“I am what I’m not”:A corpus-based study of negative self-identification in UK web forums

This thesis analyses a corpus of 936 instances of the structure “I + copula + NOT + indefinite noun phrase” and its variants, as used in UK web forums. Making assertions about one’s identity in the negative not only provides information about what one claims not to be, but also indexes various aspects of, and potentially modifies, the interpretation of the textual and non-textual context in which such assertions are used. The thesis develops a theoretical and methodological framework to qualitatively and quantitatively identify the multifunctional, context-dependent meaning potential of the structure in focus. The corpus was qualitatively analysed and tagged for conceptual categories of identifying NPs as well as for formal and functional features of the co-texts in which the structure appears. A conceptual profile of negative self-identifiers was developed, and the experiential meanings of the immediate context of the structure were examined, as were their relations of co-occurrence with particular conceptual categories of negative identifiers. By investigating whether users of English in particular co-texts negate self-identification with noun phrases from particular conceptual domains in patterned ways, the study identified certain conceptualisations that were implicitly acknowledged as relevant for people’s self-representation in these discourse contexts. Key findings include: (a) negative identification with expertise is a frequent linguistic choice in the context of presenting one’s knowledge; and (b) negative identification with preferences is a frequent linguistic choice in contexts describing one’s experience. These findings are discussed in light of the wider sociopolitical context, suggesting an ideological struggle around – and a possible reconceptualisation of – the notion of epistemic authority

Knowledge-based approaches for identity management in online social networks

When we meet a new person, we start by introducing ourselves. We share our names, and other information about our jobs, cities, family status, and so on. This is how socializing and social interactions can start: we first need to identify each other. Identification is a cornerstone in establishing social contacts. We identify ourselves and others by a set of civil (e.g., name, nationality, ID number, gender) and social (e.g., music taste, hobbies, religion) characteristics. This seamlessly carried out identification process in face-to-face interactions is challenged in the virtual realms of socializing, such as in online social network (OSN) platforms. New identities (i.e., online profiles) could be created without being subject to any level of verification, making it easy to create fake information and forge fake identities. This has led to a massive proliferation of accounts that represent fake identities (i.e., not mapping to physically existing entities), and that poison the online socializing environment with fake information and malicious behavior (e.g., child abuse, information stealing). Within this milieu, users in OSNs are left unarmed against the challenging task of identifying the real person behind the screen. OSN providers and research bodies have dedicated considerable effort to the study of the behavior and features of fake OSN identities, trying to find ways to detect them. Some other research initiatives have explored possible techniques to enable identity validation in OSNs. Both kinds of approach rely on extracting knowledge from the OSN, and exploiting it to achieve identification management in their realms. We provide a review of the most prominent works in the literature. We define the problem, provide a taxonomy of related attacks, and discuss the available solutions and approaches for knowledge-based identity management in OSNs. This article is categorized under: Fundamental Concepts of Data and Knowledge > Human Centricity and User Interaction Application Areas> Internet and Web-Based Applications Application Areas> Society and Culture