Linguistic Indicators Research Articles

When News Use Feels Wrong: Four Reactions to Misalignments Between Feeling Rules and Feeling Responses

ABSTRACT Audiences’ involvements with news have been shown to be far more varied than normative theories of liberal democracy typically suggest, often evading standards of unemotional objectivity prescribed by civic duty ideals. However, news users’ methods of navigating normative expectations about their emotive experiences with news remain unclear. This article operationalizes the concept of “feeling rules” to uncover responses to discrepancies between emotive expectations and experiences with news, developing a novel analytical approach using linguistic and paralinguistic indices of perceived norm breaking. It applies this to a quota sample of Danes between 18 and 24 years of age, asked about their information-seeking practices using semi-structured interviews and a card-sorting exercise to prompt reflections about a broad spectrum of media. The article makes manifest four strategies for negotiating misalignments between feelings rules and emotive experiences: (1) discontinuation and (2) continuation of media use flouting feeling rules, (3) compartmentalization, and (4) justification. The findings advance our scholarly understanding of news use as a site of complex social identity negotiation for young people, where not only externally visible behaviors but also emotive experiences such as seriousness and (dis)trust are prescribed, in order to explain underlying mechanisms behind the behavioral change—and resistance to change.

Il volgare trentino in una tariffa rivana del 1409

This article analyses the language of an early fifteenth-century manuscript concerning the muta (excise taxes) of Riva del Garda (Trentino, Italy). The linguistic interest of said document, written mainly in Latin, lies in the number of vernacular terms and their nature (mostly mercantile goods). The authors provide a partial edition of the source, which includes also a series of business notes, a linguistic analysis, a glossary and onomastic indices. In order to better characterise the document’s linguistic phenomenology comparisons are drawn with other Northern Italian Vernaculars (such as Veronese and Bresciano) and with the few known texts from medieval Trentino.

Axiological and Ideological Reframing in the Interpreting of Syrian Refugee’s Trauma Discourse: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Interviews as an Example

Abstract
 Trauma discourse can actively participate in truthfully reflecting victims’ painful experiences. The importance of this kind of discourse increases when it is delivered at certain times, in certain places and to certain people. If the speaker succeeds in the convincing audience, different reactions take place the least of which is driving people’s understanding towards a point that the speaker hopes to. This happens when both the speaker and his audience share the same language. When a discourse is delivered in a language foreign to the audience the only alternative is translation and interpreting. It is expected that throughout interpreting, refugees’ feelings and ideas are and have to be reflected to foreigners. To achieve such a goal, interpreting has to be as transparent as possible. The interpreter’s axiology and ideology may, however, play a decisive role in obstructing the transference of these significant experiences. The present article tries to investigate the degree to which Arabic trauma discourse is distorted in interpreting. It hypothesizes that interpreters are consciously or/and unconsciously socio-politically motivated to delete, add or improperly substitute the linguistic indicators used to convey emotional responses to the crisis. It adopts Baker’s (2006) understanding of narrative reframing. It investigates the rendering of the interpersonal linguistic tools suggested in Martin and White’s (2005) proposal of appraisal theory. The data is taken from the UNHCR’s interviews with Syrian refugees. The thorough examination of the interpreting of these interviews reveals that the interpreters play an effective role in discursively underestimating or exaggerating the interviewees’ suffering.
 Keywords
 Trauma Discourse UNHCR institutional hegemony and interpreter axiology Ideology Syrian Refugees

How the Brunswikian Lens Model Illustrates the Relationship Between Physiological and Behavioral Signals and Psychological Emotional and Cognitive States.

Social relationships are constructed by and through the relational communication that people exchange. Relational messages are implicit nonverbal and verbal messages that signal how people regard one another and define their interpersonal relationships—equal or unequal, affectionate or hostile, inclusive or exclusive, similar or dissimilar, and so forth. Such signals can be measured automatically by the latest machine learning software tools and combined into meaningful factors that represent the socioemotional expressions that constitute relational messages between people. Relational messages operate continuously on a parallel track with verbal communication, implicitly telling interactants the current state of their relationship and how to interpret the verbal messages being exchanged. We report an investigation that explored how group members signal these implicit messages through multimodal behaviors measured by sensor data and linked to the socioemotional cognitions interpreted as relational messages. By use of a modified Brunswikian lens model, we predicted perceived relational messages of dominance, affection, involvement, composure, similarity and trust from automatically measured kinesic, vocalic and linguistic indicators. The relational messages in turn predicted the veracity of group members. The Brunswikian Lens Model offers a way to connect objective behaviors exhibited by social actors to the emotions and cognitions being perceived by other interactants and linking those perceptions to social outcomes. This method can be used to ascertain what behaviors and/or perceptions are associated with judgments of an actor’s veracity. Computerized measurements of behaviors and perceptions can replace manual measurements, significantly expediting analysis and drilling down to micro-level measurement in a previously unavailable manner.

Beyond the ratings: gender effects in written comments from clinical teaching assessments.

Assessment of clinical teachers by learners is problematic. Construct-irrelevant factors influence ratings, and women teachers often receive lower ratings than men. However, most studies focus only on numeric scores. Therefore, the authors analyzed written comments on 4032 teacher assessments, representing 282 women and 448 men teachers in one Department of Medicine, to explore for gender differences. NVivo was used to search for 61 evidence- and theoretically-based terms purported to reflect teaching excellence, which were analyzed using 2 × 2 chi-squared tests. The Linguistic Index and Word Count (LIWC) was used to categorize comment data, which were analyzed using linear regressions. The only significant difference in NVivo was that men were more likely than women to have the word "available" in a comment (OR 1.4, p < .05). A subset of LIWC variables showed significant gender differences, but all effects were modest. Men teachers had more positive emotion words written about them, while negative emotion words appeared equally. Significant differences occurred more often between the men and women residents who wrote the comments, rather than those attributed to the gender of the teachers. For example, women residents used more social and gender-related words (β 1.87, p < 0.001) and fewer words related to power or achievement (β -3.78, p < 0.001) than men residents. Profound gender differences were not found in teacher assessment comments in this large, diverse academic department of medicine, which differs from other studies. The authors explore possible reasons including differences in departmental culture and issues related to the methods used.

Fully automated detection of formal thought disorder with Time-series Augmented Representations for Detection of Incoherent Speech (TARDIS)

Formal thought disorder (ThD) is a clinical sign of schizophrenia amongst other serious mental health conditions. ThD can be recognized by observing incoherent speech - speech in which it is difficult to perceive connections between successive utterances and lacks a clear global theme. Automated assessment of the coherence of speech in patients with schizophrenia has been an active area of research for over a decade, in an effort to develop an objective and reliable instrument through which to quantify ThD. However, this work has largely been conducted in controlled settings using structured interviews and depended upon manual transcription services to render audio recordings amenable to computational analysis. In this paper, we present an evaluation of such automated methods in the context of a fully automated system using Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) in place of a manual transcription service, with “audio diaries” collected in naturalistic settings from participants experiencing Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVH). We show that performance lost due to ASR errors can often be restored through the application of Time-Series Augmented Representations for Detection of Incoherent Speech (TARDIS), a novel approach that involves treating the sequence of coherence scores from a transcript as a time-series, providing features for machine learning. With ASR, TARDIS improves average AUC across coherence metrics for detection of severe ThD by 0.09; average correlation with human-labeled derailment scores by 0.10; and average correlation between coherence estimates from manual and ASR-derived transcripts by 0.29. In addition, TARDIS improves the agreement between coherence estimates from manual transcripts and human judgment and correlation with self-reported estimates of AVH symptom severity. As such, TARDIS eliminates a fundamental barrier to the deployment of automated methods to detect linguistic indicators of ThD to monitor and improve clinical care in serious mental illness.

Cultivating the Community

A growing body of HCI research has sought to understand how online networks are utilized in the adoption and maintenance of disordered activities and behaviors associated with mental illness, including eating habits. However, individual-level influences over discrete online eating disorder (ED) communities are not yet well understood. This study reports results from a comprehensive network and content analysis (combining computational topic modeling and qualitative thematic analysis) of over 32,000 public tweets collected using popular ED-related hashtags during May 2020. Our findings indicate that this ED network in Twitter consists of multiple smaller ED communities where a majority of the nodes are exposed to unhealthy ED contents through retweeting certain influential central nodes. The emergence of novel linguistic indicators and trends (e.g., "#meanspo") also demonstrates the evolving nature of the ED network. This paper contextualizes ED influence in online communities through node-level participation and engagement, as well as relates emerging ED contents with established online behaviors, such as self-harassment.

Hybrid machine learning approach for Arabic medical web page credibility assessment.

For many people, the Internet is their primary source of knowledge in today's modern world. Internet users frequently seek health-related information in order to better understand a health problem, seek guidance, or diagnose symptoms. Unfortunately, most of this information is inaccurate or unreliable, making it difficult for regular users to discern reliable sources of information. To determine online source reliability, specific knowledge and domain expertise are necessary. Researchers in health informatics studied a number of linguistic and non-linguistic indicators to assist ordinary individuals in judging medical web page credibility. This study proposes a method that automates the process of assessing the reliability of online medical sites based on textual and non-textual characteristics. To evaluate the proposed approach, we developed a real-world dataset of Arabic web pages that provide medical information. This dataset is the first Arabic medical web page dataset for content credibility evaluation. The hybrid approach was assessed using multiple machine learning and deep learning algorithms on the dataset, providing an accuracy and F1-score of 79% and 77%, respectively. We also identify the most observable patterns that help evaluate or detect unreliable web pages written in Arabic.

Accessibility of astronomy journal papers

The Working Group on Accessibility and Disability (WGAD) of the American Astronomical Society published a comprehensive list of accessibility recommendations for professional astronomy journals, based on the first-hand experience of both higher education students and professional astronomers. The recommendations include accessibility strategies intended to improve access for a wide range of disabled and neurodiverse readers, with particular attention to the way readers with visual, motor, and cognitive disabilities cope with information in a digital interface. In this paper we use the tools of critical discourse analysis (CDA) to compare the recommended strategies to the digital discursive modes currently employed by leading astronomy journals. Raters analyzed discourse modes for a sample of 256 astronomy journal articles, including the usage of linguistic indicators, digital architecture, and information display. We identify emergent categories of access barriers faced by disabled astronomers, and identify strategies in the journal papers addressing those emergent categories. We compare the discourse modes currently used in astronomy publications with the access barriers and recommended strategies described by the WGAD document. Our analysis found that discourses in astronomical publications were typically constituted with the expectation of various shared commonalities between the author and the reader, including: 1. Same sensorial modality of interaction; 2. Same experiential knowledge as authors; 3. Same access to information as authors; 4. Same linguistic knowledge as authors; 5. Same cognitive strategies as authors; 6. Same socioeconomic status and background. This case study may serve as a baseline for future studies on how inaccessible textual discourse, digital architecture, and digital display in STEM journals enhance professional inequalities. Examining how current standard journal standards impact the transition to different professional career stages would help to identify alternate discursive strategies which would improve accessibility.

Verbal Indicators of Personal Identity in The Road Past Altamont by Gabrielle Roy

The present paper explores personal identity linguistic indicators detected in The Road Past Altamont by Gabrielle Roy. Works by this Canadian writer, public personality, and significant figure in French Canadian literature are of interest to a broad audience today in Canada, where almost all her books have been translated into English, and abroad. Written in a fluid, spare style, they are distinguished by lively narration and a keen sense of observation. Her literature approaches the world and people with clear sight and compassion. The Road Past Altamont (1966) by Roy is one of the most original in Canada, as varied as it is cohesive. The novel is dedicated to the coverage of the autobiographical narrative, the peculiarities of the personal identity crisis for different age groups, the succession of generations. These existential problems are actualized in crisis life situations. Despite containing four independent texts, the Road Past Altamont, each of which tells a finished story, is not a collection of short stories but a novel-saga. Its genre is both fragmented and unified, and it has a flexible structure based on the concept of the human life course. The four stories in this novel are connected not only by the main character at different points in her life but also by the themes that explore the changes, ageing, and society’s relation to the elders. The study aims to single out verbal indicators of personal identity obtained from the second part, “The old man and the child” of the Roy’s novel and the music album of the same name, created on its basis in 2021. Among the main findings are the defining psycholinguistic markers of time and space in the discourse of “The old man and the child” that encompass personal identity cognitive component. Hence, it is possible to treat the transformation of identity in the modern world in terms of constructing “self” as a reflexive project - implementing an integral, biographical story being changed in a polyvariant context of choice.

A “More Political” Commission? Reassessing EC Politicization through Language

AbstractThis article contributes to the study of the European Commission's (EC) politicization by examining this phenomenon from the angle of communication. We elaborate a novel approach based on two linguistic indicators – charisma and technicality – which we then apply through a content analysis of 8,947 speeches delivered by Commission members between 1999 and 2019. Contrary to the narrative of an ever more political Commission, we find that the linguistic politicization of the EC decreased over the period under exam, reaching its nadir during Jean‐Claude Juncker's presidential term (2014–19). Our findings raise the question of whether language is yet another ordinary dimension of politicization, or rather it is used strategically by the Commission to underplay its underlying politicization as measured in more traditional institutional, policy, and individual terms. Either way, our study highlights the multi‐faceted nature of the politicization concept, and the need for deeper and more nuanced analyses of it.

The Differentiation of Narrative Styles in Individuals with High Psychopathic Deviate

The current study was designed to show the differentiation of narrative styles in individuals with high scores in Psychopathic deviate (Pd) scale and develop a method enabling identification of psychopathic personality traits based on linguistic indicators. 600 spontaneous narrations related to emotional topics have been examined for grammar, syntactic, and lexical indicators. The indicators have been selected based on a review related to language of psychopaths. The narrations were written by 200 persons who were also tested for psychopathic deviate and intelligence level, including prisoners diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Independent judges identified the linguistic indicators which were then counted for each person with the use of computer software. The configuration profiles of the linguistic indicators/narrative styles were established using k-mean clustering method. Then, ANOVA was performed to show which clusters differentiate the levels of psychopathic deviate. The findings show there are two configurations of language features (important: single features were not examined) associated with high levels of psychopathic deviate patterns. Two narrative styles were identified, labelled demonstrative-digressive-egocentric-emotional-dogmatic and reserved-focused on the topic-repetitive, which indicate high psychopathic deviate traits. The ROC curves were applied to establish the prediction of the narrative styles for high psychopathic deviate scores.

Linguistics and Deception Detection (DD): A Work in Progress

AbstractLinguistic Deception Detection DD is a well-established part of forensic linguistics and an area that continues to attract attention on the part of researchers, self-styled experts, and the public at large. In this article, the various approaches to DD within the general field of linguistics are examined. The basic method is to treat language as a form of behaviour and to equate marked linguistic behaviour with other marked forms of behaviour. Such a comparison has been identified in other fields such as psychology and kinesics as being associated with stress linked to the attempt to deceive, typically in such contexts as examined here. Representative authentic examples of some of the most common linguistic indicators of deception that have been identified are discussed, dividing them into two general categories which we here introduce: language asrevealerand language asconcealer. We will argue that linguistic analysis for DD should be conducted relative to the subject’s individual linguistic patterns of behaviour, not on absolutes related to broad generalisations about what is supposedly normal or unmarked in the population at large. We will also briefly discuss some structured methods for linguistic analysis for DD and the prospect that technology and artificial intelligence will provide the means to automate and digitalise the linguistic DD process. We maintain that caution is advisable when considering these, as DD will, in all probability, always remain a work in progress, with the need for a flexible human evaluator ready to take into account many different aspects of the individual subject and the case in question.

Linguistic indicators of chronic pain acceptance in individuals with spinal cord injury.

Pain acceptance is a robust predictor of adjustment to chronic pain, including pain in those with spinal cord injury (SCI). This preliminary study aimed to identify linguistic patterns indicative of chronic pain acceptance to gain new insights into the underlying cognitive-emotional process of this construct. Individuals with SCI and chronic pain (N = 30) completed the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ) and a semistructured interview about their pain. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software was used to quantify linguistic categories of interest in transcribed interviews. Results of hierarchical linear regressions (controlling for pain intensity, age, and education) showed that personal pronouns explained an additional 26.9% of the variance in CPAQ activity engagement, which was associated with a lower frequency of first-person plural pronouns and a higher frequency of third person pronouns. Conjunction words explained an additional 12.8% and 19.2% of the variance in CPAQ total and pain willingness scores, respectively; frequency of conjunction words was negatively associated with acceptance. Perceptual processes words accounted for an additional 39.9% of the variance in pain willingness, which was associated with a lower frequency of seeing words and a higher frequency of hearing and feeling words. Findings suggest that pain acceptance is associated with unique linguistic patterns that can be identified in natural word use among individuals with SCI and chronic pain. Future research to further investigate linguistic indicators of pain acceptance and other clinically relevant pain constructs is warranted and could advance theoretical models of pain adaptation and clinical approaches to treating pain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Comparative constructions in Tafi

AbstractThis paper describes the constructions and strategies available in Tafi, a KA-Ghana-Togo-Mountain language, for indicating relations of similarity, equality or superiority among two or more entities or events with respect to a property. Drawing on typological studies of comparison, I demonstrate that Tafi’s dedicated comparative constructions, that is, equivalents of English sentences likeThe pig is more dirty than the duckinvolve serial verb construction (SVC) subtypes. For superiority, theparameter(or property, ‘dirty’) of the comparison is expressed by the V1 in the SVC while V2 is the ‘exceed’ verb. For equality, theparameteris the V1 and the V2 is the ‘be.equal’ verb. The V2s in these SVCs co-lexicalise both themark(e.g. ‘than’) andindex(e.g. ‘more’) of the comparison. The paper discusses the contact-driven influences from areal grammar and from Ewe, the dominant lingua franca for Tafi speakers, on the linguistic expression of comparison. The ‘exceed’ comparative structure found in African languages has been attributed to areal grammaticalisation. I further argue that the operator verbsɔ/sɔ̃‘be.equal’ in the Tafi equality SVC is borrowed from Ewe. Similarity constructions involve the semblativenâsí. Similarity is also signalled through the verbyi‘resemble’. I also explore the ordinal verbbhusó‘do.first’ as a lexical comparative. Furthermore, I argue that Tafi, like many other Kwa languages, does not formally code a superlative. Superlative readings are inferred from the context and from non-dedicated linguistic indicators such as intensifiers.

SCHIZOPHRENIA SPEECH MARKERS PSYCHOLINGUISTIC IDENTIFICATION ALGORITHM

In the article, the authors highlight the peculiarities of schizophrenia speech manifestations and presents an algorithm for its identification. The algorithm consists of four stages, which include the respondents’ oral and written speech analysis which considers the specifics of systemic speech indicators, associative reactions and grapheme features. The first stage features oral communication with patients, during which they are asked to answer questions about their past, general orientation in space and time, etc., which is generally consistent with the tactics of questioning, but in the projection not only on psychomental peculiarities, but on the linguistic indicators as well. This way we get an idea of the level of the patient’s general communicative competence. The results of the study are recorded in the according table. During the second stage, the authors utilize an associative experiment, the results of which are compared with the results of mentally healthy respondents and are also recorded in the table. Such comparative analysis reveals the conceptual differences between the respondents’ associative background and makes it possible to identify informative semantic segments. During the third stage, patients are asked to write a short essay about their daily routine, the most memorable day in life, which helps to determine their personal view of events, perceptions of such events, and illustrates the grapheme features of speech realizations. The results are also recorded in the table. The fourth stage involves the analysis and generalization of the results. The scientific novelty of article is that it is the first one to present a comprehensive algorithm for examining the speech of patients with schizophrenia, in particular at the level of their oral and written speech. The theoretical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of utilizing the findings in an in-depth study of speech features of patients with schizophrenia at different stages, considering the most informative language indicators, as well as in further development of pathopsycholinguistics general theory, altered consciousness states studies and other related studies. The practical value of the obtained results is determined by the possibility of utilizing them in developing methods for speech correction of mentally ill people and in the recognition of such diseases at the initial stage.

Emotion regulation across the lifespan: age differences in intrapersonal and interpersonal strategies for the adjustment to the COVID-19 pandemic in four countries

Objectives Studies have shown age differences in adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. The processes explaining these age differences remain unclear. Intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation play an important role in psycho-social adjustment and develop across the lifespan. This study investigated whether differences in COVID-19-related adjustment disorder symptoms can be explained by age-differences in rumination in a multi-national sample. Furthermore, linguistic indicators of ruminative processing were examined with reference to age. Methods N = 1401 participants (from USA, UK, Switzerland, Germany, aged 18–88) completed an online survey and a writing task. Measures included brooding, co-brooding, adjustment disorder symptoms, and language indicators of negative self- and communal-focus . Results Older participants reported less adjustment disorder symptoms which was mediated by less (co-)brooding. Participants reporting more (co-)brooding wrote about COVID-19 more negatively. While in younger adults more self-focus was associated with higher ruminative brooding, in older adults it was associated with less brooding. Conclusion These findings contribute to a better understanding of regulatory mechanisms that help explain age differences in mental health. They warrant further research considering age-related differences, as our results suggest not only more adaptive emotion regulation as resilience factor in older individuals but also different qualities of self-focus while processing stressful events.

Languages and ideologies at the Lower Yenisei (Siberia): Reconstructing past multilingualism

Aims and objectives: This paper reconstructs past multilingualism (1900–1930s) among the nomadic people of the Lower Yenisei in northern Siberia, with particular attention to the language ideologies behind it; it is validated by parallels from small-scale communities worldwide. Approach: An ethnographic approach is taken, which interprets sociolinguistic data in view of emic categorizations. Data and analysis: The reconstruction is based on: (a) 1926 census data; (b) ethnographic reports from the 1920s to 1960s; (c) narratives from the 1940s; (d) retrospective sociolinguistic interviews; and (e) ethnonyms of local languages. (a), (b) provide a background for the interpretation of the linguistic data from (c)–(e). Findings: The connection of local social categories/groups to languages was unstable both synchronically and diachronically. Linguistic repertoires described the authenticity of the speech communities better than the command of individual languages. The linguistic indexing of identity was relational and depended on social networks more than on ancestry/kinship. These ideologies together with constant migrations shaped the sociolinguistic profile of the area and facilitated language shifts. Originality: Besides providing a detailed sociolinguistic description for an underresearched part of the world, this paper uses a novel methodology for reconstructing multilingualism of the past. Implications: The described mechanisms of language shift within communities that are multilingual in related languages contribute to theories of language diversification and spread at least in the north, but possibly also in a broader perspective. The methodology can be applied to other cases of past multilingualism.

Behavioral Activation and Depression Symptomatology: Longitudinal Assessment of Linguistic Indicators in Text-Based Therapy Sessions.

BackgroundBehavioral activation (BA) is rooted in the behavioral theory of depression, which states that increased exposure to meaningful, rewarding activities is a critical factor in the treatment of depression. Assessing constructs relevant to BA currently requires the administration of standardized instruments, such as the Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS), which places a burden on patients and providers, among other potential limitations. Previous work has shown that depressed and nondepressed individuals may use language differently and that automated tools can detect these differences. The increasing use of online, chat-based mental health counseling presents an unparalleled resource for automated longitudinal linguistic analysis of patients with depression, with the potential to illuminate the role of reward exposure in recovery.ObjectiveThis work investigated how linguistic indicators of planning and participation in enjoyable activities identified in online, text-based counseling sessions relate to depression symptomatology over time.MethodsUsing distributional semantics methods applied to a large corpus of text-based online therapy sessions, we devised a set of novel BA-related categories for the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software package. We then analyzed the language used by 10,000 patients in online therapy chat logs for indicators of activation and other depression-related markers using LIWC.ResultsDespite their conceptual and operational differences, both previously established LIWC markers of depression and our novel linguistic indicators of activation were strongly associated with depression scores (Patient Health Questionnaire [PHQ]-9) and longitudinal patient trajectories. Emotional tone; pronoun rates; words related to sadness, health, and biology; and BA-related LIWC categories appear to be complementary, explaining more of the variance in the PHQ score together than they do independently.ConclusionsThis study enables further work in automated diagnosis and assessment of depression, the refinement of BA psychotherapeutic strategies, and the development of predictive models for decision support.

Linguistic Indicators of Coercive Control: Evidenced in Sex Trafficking Narratives

Prior research on coercive control has focused on coercive behavioral tactics to better understand how coercion is exacted in abusive relationships. Furthering this body of research, this study extends coercive behavior to the linguistic domain, by examining the linguistic correlates of long-term coercive relationships. Using transcripts of wiretapped conversations, spanning a 2-year period, between two pimps and four women they sexually exploited, this study examined the distinct linguistic manifestation of asymmetric power in commercial sexual exploitation. Our findings suggest a complementary linguistic dimension to the commonly reported behavioral repertoire of coercive control tactics. Specifically, the victims consistently complied with the microregulation and surveillance presumed by their pimps by engaging in discursive overelaboration. This overelaboration often included details of their location, activity, and timing—and were designed to justify those as work-and profit-relevant. This pattern of pre-emptive, unsolicited overelaboration that the commercial sexually exploited women exhibited toward their pimps was almost nonexistent in their personal conversations with other individuals. These results open the opportunity for the indirect measurement of interpersonal abuse, making it less dependent on explicit physical abuse and more broadly situated within the coercive environment.