Personal Pronouns Research Articles

Analysing loneliness forum posts, the comments they elicit, and the responses to these comments

In May 2023, the United States surgeon general put out an advisory suggesting that loneliness and social isolation should be tackled and prioritized like health conditions such as substance abuse. Online loneliness forums provide a platform for users experiencing loneliness to engage with, share experiences/concerns, and seek support from others. On these forums, users (posters) publish support seeking posts and other users respond by either reacting to these posts and/or writing comments in which they provide support. In some cases, the posters respond to and engage with the comments that their posts elicit; understanding these interactions between posters and the comments their posts elicit can inform helpful communication strategies on online loneliness forums and online health forums, in general. Prior work on analyzing data from online loneliness forums did not study the interactions between posters and the comments their posts elicit. To address this, we present a dataset of posts and comments published in a 4 year time period i.e. from January 1 2019 to December 31 2022 on an online loneliness forum on Reddit. This dataset consists of (a) posts, (b) all the comments associated with these posts, (c) the comments that elicited responses from the posters, and (d) the responses of the posters to these comments. With this dataset, we conduct analysis using a topic modeling algorithm called BERTopic and a psycholinguistic dictionary called Linguistic Inquiry and word count (LIWC) to gain insights and elucidate the language markers associated with comments (to posts) that elicit responses from the posters. We find that as it relates to comments that received responses from posters, the following topic themes were associated with these comments i.e. relationships, empathy, and mental health concerns and the LIWC categories on second person pronoun, social processes, and present focus, were associated with these comments. We also find that the topic themes on appreciation was associated with the responses by posters to comments their posts received. We discuss these findings in the discussion section.

Linguistic Characteristics In The Research Background And Problem Statement In The Doctoral Thesis Of Arabic EFL Students In Malaysia

This study explores the linguistic features within the move structures of the research background and problem statement sections in Chapter One of PhD theses written by Arab students in Malaysia. The analysis focuses on four key language elements: verb tense, modality, voice (active and passive), and personal pronouns. A corpus of 30 theses was analyzed to determine common linguistic patterns, revealing significant insights into the language choices of these academic writers. The study employs concordance and hand-tagged analysis to examine verb tense and voice, with manual verification for modality and personal pronouns to ensure accuracy. Eight distinct verb tenses were identified, with the present simple tense being the most frequently used, representing 55.30% of the total instances. This indicates a preference for focusing on current knowledge and ongoing research. In contrast, the past simple and future simple tenses were used to describe past methodologies and future implications, respectively. Modal auxiliaries play a crucial role in conveying sentiments and opinions. The study identified seven modal verbs, with 'can' being the most commonly used, suggesting a focus on possibility over obligation. The analysis of voice patterns revealed a higher occurrence of active voice (79.66%), especially in moves that conveyed up-to-date knowledge. In contrast, passive voice was more common in methodological descriptions, indicating a focus on the actions or subjects rather than the actors. The study also examined the usage of personal pronouns, finding a higher frequency of third-person pronouns, suggesting a more objective narrative style. These findings offer valuable insights into the linguistic choices of Arab EFL students in academic writing, providing a deeper understanding of their communicative intentions and alignment with academic discourse conventions. The results can guide future research on linguistic patterns in academic writing and help educators support EFL students in improving their writing skills.

Quantitatively Measuring Developmental Characteristics in the Use of Deictic Verbs for Japanese-Speaking Children: A Pilot Study

The acquisition of deictic verbs is a significant milestone in language development. This complex process requires an understanding of the interplay between the personal pronouns “I/you” and deictic verbs. Although demonstrating the cognitive processes associated with deictic shifting through data is valuable, research issues regarding data accuracy and the spatial arrangement of the self and other remain unresolved. This pilot study aimed to quantitatively measure the body movements of Japanese-speaking children during their utterances of “come/go”. Twelve typically developing children aged 6–7 participated in this study. Multiple scenarios were set up where the researcher presented phrases using “come/go” with deictic gestures, such as moving one’s upper body forward or backward, and the participant replied with “come/go”. When performing a role, the researcher sat face-to-face or side-by-side with the participant, depending on the type of question–response. It is possible that there is a learning process whereby verbal responses using “come/go” align with corresponding body movements in the specific question type. This process is deeply involved in the development of perspective-taking abilities. Future research with relatively large samples and cross-cultural comparisons is warranted to deepen the understanding of this linguistic acquisition process and its implications.

The Function of Honorific Term Ité: Cultural Perspectives from Manggarai, Indonesia

Culture pertains to human existence and encompasses the various aspects of a civilization’s way of life. On the other hand, language refers to the complex communication system employed by individuals inside a specific culture or group. Language utilization typically represents the societal customs, cognitive processes, cognitive functioning, historical context, and interconnections within a given human civilization. Utilizing the inclusive personal pronoun "ité" in the Manggarai language facilitates identifying a connection between linguistic elements and cultural principles. This study examines the relationship between the two specified elements, particularly emphasizing the arguments offered. The data were obtained using observations and interviews conducted with fifteen traditional representatives. Subsequently, a qualitative analysis was performed on the collected data. The findings suggest that its utilization in its various manifestations indicates the cultural norms and customs observed by those living in the Manggarai region of Indonesia. Based on the presented data, this study asserts that the first personal pronoun plural inclusive "ité" in the Manggarai language and culture serves as a means for the speaker to communicate politeness and humility towards the hearer or listener. It signifies a genuine respect for the interlocutor, particularly when they hold a high position. In addition, ité shows familiarity, brotherhood, and sincerity in interpersonal relationships by expressing respect, appreciation, and enthusiasm. Furthermore, it functions as a deep gratitude towards the Divine Father.

Emotional Tone and Authenticity of World Governments’ Discourse Concerning Monkeypox: A Psycholinguistics Analysis

The discourses of Monkeypox relating to linguistics segments may contain a person's emotional tone and authenticity discourse from psychology. This article presents a psycholinguistic analysis of the discourse used by world governments during the monkeypox outbreak. It examines the emotional tone and authenticity of the language used by government officials in their discourses to the public. Therefore, this study used psycholinguistics analysis which adopt the Linguistics Inquiry Word Counts (LIWC) program to compute the text into a word count numbers with the average number of emotional tone and authenticity. The findings showed that emotional tone and authenticity of the discourse can have a significant impact on how the audience receives and interprets the message. Accordingly, the use of authentic communication strategies can enhance public trust and confidence in the government's ability to manage a crisis. It brings the implication that government officials should use language features that reflect a high level of authenticity, such as first-person pronouns and negative adjectives, to establish trust and confidence in their leadership during a public health crisis.

The First Step in Triadic Decision-Making Involving People with Dementia: Determining Who Talks When

ABSTRACT Everyone should have the opportunity to participate in decisions about their health, including people living with dementia. People with dementia typically bring a companion to medical appointments, so most care decisions are made in interactions involving three parties. To make decisions about their care, patients with dementia must have the opportunity to take a turn-at-talk in conversations where decisions are made. However, negotiating who speaks next in triadic talk is a complex task, especially when dementia-associated language and/or memory problems impact communication. Findings show that using second person (“you”) pronouns assist people with dementia in responding to queries, yet third person (“she/he”) can exclude them from the interaction, although this near-canonical pronoun use can be overridden by sequential placement, gesture, and gaze. We also demonstrate how midturn pronoun switching often only provides for tokenistic inclusion, though this again is dependent on sequential placement and embodied interaction. Data are in English.

Personal Pronouns in O̩gba and English Languages

Personal Pronouns in O̩gba and English Languages

Marketing Language in Tourism Discourse: Corpus Based Study on Personal Pronoun “You”

This paper investigates the use of the personal pronoun "you" in tourism discourse through a corpus-based study of the Lonely Planet website. As a central element in engaging readers, the pronoun "you" serves to directly address and involve the audience, making the discourse more interactive and persuasive. By analyzing a comprehensive corpus of travel-related texts, this study examines how "you" is strategically utilized to create a personalized experience, guide the reader's journey, and establish a conversational tone in tourism content. The research uncovers patterns in the usage of "you" across various contexts and topics within the website, providing insights into its role in shaping audience perception and enhancing the effectiveness of tourism marketing. This study contributes to a better understanding of linguistic strategies in digital tourism discourse, offering valuable implications for both researchers and professionals in the tourism industry.

Grammatical Cohesion in the Introduction Chapters of Linguistics Ph.D. Theses Written by Anglophone Academic Writers

Effective formal writing skills are crucial for educational success and improved academic status; however, writing in English can be challenging, especially for inexperienced English writers and for those individuals for whom English is not their primary language. One often experienced challenge is the appropriate use of cohesive devices (CDs) to organize texts and enhance their semantic potential. Thus, this study analyzed the grammatical CDs utilized by Anglophone Academic Writers (AAWs) in the introduction chapters of 45 Ph.D. theses (86,000 words) in the field of linguistics using Halliday and Hasan’s CDs taxonomy. The analysis showed that AAWs mainly employed references, particularly personal and demonstrative, followed by conjunctions, particularly additive ones, as their dominant CDs. Additive conjunctions helped establish the coherent progressions of ideas in the introductions, while personal references, especially first-person pronouns, conveyed authorial presence. Demonstrative references emphasized important ideas discussed in the theses. The strategic application of these grammatical CDs effectively directed readers through the introductions, creating a logical flow for the writers’ points. Therefore, this study presents valuable insights into the cohesive writing practices of AAWs, which can be used to enhance writing instruction and help novice English writers in improving their formal writing skills.

<i>Pridёt Dvoje iz Larca:</i> an Experimental Study of Variable Agreement with Quantified Subjects

This paper presents an experimental study of predicative agreement in person and number with two types of quantified subjects containing a personal pronoun. Using two syntactic experiments with a rating task (the Likert scale), we compared the properties of the elective (dvoje iz nas ‘two of us’) and nominative (my dvoje ‘us two’) constructions regarding the preferred form of the verb in two configurations: with the preverbal and the postverbal position of the subject. Ordinal numbers (from dvoje ‘two of’ to semero ‘seven of’) and the quantifier word vse ‘all’ were compared as well. The results show that word order has a significant impact on the acceptability of different agreement strategies. For the elective construction, with the SV order, agreement by person and number of the quantifier is available, and the default agreement is rated as significantly less acceptable, while with the VS order, there are no significant differences between the ratings of the two agreement options. For a nominative construction with SV, only agreement by person and number of the pronoun is possible, while with VS, all strategies are rated as acceptable.

How to encourage consumers' ongoing participation in physical exercise via feedback: Evidence from a longitudinal field experiment

Improving consumers' ongoing participation in physical activity is crucial to enhance consumer well-being. While many consumers may begin an exercise program, sustaining their continued participation often presents a significant challenge. This study tests the effectiveness of providing different ex post feedback reminders to motivate consumers' ongoing exercise. We developed feedback reminders across two dimensions. One dimension varied the feedback messages according to whether the messages attributed performance to participants' own efforts, and the other dimension used different personal pronouns to examine whether the deictic relational framing of the feedback mattered. We developed an exercise recording application embedded in WeChat to conduct an 8-week longitudinal field experiment in China. We find that when feedback messages were provided, participants in the “I/We” frame and “You frame + effort emphasized” treatment groups achieved their weekly exercise goals more frequently, especially for subjects with low self-regulation. However, when feedback was no longer provided, the influence of the “You frame + effort emphasized” treatment was even reversed.

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF CHINESE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY PROFILES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF FUNCTIONALIST APPROACH

The study aims to compare and analyze English pharmaceutical company profiles (EPCP) and Chinese pharmaceutical company profiles (CPCP) from the perspective of functionalist approach with the guideline of translation-oriented text analysis. A corpus will be used in the research. There are various differences on intratextual elements between the two profiles. From the corpus data, explicitly appellative functions are characterized by the high-frequency words in English whereas Chinese pharmaceutical company profiles weigh heavily in informative functions to sustain the authority. On sentence structure, it is observed that there are wide varieties of imperative sentences in native profiles whereas declarative sentences are in Chinese profiles. Other strategies for text functions in the native profile are the use of block language. In English profiles, rhetoric plays an important role for appealing; rhetorical person pronouns, metaphors, alliteration, repetition and parallelism are common devices used to draw empathy for the company or products, and can also stir motivation for purchase action. Results would serve for formulating a model for English translations of Chinese pharmaceutical company profiles.

How is L2 pair interaction related to fluency and language use? A quantitative approach

Previous research examined L2 interaction by describing salient features exhibited in different patterns of peer interaction. These studies mostly used qualitative methods and focused on the collaborative aspect of such construct (Galaczi, 2008). The present study adopts a quantitative approach to explore and describe L2 interaction, utilizing the data of the Corpus of Collaborative Oral Tasks (CCOT). Specifically, it measures pairs’ interaction by creating a composite score of interactivity to understand the relationship between the dyads' degree of interactivity and their use of lexico-grammatical features as well as their L2 fluency. Pearson's correlation tests showed weak to moderate positive relationships between interactivity and discourse particles, response forms, wh-questions, and second person pronouns. Additionally, the tests revealed weak negative relationships between interactivity and both nominal forms and hesitations. Furthermore, revealing moderate relationships, Pearson's correlation tests showed that interactivity was associated with more fluent L2 speech, where learners of higher interactivity levels tended to produce fewer silent pauses and faster speech rates. The study provides insights for scholars interested in L2 interaction. It suggests that some linguistic features were not only associated with collaborative behaviors (as reported in the literature) but also with interactivity as broad aspect. Furthermore, it provides a description of how the act of turn taking might potentially serve the fluency of higher interactivity students, warranting further investigation of turn frequency among L2 test takers as test raters might potentially be influenced by the test candidates’ fluency. Finally, it reports that L2 interactivity exhibited a relationship pattern with linguistic features that resembles patterns reported in the literature of studies on native speakers of English.

Speaking for the downtrodden

Abstract Most linguistic studies of political speaking in the field of critical discourse analysis tend to focus on speeches delivered by prominent politicians either in a domestic party-political setting or in the international arena. Less attention has been afforded to speeches by civil rights activists and campaigners for other progressive causes. To fill this gap, the present paper focuses on political speaking occurring outside of the party-political setting. The data comprises 120 American activist speeches from the years 1808–2016. The analysis focuses on the construction of ingroups and outgroups, and whether the use of personal pronouns is affected by the type of audience. The frequency trends bring forth new information about the referential complexity of pronouns within individual speeches.

Identifying Reddit Users at a High Risk of Suicide and Their Linguistic Features During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Growth-Based Trajectory Model.

Suicide has emerged as a critical public health concern during the COVID-19 pandemic. With social distancing measures in place, social media has become a significant platform for individuals expressing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. However, existing studies on suicide using social media data often overlook the diversity among users and the temporal dynamics of suicide risk. By examining the variations in post volume trajectories among users on the r/SuicideWatch subreddit during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study aims to investigate the heterogeneous patterns of change in suicide risk to help identify social media users at high risk of suicide. We also characterized their linguistic features before and during the pandemic. We collected and analyzed post data every 6 months from March 2019 to August 2022 for users on the r/SuicideWatch subreddit (N=6163). A growth-based trajectory model was then used to investigate the trajectories of post volume to identify patterns of change in suicide risk during the pandemic. Trends in linguistic features within posts were also charted and compared, and linguistic markers were identified across the trajectory groups using regression analysis. We identified 2 distinct trajectories of post volume among r/SuicideWatch subreddit users. A small proportion of users (744/6163, 12.07%) was labeled as having a high risk of suicide, showing a sharp and lasting increase in post volume during the pandemic. By contrast, most users (5419/6163, 87.93%) were categorized as being at low risk of suicide, with a consistently low and mild increase in post volume during the pandemic. In terms of the frequency of most linguistic features, both groups showed increases at the initial stage of the pandemic. Subsequently, the rising trend continued in the high-risk group before declining, while the low-risk group showed an immediate decrease. One year after the pandemic outbreak, the 2 groups exhibited differences in their use of words related to the categories of personal pronouns; affective, social, cognitive, and biological processes; drives; relativity; time orientations; and personal concerns. In particular, the high-risk group was discriminant in using words related to anger (odds ratio [OR] 3.23, P<.001), sadness (OR 3.23, P<.001), health (OR 2.56, P=.005), achievement (OR 1.67, P=.049), motion (OR 4.17, P<.001), future focus (OR 2.86, P<.001), and death (OR 4.35, P<.001) during this stage. Based on the 2 identified trajectories of post volume during the pandemic, this study divided users on the r/SuicideWatch subreddit into suicide high- and low-risk groups. Our findings indicated heterogeneous patterns of change in suicide risk in response to the pandemic. The high-risk group also demonstrated distinct linguistic features. We recommend conducting real-time surveillance of suicide risk using social media data during future public health crises to provide timely support to individuals at potentially high risk of suicide.

Reconstructing stop and nasal-initial 1st person pronouns to Proto-Trans-Himalayan

Abstract Two 1st person singular pronouns, #ŋa and #ka, are reconstructed for Proto-Trans-Himalayan. The functions of these roots and the relation between them in the proto-language have not been definitively established. Other work has presented a distinct case for a 1st person plural #ka in PTH. This paper compares the evidence for 1st person singular and plural #ka and argues that they are the same root, which in some languages has shifted from plural to singular function.

German Demonstrative Pronouns in Contrast

German has two demonstrative pronouns: the der, die, das paradigm and the dieser, diese, dies(es) paradigm. Previous studies mainly compared the anaphoric use of der with the personal pronoun er and observed that der refers to less prominent antecedents. However, there are only very few studies that have investigated the differences between these two demonstrative pronouns. We hypothesize that they differ in signaling topic persistence and in accessing contrastive antecedents. We tested these hypotheses in short texts that manipulated the contrast of the antecedent by inducing the expression ‘in contrast to’ vs. ‘together with’ (e.g., the cellist in contrast to the flautist vs. the cellist together with the flautist). Results from our eye-tracking reading Experiment (Experiment 1), in which participants’ eye- movements were monitored while reading sentences, show that (i) readers preferred dieser when referring to the topic of a sentence, and (ii) dieser caused less processing difficulties than der in both contrast and no-contrast contexts. Our sentence completion Experiment (Experiment 2) also confirmed that der and dieser are both used for anaphoric reference to a topical antecedent. Collectively, our experiments provide evidence that dieser functions as inducing topic persistence. These results suggest that there is a need for further experimental investigation into the semantic factors and informational structures influencing the usage of demonstrative pronouns in German.

Collective pronouns, collective health actions: Predicting pandemic precautionary measures through online first-person plural pronoun usage across U.S. states

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the role of group identification in shaping collective health behaviors. Using the novel Pronoun-Influenced Collective Health Model — an integrated framework combining elements from health and social psychology theories — we investigated the relationship between online first-person plural pronoun usage and adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures across the United States. Analyzing weekly Google Trends data on English (Study 1) and Spanish (Study 2) first-person pronoun searches, alongside data on adherence to pandemic precautionary measures from early 2020 to late 2022, we found significant positive associations between relative first-person plural pronoun search volumes and adherence to social distancing, stay-at-home orders, vaccination rates, and proactive disease prevention information seeking. These associations remained robust after adjusting for potential confounding factors. A mini meta-analysis (Study 3) confirmed the consistency of our findings, revealing no significant moderation effects by language context or ecological-socio-cultural factors, suggesting broad generalizability. The implications of this research highlight the potential for tracking online collective language as a valuable indicator of and proxy for societal-level health engagement during crises. This novel digital linguistics approach, synergistically combining applied health and social psychology with big data from digital platforms such as Google, offers powerful tools for monitoring collective health actions across linguistic and cultural boundaries during large-scale health crises.

Étude des interférences intralinguistiques en FLE: l'impact des homographes et des pronoms sur l'apprentissage des compléments et articles définis à Osun State University-Nigeria

Study of Intralinguistic Interference in FLE: The Impact of Homographs and Pronouns on the Learning of Complements and Definite Articles at Osun State University-Nigeria Linguistic interference is a psycholinguistic phenomenon which slows down the learning process of the target language due to the existing similarities between it (L2) and the one already acquired (L1). Many research works had been carried out on linguistic transfer and interference. However, among those works, only a significant few have underscored the intra-linguistic interference as a trap associated with understanding the homographs, personal pronoun complements and definite articles in the class of French as a foreign language FLE. Therefore, this paper evaluates the grammatical implications that the distinctions between le, la, la les as personal pronoun complements and definite articles in Allah n’est pas obligé by Ahmadou Kourouma have on Anglophone French learners. The theoretical framework adopted to foreground our claims is linguistic transfer and interference. Percentage (%) is the scale used to interpret their performance while data are analysed based on textual analysis. The text is purposively selected to situate our analysis in the context of a postcolonial Francophone African literary text whose learning is always complicated among Anglophone and Yorubaphone French learners. Five questions were asked to evaluate the language skills of the seventy-five (75) third-year students at Osun State University across twenty corpora drawn from the work. The morpho-phonetic similarities between the definite articles and the personal pronoun complement inhibit the comprehension of instructional materials. In conclusion, contextual interpretation and more rigorous study of the grammatical subject matters are suggested to both teachers and learners, respectively, to eliminate the confusion associated with the teaching and learning of the homographs. To significantly improve academic performance among non-French-speaking learners, authorities should implement the pragmatic interventions outlined in this article, involving teaching professionals and learners alike.

An Analysis of Linguistic Resources for Sports Tourism Media Discourse: A Case Study of the Women’s World Cup Final in Sydney

Sports have historically played a significant role in influencing travel, the twenty-first century witnessing a notable surge in sports tourism attributed largely to increasing globalisation and the pervasive influence of social media. International sports events hosted by countries and cities serve as potent platforms for tourist promotion, with meticulous attention to detail often reflected across various social media channels. Notably, recent editions of such events have seen women taking on crucial roles. This paper delves into the FIFA Women’s World Cup Final held in Sydney, Australia, in August 2023, analysing three distinct corpora to discern linguistic resources—the use of persuasion with personal pronouns and imperatives, among others—shaping tourism media discourse, specifically focusing on gender visibility and promotion of destination excellence. To conduct this research, we compiled a corpus of 11,549 words comprising webpages, online publications and tourism blogs, using AntConc software for the analysis. Our findings reveal that the media employ specific language choices to portray the event and its host city, projecting values such as teamwork and inclusion, often through community engagement. However, there exists an under-representation of coverage concerning sportswomen, with minimal linguistic patterns used to promote their visibility beyond the event’s title. Conversely, the host city receives extensive promotion. Consequently, this analysis serves as a pertinent case study contributing to the understanding of sports tourism media discourse representation.