A01
GeRMaN: German register marking by non-literal expressions

A01 investigates the interdependence of register knowledge and pragmatics in the use and interpretation of non-literal expressions (NLE; including apart from metaphor and metonymy also e.g. rhetorical questions, irony, and indirect speech acts). At the same time, we extend the corpus on which our investigations are based with further oral text types. We will model the impact of register on NLE in the form of variables that can be integrated into probabilistic models of pragmatic enrichment of meaning that include NLE. For the acquisition of the relevant data from linguistic corpora, we will explore new ways of NLE detection in corpora through Deep Learning. This will constitute a modelling of register and its impact on grammar by itself.

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Project leader

Members

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Project in Phase I

Project Title for Phase I

Metaphor and metonymy as register phenomena

Project Description for Phase I

The goal of project A01 is to investigate the interdependency of metaphor and metonymy with register. The topic will be addressed in terms of two questions: (i) How do metaphor and metonymy contribute to establishing, complying with, and signaling specific registers? (ii) How does register influence the choice of metaphor and metonymy and their function in discourse? The investigations will be based on a corpus whose five parts represent registers that are balanced for relevant features of register variation. Those features of metaphor and metonymy that turn out to be relevant for register will be operationalized in a multidimensional analysis of register.

Publications & Presentations

    Publications

    2023

  • Pescuma, Valentina Nicole; Serova, Dina; Lukassek, Julia; Sauermann, Antje; Schäfer, Roland; Adli, Aria; Bildhauer, Felix; Egg, Markus; Hülk, Kristina; Ito, Aine; Jannedy, Stefanie; Kordoni, Valia; Kühnast, Milena; Kutscher, Silvia; Lange, Robert; Lehmann, Nico; Liu, Mingya; Lütke, Beate; Maquate, Katja; Mooshammer, Christine; Mortezapour, Vahid; Müller, Stefan; Norde, Muriel; Pankratz, Elizabeth; Patarroyo, Angela Giovanna; Plesca, Ana-Maria; Ronderos, Camilo R.; Rotter, Stephanie; Sauerland, Uli; Schulte, Britta; Schüppenhauer, Gediminas; Sell, Bianca Maria; Solt, Stephanie; Terada, Megumi; Tsiapou, Dimitra; Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Weirich, Melanie; Wiese, Heike; Zaruba, Kathy; Zeige, Lars Erik; Lüdeling, Anke; Knoeferle, Pia; Schnelle, Gohar  (2023) Situating language register across the ages, languages, modalities, and cultural aspects: Evidence from complementary methods In:  Frontiers in Psychology [DOI] [ViVo]
    In the present review paper by members of the collaborative research center ‘Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of SituationalFunctional Variation’ (CRC 1412), we assess the pervasiveness of register phenomena across different time periods, languages, modalities, and cultures. We define ‘register’ as recurring variation in language use depending on the function of language and on the social situation. Informed by rich data, we aim to better understand and model the knowledge involved in situation- and function-based use of language register. In order to achieve this goal, we are using complementary methods and measures. In the review, we start by clarifying the concept of ‘register’, by reviewing the state of the art, and by setting out our methods and modeling goals. Against this background, we discuss three key challenges, two at the methodological level and one at the theoretical level: 1. To better uncover registers in text and spoken corpora, we propose changes to established analytical approaches. 2. To tease apart between-subject variability from the linguistic variability at issue (intra-individual situation based register variability), we use within-subject designs and the modeling of individuals’ social, language, and educational background. 3. We highlight a gap in cognitive modeling, viz. modeling the mental representations of register (processing), and present our first attempts at filling this gap. We argue that the targeted use of multiple complementary methods and measures supports investigating the pervasiveness of register phenomena and yields comprehensive insights into the cross-methodological robustness of register-related language variability. These comprehensive insights in turn provide a solid foundation for associated cognitive modeling.
  • Koch, Helena; Egg, Markus  (2023) Morphologische Prozesse in Polari und modernem LGBTQ+-Slang auf Twitter – Eine vergleichende Registeranalyse In:  Jahrbuch der Berliner Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft [ViVo]
  • 2022

  • Church, Kenneth; Kordoni, Valia; Marcus, Gary; Ma, Y; Chen, Z; Davis, E.  (2022) A gentle introduction to Deep Nets and opportunities for the future In:  Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Tutorial Abstracts [ViVo]
  • Church, Kenneth; Kordoni, Valia  (2022) Emerging trends: SOTA-chasing In:  Natural Language Engineering [ViVo]
  • 2021

  • Church, Kenneth; Kordoni, Valia  (2021) Emerging trends: Ethics, intimidation, and the Cold War In:  Natural Language Engineering [ViVo]
  • Koch, Helena  (2021) Morphological Processes in Polari and Modern LGBTQ+ Slang on Twitter – A Comparative Register Analysis[ViVo]
    Masterarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Master of Education (M. Ed.) im Fach Englisch.
  • 2020

  • Egg, Markus  (2020) To those walking in the footsteps of the faith In:  Drawing Attention to Metaphor: Case studies across time periods, cultures and modalities [DOI] [ViVo]
  • Di Biase-Dyson, Camilla; Egg, Markus  (2020) Drawing attention to metaphor: An introduction to the debate In:  Drawing Attention to Metaphor: Case studies across time periods, cultures and modalities [DOI] [ViVo]
    The communicative act of drawing attention to metaphor is a relatively recent topic in metaphor studies and one that has remained contentious from a cognitive perspective. This book brings philologists of ancient languages together with metaphor experts from several modalities to interrogate whether ancient and modern texts and languages draw attention to figurative tropes in similar ways. In this way, the diachronic, multimodal and pluridisciplinary contributions to this volume critically review the theoretical frameworks underpinning metaphor marking and metaphor analysis from a completely new empirical basis.
  • Di Biase-Dyson, Camilla; Egg, Markus  (2020) Drawing Attention to Metaphor: Case studies across time periods, cultures and modalities[DOI] [ViVo]
    The communicative act of drawing attention to metaphor is a relatively recent topic in metaphor studies and one that has remained contentious from a cognitive perspective. This book brings philologists of ancient languages together with metaphor experts from several modalities to interrogate whether ancient and modern texts and languages draw attention to figurative tropes in similar ways. In this way, the diachronic, multimodal and pluridisciplinary contributions to this volume critically review the theoretical frameworks underpinning metaphor marking and metaphor analysis from a completely new empirical basis.
  • Lüdeling, Anke; Alexiadou, Artemis; Adli, Aria; Donhauser, Karin; Dreyer, Malte; Egg, Markus; Feulner, Anna Helene; Gagarina, Natalia; Hock, Wolfgang; Jannedy, Stefanie; Kammerzell, Frank; Knoeferle, Pia; Krause, Thomas; Krifka, Manfred; Kutscher, Silvia; Lütke, Beate; McFadden, Thomas; Meyer, Roland; Mooshammer, Christine; Müller, Stefan; Maquate, Katja; Norde, Muriel; Sauerland, Uli; Szucsich, Luka; Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Waltereit, Richard; Wolfsgruber, Anne; Zeige, Lars Erik  (2020) Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation In:  REALIS: Register Aspects of Language in Situation [DOI] [ViVo]
    The Collaborative Research Center 1412 “Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation” (CRC 1412) investigates the role of register in language, focusing in particular on what constitutes a language user’s register knowledge and which situational-functional factors determine a user’s choices. The following paper is an extract from the frame text of the proposal for the CRC 1412, which was submitted to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in 2019, followed by a successful onsite evaluation that took place in 2019. The CRC 1412 then started its work on January 1, 2020. The theoretical part of the frame text gives an extensive overview of the theoretical and empirical perspectives on register knowledge from the viewpoint of 2019. Due to the high collaborative effort of all PIs involved, the frame text is unique in its scope on register research, encompassing register-relevant aspects from variationist approaches, psycholinguistics, grammatical theory, acquisition theory, historical linguistics, phonology, phonetics, typology, corpus linguistics, and computational linguistics, as well as qualitative and quantitative modeling. Although our positions and hypotheses since its submission have developed further, the frame text is still a vital resource as a compilation of state-of-the-art register research and a documentation of the start of the CRC 1412. The theoretical part without administrative components therefore presents an ideal starter publication to kick off the CRC’s publication series REALIS. For an overview of the projects and more information on the CRC, see https://sfb1412.hu-berlin.de/.
  • Presentations

    2024

  • Egg, Markus  (2024) Extended metaphors In:  DGfS 2024 (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) [ViVo]
  • 2023

  • Egg, Markus  (2023) Metaphors as register markers In:  56th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea [ViVo]
  • Egg, Markus  (2023) What metaphors don’t say: register marking via metaphors In:  What words don’t say: Intercultural, cross-cultural and societal aspects of (in)direct communication, Università della Calabria [ViVo]
  • Egg, Markus  (2023) Metaphor and metonymy as markers of register variation In:  New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 51 [ViVo]
  • 2022

  • Egg, Markus  (2022) A corpus annotated for metaphor in German In:  DGfS 2022, University of Tübingen [ViVo]
  • Egg, Markus  (2022) Metaphor annotation for German In:  LREC 2022, Marseille [ViVo]
  • Egg, Markus  (2022) Register, genre, style, and all that In:  CRC 1412 – Spring Retreat 2022 [ViVo]
  • Egg, Markus  (2022) Metaphors as register markers In:  Metaphors and stance markers in register variation (MeStaR) [ViVo]
  • 2021

  • Egg, Markus  (2021) Metaphor variation across registers in German In:  Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM) Conference [ViVo]
  • 2020

  • Kibbey, Tyler  (2020) Phenomenological Anachronism and the Enregistrement of the Crusade Metaphor in ISIS Propaganda In:  Kolloquium SFB1412 (2020) [ViVo]

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