product of a translation process, but as a particularly multimodal and collaborative artefact with a conglomerate authorship that is by definition multilingual and multicultural. Part 2: Intralingual subtitles Intralingual subtitles are understood either... as the separate communicative acts of subtitle writers who as agents offer their interpretation of the spoken source dialogue; as communication by characters and as an extension of the same ventriloquism effect that makes it possible to unite audible dialogue and visible character actions into a unified act of communication; as one of many voices at the disposal of the collective sender. These readings are not mutually exclusive, but subtitles can facilitate one of the readings through particular linguistic choices, whereas viewers' perspectives will also favour any of these readings Part 3: Transcription Scholarly transcripts are related to subtitles insofar as they are based on the same source text and include a similar transfer from speech to writing. I explore the impact transcription choices have on the potential of transcripts to make accessible and foreground particular pragmatic aspects of language. Crucially, this includes the transcription of subtitled film. I discuss different transcription conventions and their consequences for the representation of subtitled film and television. Part 4: Community subtitles and comments The last section is based on a corpus of comments viewers of Korean television Drama post while they are watching streams of episodes on Viki (K-TACC - K-drama Time Aligned Comment Corpus), on which I have been collaborating with Miriam Locher.
Listing and lists in French and Spanish conversational interactions Research Project | 1 Project MembersLists are a recurrent phenomenon in everyday conversation and have common structural features. Listing can be considered a universal, language-independent practise for the structuring of ideas and show to be a resource for a variety of purposes in interaction. Considering their omnipresence, they have received relativly little attention in interactional research, especially in French and Spanish conversational interactions. The main purpose of this project therefore is to analyze lists in different conversational context as complex structures that are oriented to by speakers and recipients as holistic entities. It contributes to constructional, prosodic and narrative properties of listing. Its main focus lies on multimodal aspects of list constructions.
Ladenburger Kolleg: Sprachstandsermittlung bei Kindern mit Migrationshintergrund (Daimler & Benz-Stiftung) Research Project | 3 Project MembersFast ein Drittel der Kinder, die derzeit in Deutschland eingeschult werden, besitzen einen Migrationshintergrund. Auch wenn dieser Befund nicht zwingend zu der Schlussfolgerung führen sollte, dass diese Kinder die deutsche Sprache schlechter beherrschen als ihre deutschsprachigen Altersgenossen, so findet in der Praxis doch oft eine entsprechende Gleichsetzung statt. Aus dieser mangelhaften Diagnose können in der Folge massive Nachteile für den Lebensweg der betroffenen Kinder entstehen, aber auch für die Gesellschaft, in der sie leben. Um diesem Mangel durch wirksame Förderprogramme zu begegnen, bedarf es einer klaren Analyse der jeweiligen individuellen sprachlichen Probleme der einzelnen Kinder. Diese Notwendigkeit wird inzwischen auch von den Verantwortlichen in Bund und Ländern gesehen und mit hoher Priorität behandelt. Ohne eine klare Vorstellung von den sprachlichen Problemen und Potenzialen dieser Kinder lassen sich aber weder der Förderbedarf noch etwaige Fortschritte durch die Förderung adäquat bestimmen. Ziel des neuen Forschungsvorhabens ist es daher, ein Verfahren der Sprachstandsermittlung bei Kindern im Alter zwischen vier bis fünf Jahren zu entwickeln, das nicht nur präzise Ergebnisse liefert, sondern auch in der Praxis einfach anzuwenden ist. Nach intensiver Vorbereitung startete das neue Ladenburg Kolleg im Oktober 2014 unter der wissenschaftlichen Leitung von Prof. Dr. Jörg Roche von der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
Ladenburger Diskurs "Sprachstandsmessung" Research Project | 1 Project MembersPreparatory meetings for an interdisciplinary project on language assessment in the preschool period. Headed by Prof. Jörg Roche (LMU Munich) and Prof. Wolfgang Klein (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen). Funded by Daimler und Benz Stiftung
Framing Sensory Adjectives: A Semantic Analysis of Sensory Language Research Project | 1 Project MembersThis PhD project deals with the relationship between language and perception, with a focus on the conceptual knowledge structures we draw on to understand specific lexical items found in food discourse. The study includes an analysis of the usage of sensory descriptors in the scientific field of sensory science as well as a corpus-based approach to everyday language. An application of Fillmore's theory of Frame Semantics (cf. 2006, 1976) has proven successful in order to detect the conceptual frames that are evoked by specific lexemes. Moreover, a close analysis of the syntactic realizations of sensory adjectives shows the linguistic realizations of these knowledge frames.
Gastprojekt am Freiburg-Institute for Advance Studies (FRIAS): Re-representation processes in syntax and morphology Research Project | 1 Project MembersRe-representation processes in syntax and morphology Constructivist studies in language acquisition start out from the assumption that children process the information in the input available to them and "reconstruct" the underlying linguistic system. Most studies so far focussed on the form side of language, identifying input frequency, perceptual salience, and transparency as the most important determinants of the actual course of language development. The aim of my FRIAS-project is two-fold: first, I will examine the existing cross-linguistic research more closely to see how the affordances of a particular language system interact with general learning processes. Second, I will examine the acquisition data for German noun and verb inflection to study processes of re-representation, as children have to go through multiple stages to identify the full range of functions encoded by the morphological paradigms.
Graduiertenkolleg GRK DFG 1624⁄1 "Frequenzeffekte in der Sprache": Frequenz als Faktor in gebrauchsbasierten Modellierungen von Sprachwandel, Sprachverarbeitung und Spracherwerb Research Project | 9 Project MembersZiel des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs (GRK) sind umfangreiche und untereinander koordinierte empirische Untersuchungen zu Frequenzeffekten vornehmlich in den bzw. anhand der europäischen Sprachen und ihrer Varietäten. Unter Frequenz wird die Vorkommenshäufigkeit einer bestimmten sprachlichen Struktur (items, strings, types, tokens) in einem bestimmten Ausschnitt der Sprachwirklichkeit (der durch ein passendes Korpus approximiert wird) verstanden. Sie wird im Rahmen gebrauchsbasierter Theorien modelliert, die davon ausgehen, dass die Häufigkeit eines linguistischen Phänomens in der mentalen Repräsentation von Sprache einen Niederschlag findet. Das Graduiertenkolleg geht aber über diese oft nur unterstellte Annahme hinaus, indem es die Wirkung dieses Niederschlags untersucht, und zwar in verschiedenen empirisch mit den Methoden der Linguistik und Kognitionswissenschaft erfassbaren Gebieten: im Sprachwandel, in der Sprachverarbeitung und im Spracherwerb. Auf diese Weise soll erstmalig in systematischer Weise die Tragweite des Faktors Frequenz untersucht werden, und zwar in einer Weise, die auch seine Grenzen sichtbar werden lässt. In diesem hohen empirischen und theoretischen Anspruch liegt das innovative Potential des Graduiertenkollegs. Sprecher: Stefan Pfänder (Freiburg) & Heike Behrens (Basel) ________ Frequency as a determinant in usage-based models of language change, language processing and language acquisition The research training group (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg) aims to carry out empirically rich and methodologically co-ordinated research on frequency effects in language, with an empirical focus on standard and non-standard varieties of European languages. Frequency is defined in terms of number of occurrences of a given linguistic structure in a particular linguistic system or sub-system (as approximated by a suitable corpus). Frequency is assumed to be a possible determinant in usage-based models of language change, language acquisition and language processing. While the default assumption is that there is a non-trivial relation between frequency of occurrence thus defined and mental and structural representation, the frequency factor will be investigated with a view both to its explanatory potential and to its limitations. In its integration of descriptive-linguistic and cognitivist approaches and its broad empirical corpus base, the envisaged research is without parallel, both on the national and international levels, and opens up a new, constructively critical approach to usage-based modelling in linguistics. The two-pronged approach - extending the breadth of empirical coverage, while at the same time increasing the sophistication of the theoretical models - is a timely one that has great innovative potential. Speakers: Stefan Pfänder (Freiburg) & Heike Behrens (Basel)
Typisierte Sprache - in Geschichte, Diskurs und Ontogenese Research Project | 9 Project MembersTypisierte Sprache - in Geschichte, Diskurs und Ontogenese Die klassische strukturelle Linguistik hat die Analyse von Sprache in ihre kleinsten und atomaren Bestandteile und die Ermittlung der Regeln ihrer Verknüpfung zum Ziel. Obwohl die klassisch strukturelle Linguistik seit mehreren Jahrzehnten überwunden ist, hat sich an diesem Aspekt der relevanten Einheit in Theorie und Empirie der Linguistik wenig geändert. In den letzten Jahren gibt es aber Befunde aus ganz verschiedenen Richtungen - von der Kognitionsforschung über die theoretische und Computerlinguistik bis zur Diskursanalyse - dass sprachliche Verarbeitungseinheiten oft grösserer Natur sind, und dass typische Verwendungsmuster (je nach theoretischem Hintergrund Syntagmen, Kollokationen oder Konstruktionen genannt) ganzheitlich gespeichert und verarbeitet werden. Das vorliegende Forschungsmodul will Charakteristik, Entstehung, Leistung und Veränderung von typisiertem Sprechen aufzeigen und gleichzeitig konvergierende Forschungstrends aus drei unterschiedlichen Richtungen zusammenführen: der historischen Linguistik, der linguistischen Diskursanalyse und des Spracherwerbs.
The Semantics of Taste: Linguistic Categorization of Crispy and Crunchy Research Project | 1 Project MembersWhile we have no difficulties in communicating sensory perceptions in everyday conversation, we hardly reflect on what they actually mean. This Ph.D. project examines the language of taste expression from a cognitive linguistic perspective with the aim to highlight the range of meanings of certain taste terms. How we speak about taste on an everyday basis can differentiate strongly from how taste is measured and described in sensory science. An initial analysis is on the terms crispy and crunchy which show a strong sense of polysemy and synaesthetic usage. The aim is to semantically frame these results and to categorize them according to the meaning that is activated. The meaning of such an adjective describing taste is not fixed but derives in the discussion and may change according to its respective context. A corpus linguistic method is used to conduct the data. The material has been collected from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The method of corpus research further serves as a tool for an inter-linguistic (English/ German) approach which can prove useful e.g. in the field of product advertising. A further aim is to highlight such fields of application of the research, interesting from both a linguistic as well as commercial point of view. This work connects to the interdisciplinary project Sensory Language and the Semantics of Taste [1] in which sensory scientists, linguists and cognitive scientists capture and observe the German vocabulary of taste. The aim of the project is an online dictionary of taste terms which can be used for both scientific and commercial reasons. The Ph.D. observes the English language focusing on how such bodily perceptions are conceptualized and put into words. [1] http://www.sensorysemantics.ch/
