Imperfect homophony as a source of wordplay in the sitcom Modern Family: A relevance-theoretic lexical pragmatic approach

Consumers routinely generate digital information that reflects on their health. To evaluate the factors associated with consumers' willingness to share their digital health information for research, health care, and commercial uses. This national survey with an embedded conjoint experiment recruited US adults from a nationally representative sample, with oversampling of Black and Hispanic panel members. Participants were randomized to 15 scenarios reflecting use cases for consumer digital information from a total of 324 scenarios. Attributes of the conjoint analysis included 3 uses, 3 users, 9 sources of digital information, and 4 relevant health conditions. The survey was conducted from July 10 to 31, 2020. Participants rated each conjoint profile on a 5-point Likert scale (1-5) measuring their willingness to share their personal digital information (with 5 indicating the most willingness to share). Results reflect mean differences in this scale from a multivariable regression model. Among 6284 potential participants, 3543 (56%) responded. A total of 1862 participants (53%) were female, 759 (21%) identified as Black, 834 (24%) identified as Hispanic, and 1274 (36%) were 60 years or older. In comparison with information from electronic health care records, participants were less willing to share information about their finances (coefficient, -0.56; 95% CI, -0.62 to -0.50), places they visit from public cameras (coefficient, -0.28; 95% CI, -0.33 to -0.22), communication on social media (coefficient, -0.20; 95% CI -0.26 to -0.15), and their search history from internet search engines (coefficient, -0.11; 95% CI, -0.17 to -0.06). They were more willing to share information about their steps from applications on their phone (coefficient, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.17-0.28). Among the conjoint attributes, the source of information (importance weight: 59.1%) was more important than the user (17.3%), use (12.3%), and health condition (11.3%). Four clusters of consumers emerged from the sample with divergent privacy views. While the context of use was important, these 4 groups expressed differences in their overall willingness to share, with 337 participants classified as never share; 1116 classified as averse to sharing (mean rating, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.62-1.65); 1616 classified as uncertain about sharing (mean rating, 2.84; 95% CI, 2.81-2.86); and 474 classified as agreeable to sharing (mean rating, 4.18; 95% CI, 4.16-4.21). Respondents who identified as White and non-Hispanic, had higher income, and were politically conservative were more likely to be in a cluster that was less willing to share (ie, never or averse clusters). These findings suggest that although consumers' willingness to share personal digital information for health purposes is associated with the context of use, many have strong underlying privacy views that affect their willingness to share. New protections may be needed to give consumers confidence to be comfortable sharing their personal information.

It is by now well established that toddlers use the linguistic context in which a new word—and particularly a new verb—appears to discover aspects of its meaning. But what aspects of the linguistic context are most useful? To begin to investigate this, we ask how 2-year-olds use two sources of linguistic information that are known to be useful to older children and adults in verb guessing tasks: syntactic frame and the semantic content available in the noun phrases labeling the verb’s arguments. We manipulate the linguistic contexts in which we present novel verbs to see how they use these two sources of information, both separately and in combination, to acquire the verb’s meaning. Our results reveal that, like older children and adults, toddlers make use of both syntactic frame and semantically contentful argument labels to acquire verb meaning. But toddlers also require these two sources of information to be packaged in a particular way, into a single sentence that identifies “who did what to whom.”

Broadening and narrowing in lexical development: How relevance theory can account for children's overextensions and underextensions

Humor and the search for relevance

BackgroundTraditional health information has been based on facts and figures and not on patient experience (PEx). Websites featuring people’s accounts of their experiences of health and illness are popular as a source of information, support and much else. However, there are concerns that experiential information on the internet might have adverse effects on health.AimsTo find out whether, when and how the NHS should incorporate PEx into online health information and elucidate the mechanisms through which PEx might influence health, develop a tool to measure the effects of online PEx, explore how PEx is used, and investigate the feasibility and acceptability of a randomised controlled trial of online PEx.MethodsMixed methods, including a conceptual literature review, qualitative secondary data analysis, the development of a new questionnaire, online ethnography, observational and experimental studies in an internet café environment, and finally feasibility trials to compare new websites based on PEx with those based on facts and figures.ResultsThe review concluded that online PEx could affect health outcomes through seven domains (information, support, affecting relationships, providing ideas on how to use health services, influencing behaviour change, learning to tell the story and visualising illness). We developed the e-Health Impact Questionnaire, which demonstrates good psychometric properties and is suitable for use across different health groups and various styles of online information. Online ethnographic studies found three types of PEx on multiple sclerosis (MS) platforms: accounts of ‘living with MS’, self-expression and creativity, and experiences of health care and treatment. Observational and laboratory-based methods included studies of how people find and use PEx to inform health choices. We developed a three-stage model (gating, the engagement loop and outcomes) which guided the development of six prototype multimedia websites featuring either experiential information (intervention) or factual information (comparator) for three exemplar health issues. We evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of a trial of the prototype PEx websites, comparing self-report and process measures with a comparator. In the three conditions we randomised 87 (smoking cessation), 148 (asthma), and 42 (caring for someone with MS) participants. At final (2-week) follow-up, retention rates were 75%, 82% and 86%, for smoking cessation, asthma and MS carers, respectively. Usage of the allocated websites was low. The median number of logins to the websites over the 2-week period was two, two and four; the median number of page views was 10, 15 and 27.5, respectively, with a median total duration on site of 9 minutes, 17 minutes and 31.5 minutes respectively. There were no reported adverse events or harms. The qualitative interviews with 30 trial participants found that the trial methods were acceptable and not burdensome and that preferences for combinations of different types of information were both idiosyncratic and dependent on timing and need.LimitationsThis programme used a pragmatic, mixed-methods approach, in which we adapted some standard approaches (e.g. realist review). The conceptual review provided a framework for the whole programme but did not draw on a single overarching theoretically informed approach. Instead, we used relevant theory and methods from the work package leads, who represented a range of disciplines.ConclusionsOnline PEx is not seen as an alternative to facts, or to care from a health professional, but is used in addition to other sources of information, support and expression. This programme of work indicates how the sharing of online PEx may benefit people, and how this can be measured. A randomised controlled trial is feasible but an allocated ‘exposure’ to a ‘dose of information’ is far from from how online experiences are shared in everyday life. Future work evaluating online health interventions which incorporate personal experiences should aim to reflect ‘natural’ use of the internet and might include online ethnography and offline interviews. Studies might explore how and why people use online sources of experience-based health information, and the effects on subsequent behaviour and health and social outcomes in different conditions. Future intervention research evaluating online health interventions should examine and explain issues of engagement and use, and seek to identify how to increase engagement.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN29549695.FundingThis project was funded by the Programme Grants for Applied Research programme and will be published in full inProgramme Grants for Applied Research; Vol. 4, No. 17. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.

This paper aims to apply Sperber & Wilson’s Relevance Theory (1986; 1995; 1987) and the two stage incongruity-resolution theory of humour (Attardo 1994) to explain how humorous interpretations are produced in a corpus of political billboards published by the Labour Party in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 British election campaigns. The intersemiosis (O’Halloran 2008) between the verbal and the visual will be taken into account in order to decode the meanings transmitted. It will be suggested that the viewers’ access to background beliefs and assumptions in order to form a context against which new incoming information can be processed is also essential in order to decode meaning. The extraction of strongly or weakly implicated information is a good source of humorous effects. It will also be suggested that the interpretation depends on the viewer’s ideology, as “relevance is always relevance to an individual” (Sperber & Wilson 1986: 142).

Churchman recognized the importance of information (knowledge) in the systems approach and cited the potential for deception throughout (Churchman, 1968). If information quality includes criteria for veracity, then information which deceives can be considered information of poor quality. Information quality perceived as an objective truth (through Churchman's guarantor perhaps) provides a useful component in the utilitarian model of information quality. But when viewed from a subjective perspective, the concept of information veracity raises complex philosophical questions concerning the ethics and values of the subject.

Metaphor comprehension is seen as an interactive process that takes place between a metaphorical linguistic input and the linguistic and situational context in which it occurs. Children are capable of using the information provided by the linguistic and situational context to make inferences about the meaning of metaphorical sentences. Context helps children decide when a linguistic input should be interpreted nonliterally and provides children with clues about the metaphor's implied meaning. It appears that young children can profit more from a situational context than a linguistic context in interpreting metaphors and that reliance on both the situational and linguistic contexts decreases with increases in the knowledge base. Further research is needed to clarify the processes whereby children use contextual information in order to construct the meaning of a metaphor.

The terms translated “Messiah,” “Christ,” and “Lamb of God” in English versions of the Bible would have created significant contextual effects in the minds of the original hearers when applied to Jesus. This paper investigates the use of these terms in their original context through a semantic analysis based on logical and encyclopedic entries and then considers some implications for translation. The approach to translation is based on Relevance Theory and in particular the notion of Direct Translation.

Four- and 5-year-old children adapt to the reliability of conflicting sources of information to learn novel words

The scientific article aims at elucidating Relevance theory, put forward by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson in 1986, within the context of cognitive science and linguistics. It focuses on cognitive and communicative principles, its difference from Grice's cooperative principle and its role in deciphering irony by means of echoic expressions. The theory of relevance is set forth through key aspects such as cognitive and communicative principles, contextual effects, processing efforts, and its role in decoding irony through echoic expressions. The objective of the scientific article is to provide a detailed analysis of Relevance theory, underscoring its advantages over Grice's cooperative principle and its applicability in deciphering irony. The article centers on displaying how relevance theory strikes the balance of contextual effects and processing efforts, making communication more predictable and comprehensible. In addition, it targets at displaying how echoic expressions allow for comprehending ironic utterances and shape relationships between conversationalists. Main provisions of the article: Relevance is determined through the balance between contextual effects and processing efforts required to process information. A message is considered more relevant when it generates significant contextual effects with minimal processing efforts. Unlike the Cooperative principle, which calls for high cooperation and adherence to all maxims (Quality, Quantity, Manner, Relation), relevance theory centers on attaining mutual understanding without the need for excessive details. Irony is viewed as a form of echoic utterance, where the addresser echoes a thought or utterance with a critique or disapproving attitude. The addressee is required to identify the contrast between the literal meaning and the addresser’s attitude, making the ironic message relevant through its layered interpretation. This approach allows for a profound comprehension of irony beyond merely implying the opposite meaning.

Speech comprehension aided by multiple modalities: Behavioural and neural interactions

A perceiver who learns to recognize an individual talker becomes familiar with attributes of the talker’s voice that are present in any utterance regardless of the linguistic message. Customary accounts of individual identification by ear presume that such durable personal aspects of an individual’s speech are graded qualities (e.g., vocal pitch and pitch range; melodious, breathy, or raspy timbre; etc.) independent of the acoustic properties that evoke segmental phonetic contrasts. Alternatively, some classic and recent studies alike suggest that familiarity includes attention to attributes of dialect and idiolect conveyed in the articulation of consonants and vowels. These linguistic phonetic properties of speech are effective for recognizing a talker when voice quality is eliminated as a source of information. The present investigation sought direct evidence of attention to qualitative and phonetic attributes of speech. Natural samples and sine wave replicas of sentences spoken by five male and five female talkers were used in a similarity tournament with adult listeners. The results establish the differential perceptual resolution of qualitative and phonetic attributes in the perception and recognition of talkers. [Work supported by NIDCD and NICHD.]

This book explores the current state of Spanish sociolinguistics and its contribution to theories of language variation and change, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. It offers original analyses on a variety of topics across a wide spectrum of linguistic subfields from different formal, experimental, and corpus-based standpoints. The volume is organized around six thematic sections: (i) Cutting-edge Methodologies in Sociolinguistics; (ii) Bilingualism; (iii) Language Acquisition; (iv) Phonological Variation; (v) Morpho-Syntactic Variation; and (vi) Lexical Variation. As a whole, this collection reflects an array of approaches and analyses that show how in its variation across speakers, speech communities, linguistic contexts, communicative situations, dialects, and time, the Spanish language provides an immense wealth of data to challenge accepted linguistic views and shape new theoretical proposals in the field of language variation and change. Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis represents a significant contribution to the growing field of Spanish sociolinguistics.

When users access online media, they need and desire to get an experience tailored to their specific, personal context and situation. This is becoming more and more relevant with the ever-increasing amount of available contents users may choose from. In order to provide user-centric functionalities (such as relevant searches, content adaptation, customization and recommendation), both the annotation of contents with semantically rich metadata and an accurate model of the individual users and their respective contexts of use are needed. In this context, we propose a solution to automatically characterize both the context of use and the contents. It provides dynamic, adaptive user models, with explicit and implicit information; as well as content descriptors that may be later used to match the most suitable contents for each user. Users always keep a pivotal role throughout the whole process: providing new contents, contributing to moderated folksonomies, overseeing their own user model, etc.