Olga Buchmüller

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie

Projects

A03 "Expressive" dislocation and register in Czech vs. Russian

Contact

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Mohrenstraße 40/41 , Raum 323/324

olga.buchmueller@hu-berlin.de https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0060-6718

Publications & Presentations

    Publications

  • Buchmüller, Olga  (2020) Influence of a Speaker’s Visible Social Status on the Evaluation of Morphosyntax in Native Germans[ViVo]
    Previous rating studies have shown that deviations from the standard language can result in
    lower ratings of the speaker’s social status characteristics by listeners, compared to the
    social status ratings of speakers of standard language. It was also indicated that certain
    speech characteristics led to assumptions and expectations about speaker characteristics.
    Recent EEG studies have shown that the brain processes deviations from standard language
    differently, depending on the information given to the listener about the speaker. The state of
    research throws up the question whether characteristics indicating the social status of the
    speaker can influence the listener’s evaluation of his or her language characteristics.
    This master thesis investigates in a rating experiment whether there can be an effect
    on the rating of sentence grammaticality depending on the high or low social status
    indications of a speaker communicated by her or his clothing and posture. Participants see a
    picture of a person who represents either high or low social status through clothing and
    posture. During the image presentation, a sentence is presented auditorily. This sentence
    has either a standard or a deviant morphosyntactic structure. Finally, the respondent is asked
    to rate the sentence in terms of grammaticality on three different scales.
    The rating data analysis reveals a low influence of the social status factor on the
    evaluation of the grammaticality of sentences in terms of acceptability in the context given.
    Sentences with deviating morphosyntax are rated slightly higher in the low rather than in the
    high social context. Sentences with standard morphosyntax, on the other hand, are rated
    higher in the high than in the low social context. The social status factor seems not to
    influence the ratings of grammaticality in terms of morphosyntax and self-use likelihood.
    From this, we can deduce that the social status factor only influences certain aspects of
    grammaticality assessment.
    This framework can be used in a further development of the study to present the
    social status factor more concisely in order to achieve a more meaningful significance of the
    results. By measuring rating times, it is possible to examine the participation of both types of
    sentences in different contexts. Developing the present study into an EEG study can
    determine whether the brain's response to processing both types of sentences differs
    depending on the context of the picture.

    • Presentations

  • Buchmüller, Olga  (2022) Presentation in the framework of the seminar: Sprache und Intuition. Sprachphänomene im deutsch-slawischen Vergleich erschließen: Experimentelles Arbeiten In: Seminar HU Slawistik BA SoSe 2022  [ViVo]