Language Abstractness as Discursive Microframes: LCM Framing in American Coverage of International News

The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether articles covering countries with different levels of proximity and relations to the U.S. would be framed differently in American news media. In particular, this study employs the Linguistic Category Model, a tool for measuring language abstractness. This study incorporates scholarship from mass communication, international relations and linguistics. The literature review discusses international news coverage by American reporters and journalists; past scholarship examining linguistics in news text, including linguistic relativity theory and critical discourse analysis; and framing literature, focusing specifically on the framing building process and international news frames. After, the Linguistic Category Model is introduced, which is used to code for language abstractness. Two constructed weeks of news, encompassing a sample size of 960, were coded for their LCM frame and most important country discussed. Seven proximity and interaction country characteristics were applied to each article based on most important country discussed: distance, trade flow, language, military aid, regime type, development and conflict. The LCM frame was the dependent variable, while the country characteristics were the independent variable. Results show that the variables regime type, development and conflict were most related to changes in the LCM frame. While increased polity and development decreased language abstractness, increased conflict increased language abstractness. One interaction (conflict + development) included in the model was also influenced LCM frame. Implications of this are discussed, and the LCM frame is identified as a discursive microframe

Language of responsibility : the influence of linguistic abstraction on collective moral emotions

Funding information: The research and the preparation of this article were funded by the National Science Center Sonata grant (2012/05/D/HS6/03431) and Beethoven grant (2014/15/G/HS6/04589). Writing of this paper by Karolina Hansen was supported by the Foundation for Polish Science scholarship (START 030.2015-W).Two experiments investigated the effects of linguistic abstractness on the experience of collective moral emotions. In Experiment 1 participants were presented with two scenarios about ingroup misbehavior, phrased using descriptive action verbs, interpretative action verbs, adjectives or nouns. The results show that participants experienced slightly more negative moral emotions with higher levels of linguistic abstractness. In Experiment 2 we also tested for the influence of national identification on the relationship between linguistic abstractness and emotional reactions. Additionally, we expanded the number of scenarios. Experiment 2 replicated the earlier pattern, but found larger differences between conditions. The strength of national identification did not moderate the observed effects. The results of this research are discussed within the context of the linguistic category model and psychology of collective moral emotions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Understanding analogical reasoning : viewpoints from psychology and related disciplines

Analogy and metaphor have a long history of study in linguistics, education, philosophy and psychology. Consensus over what analogy is or how analogy functions in language and thought, however, has been elusive. This paper, the first in a two part series, examines these various research traditions, attempting to bring out major lines of agreement over the role of analogy in individual human experience. As well as being a general literature review which may be helpful for newcomers to the study of analogy, this paper attempts to extract from these literatures existing theories, models and concepts which may be interesting or useful for computational studies of analogical reasoning

Equality in language aspects of the theory of linguistic equality

This dissertation is an essay about the assumptions that make the systematic study of language possible. It attempts to refine and make explicit ill-defined ideas which underpin the most fruitful developments in modern linguistics. It charts the evolution of the concept of linguistic equality and its significance in many branches of study; and it tries to elaborate and sophisticate an analysis of the implications of the idea. It attempts to test several hypotheses: that, at some point in the first quarter of the twentieth century, linguistic equality became "an idea whose time had come"; that the idea became a covert hegemonic concept and a necessary if insufficient precondition for all thinking and research about language. There is no pretence that definitive answers have been given; only a hope that interesting and worthwhile questions have been asked

Representations of refugees: linguistic abstractness and social perceptions

The paper examines the relationship among stereotype content, essentialism, and preferred language abstraction in refugee media representations. In two studies, participants were asked to choose captions of differential degree of language abstraction (according to the linguistic category model, from descriptive action verbs to adjectives) thought appropriate for an image of refugees, after they first completed a survey on stereotype content (perceived competence and warmth) and essentialist beliefs (Study 2 only) about refugees. In both studies, perceived competence predicted increased language abstraction. In Study 2, competence was also found to mediate the effects of essentialism on language abstraction. These results underline the importance of stereotype content to biased language preference

Do native speakers of North American and Singapore English differentially perceive comprehensibility in second language speech?

The current study examined the extent to which native speakers of North American and Singapore English differentially perceive the comprehensibility (ease of understanding) of second language (L2) speech. Spontaneous speech samples elicited from 50 Japanese learners of English with various proficiency levels were first rated by 10 Canadian and 10 Singaporean raters for overall comprehensibility and then submitted to pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, and grammar analyses. Whereas the raters’ comprehensibility judgements were generally influenced by phonological and temporal qualities as primary cues, and, to a lesser degree, lexical and grammatical qualities of L2 speech as secondary cues, their linguistic backgrounds did make some impact on their L2 speech assessment patterns. The Singaporean raters, who not only used various models of English but also spoke a few L2s on a daily basis in a multilingual environment, tended to assign more lenient comprehensibility scores due to their relatively high sensitivity to, in particular, lexicogrammatical information. On the other hand, the comprehensibility judgements of the Canadian raters, who used only North American English in a monolingual environment, were mainly determined by the phonological accuracy and fluency of the L2 speech

A construal level theory approach to health media effects

How does abstract and concrete thinking about health messages impact the mental representation about a public health issue and the consequent attitudes and knowledge? The dissertation assesses in two studies how situated factors such as mood or construal level, individual preferences for abstract and concrete thinking, and cultural differences due to holistic and central thinking affect the influence of health messages on attitudes and behavioral intentions (i.e., organ or blood donation). The dissertation introduces a new coding procedure for thought listings to measure the concrete or abstract construal level of media users. Results show that individuals in a positive mood (vs. a negative mood) and from a collectivistic cultural background (vs. individualistic) show more positive attitudes, report stronger intentions to act and judge blood donation to be more relevant, partially because the participants showed a more abstract construal of the blood donation message. These results are limited to the non-narrative presentation of information