The Use of Perspective Markers and Connectives in Expressing Subjectivity: Evidence from Collocational Analyses

This study explores how subjectivity is expressed in coherence relations, by means of a distinctive collocational analysis on two Chinese causal connectives: the specific subjective kejian ‘so’, used in subjective argument-claim relations, and the underspecified suoyi ‘so’, which can be used in both subjective argument-claim and objective cause-consequence relations. On the basis of both Horn’s pragmatic Relation and Quality principles and the Uniform Information Density Theory, we hypothesized that the presence of other linguistic elements expressing subjectivity in a discourse segment should be related the degree of subjectivity encoded by the connective. In line with this hypothesis, the association scores showed that suoyi is more frequently combined with perspective markers expressing epistemic stance: cognition verbs and modal verbs. Kejian, which already expresses epistemic stance, co-occurred more often with perspective markers related to attitudinal stance, such as markers of expectedness and importance. The paper also pays attention to similarities and differences in collocation patterns across contexts and genres

On Temporality in Discourse Annotation: Theoretical and Practical Considerations

Temporal information is one of the prominent features that determine the coherence in a discourse. That is why we need an adequate way to deal with this type of information during discourse annotation. In this paper, we will argue that temporal order is a relational rather than a segment-specific property, and that it is a cognitively plausible notion: temporal order is expressed in the system of linguistic markers and is relevant in both acquisition and language processing. This means that temporal relations meet the requirements set by the Cognitive approach of Coherence Relations (CCR) to be considered coherence relations, and that CCR would need a way to distinguish temporal relations within its annotation system. We will present merits and drawbacks of different options of reaching this objective and argue in favor of adding temporal order as a new dimension to CCR

Using the Cognitive Approach to Coherence Relations for Discourse Annotation

The Cognitive approach to Coherence Relations (Sanders, Spooren, & Noordman, 1992) was originally proposed as a set of cognitively plausible primitives to order coherence relations, but is also increasingly used as a discourse annotation scheme. This paper provides an overview of new CCR distinctions that have been proposed over the years, summarizes the most important discussions about the operationalization of the primitives, and introduces a new distinction (disjunction) to the taxonomy to improve the descriptive adequacy of CCR. In addition, it reflects on the use of the CCR as an annotation scheme in practice. The overall aim of the paper is to provide an overview of state-of-the-art CCR for discourse annotation that can form, together with the original 1992 proposal, a comprehensive starting point for anyone interested in annotating discourse using CCR

Scolding the child who threw the scissors:Shaping discourse expectations by restricting referents

Coherence relations are often assumed to hold between clauses, but restrictive relative clauses (RCs) are usually not granted discourse segment status because they are syntactically and conceptually integrated in their matrix clauses. This paper investigates whether coherence relations can be inferred between restrictive RCs and their matrix clauses. Three experiments provide converging evidence that restrictive RCs can indeed play a role at the discourse level and should not categorically be excluded from receiving discourse segment status in discourse annotation practices. At the same time, the studies provide new insights into implicit causality verb biases, specifically about next-mention biases in concessive coherence relations, and expectations about discourse structure, upcoming referents, and upcoming coherence relations

Teachers and researchers as co-designers? A design-based research on reading comprehension instruction in primary education

Insights from scientific reading research only partially resonate in Dutch teaching materials for reading comprehension, and hence in the classroom. As an attempt to bridge the gap between science and educational practice, a design-based research was conducted in which four primary school teachers translated four researcher-provided design principles into practice. In two successive design cycles, the teachers designed and implemented lessons on informational text structures, under supervision of two researchers. The aim of the study was to gain insight into the viability of the design principles and into the level of support teachers need in order to become effective co-designers. Based on data from lesson artefacts, teacher logbooks, panel interviews and lesson observations, we found that the teachers experienced several implementation difficulties. These difficulties were partially due to the fact that there was a tension between two design principles, and that one design principle needed refinement. However, in most cases, the implementation difficulties could be explained by teachers’ limited pedagogical content knowledge. As a result, the teachers needed a high level of support, especially in text selection and revision. Teacher beliefs and habits also interfered with the implementation of the design principles, especially when it came to the importance of working with authentic texts, and teachers’ views on effective modeling.Our study raises questions about the feasibility of equal participation of researchers and teachers at the start of a DBR project, but also shows how DBR can successfully contribute to teacher professionalization if researchers provide adequate support throughout the design process

Narrative Elements in Expository Texts: A Corpus Study of Educational Textbooks

While the use of narrative elements in educational texts seems to be an adequate means to enhance students’ engagement and comprehension, we know little about how and to what extent these elements are used in the present-day educational practice. In this quantitative corpus-based analysis, we chart how and when narrative elements are used in current Dutch educational texts (N=999). While educational texts have traditionally been considered prime exemplars of expository texts, we show that the distinction between the expository and narrative genre is not that strict in the educational domain: prototypical narrative elements – particularized events, experiencing characters, and landscapes of consciousness – occur in 45% of the corpus’ texts. Their distribution varies between school subjects: while specific events, specific people, and their experiences are often at the heart of the to-be-learned information in history texts, narrativity is less present in the educational content of biology and geography texts. Instead publishers employ narrative-like strategies to make these texts more concrete and imaginable, such as the addition of fictitious characters and representative entities