Use Of Second Person Pronouns Research Articles

Between “You” and “Me”: Effects of Pronouns and Order on Disclosing Sexual Assault

ABSTRACT The wording of self-report instruments likely affects its responses; however, there has been very little inquiry into the topic. The purpose of this study was to examine how items in a sexual assault experiences questionnaire varied based on pronouns (first person or second person) and order (sexual-behavior or coercive-tactic first) affected responses. College students (N = 979) were randomly assigned in a 2 by 2 between-subjects experiment to experimental versions of the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES). The findings indicated that the condition with second-person pronouns and coercive-tactic first phrasing had the highest rate of disclosure. Based on reading time results, respondents may have engaged more in processing of items with second-person pronouns or coercive-tactic first phrasing. Moreover, respondents in coercive-tactic first conditions reported more mental effort was required in answering compared to respondents in the sexual-behavior first conditions. There was no effect of condition on negative affect and very little change in negative affect from completing the SES. Overall, the results support the use of second-person pronouns and coercive-tactic first phrasing in sexual assault self-report instruments to support disclosure of this stigmatized crime. Future research should examine how these findings may be extended to other self-report instruments.

Linguistic analysis of phone interviews of Nobel laureates reveals differences in communication styles between economists and scientists

Language styles used by academics working in disciplines are different, possibly reflecting how different types of knowledge are conceived, communicated and taught. Most of the studies on the communication style of academics are based on analyses of pre-prepared academic writings and formal speeches. It is not known whether such differences in language styles are also practised in informal, colloquial communications. In this paper, we report a Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) analysis of the telephone interviews given by 82 Nobel Prize laureates in the fields of natural sciences (chemistry, physics, physiology, or medicine) and economic sciences. LIWC analysis identifies differences in usage frequency of words in various language categories. The result shows a higher use of money- and power-related words by economic laureates and a higher use of second-person pronouns among science laureates. When second-person pronouns were used, economic laureates tended to use them as a general reference, while scientists tended to use them as courtesy sentences or discourse markers. These observations indicate that different language styles are used by scholars of different research fields even in their impromptu verbal communications. It is possible that word choices by economists are influenced by the content of economic studies, which are concerned with influencing the external environment and by their preference in describing processes and actions. A more involved and high level of cautions, alertness, and precision in conversion may be indicated in the speaking style of natural scientists.

Linguistic structures and innovation: A behavioral approach

We draw on the Sapir-Whorf theory of linguistics and its effect on cognition, to advance the theory of commercial innovation. We do so by analyzing the association between linguistic structures and innovation output. We evaluate three distinct linguistic categories (grammatical gender marking, the use of second-person pronouns, and the use of first-person singular pronouns) and demonstrate that the corresponding linguistic variables are strongly associated with innovation output and performance. Our paper makes several contributions to the literature. We advance management scholarship by demonstrating how the Sapir-Whorf theory of language relativity can provide a deeper understanding of technology development processes and the functioning of national systems of innovation. Specifically, our quantitative results regarding the association between the three metrics of linguistic structure and innovation have important implications for theory, policy, and practice. Finally, we contribute to the ongoing theoretical debates on gender inequality, group creativity, and collaborative innovation.

A pragmatic analysis of Shylock’s use ofthouandyou

AbstractShakespeare’s Shylock has been so debatable a character since its introduction to the English stage. According to the existing literature, there is an on-going debate as to whether this Jewish character is a villain or falls victim to the anti-Semitic community. The current study applies deictic theory of pronouns to examine the relationship between this character’s employment ofthouandyou, and his affect based on the hypothesis that a person’s use of pronouns, among other function words, can reveal their sense of self. Findings have shown that Shylock uses both pronouns in the normative way considerably more than in the pragmatic way; that he adheres to the normative use of the terms more than do his Christian counterparts; and that when he pragmatically uses them, expressions of his negative emotions often appear. Findings also suggest that (fictional) persons’ use of second-person pronouns reflects to some degree their sense of freedom and reciprocity relative to others. In this case, the rather restrictive and abusive employment ofthouandyouby the Jew indicates him being suppressed and alienated from society, which in turn drives him to wreak vengeance on the Christians – the culminating action that makes him meet his eventual downfall.

“People confuse respeto ‘respect’ with terms of address”: an analysis of online metacommunication about politeness and second-person pronoun use in Peninsular Spanish

Abstract This article investigates online metacommunication about politeness and second-person pronouns in Peninsular Spanish. I propose a framework that integrates a discursive approach to politeness, speech codes theory, and dialogism to capture emically the contested nature of politeness at the cultural level. The analyses show two oppositional codes of address: Las formas ‘manners’ presumes that the use of usted (formal-second person pronoun) is the default polite way to enact respect towards societal hierarchical structures. El tuteo ‘the act of addressing somebody as you[tú]’ presumes that respect is not inherent in terms of address or an obligation towards hierarchy; instead, respect is owed to all people and earned through one’s actions. These codes co-exist in tension and their respective meanings stem from how they articulate with each other. I conclude that online metacommunication provides new affordances to study politeness and speech codes.

My Team Will Go On

Understanding team viability --- a team's capacity for sustained and future success --- is essential for building effective teams. In this study, we aggregate features drawn from the organizational behavior literature to train a viability classification model over a dataset of 669 10-minute text conversations of online teams. We train classifiers to identify teams at the top decile (most viable teams), 50th percentile (above a median split), and bottom decile (least viable teams), then characterize the attributes of teams at each of these viability levels. We find that a lasso regression model achieves an accuracy of .74--.92 AUC ROC under different thresholds of classifying viability scores. From these models, we identify the use of exclusive language such as 'but' and 'except', and the use of second person pronouns, as the most predictive features for detecting the most viable teams, suggesting that active engagement with others' ideas is a crucial signal of a viable team. Only a small fraction of the 10-minute discussion, as little as 70 seconds, is required for predicting the viability of team interaction. This work suggests opportunities for teams to assess, track, and visualize their own viability in real time as they collaborate.

Linguistic Structures and Innovation: A Behavioral Approach

National systems of innovation exhibit a high level of variance stemming from numerous factors that include economic and legal structures, cultural attributes, and the consequent policies. We draw on the Sapir-Whorf theory of language relativity and its effect on cognition, to advance the theory of commercial innovation. We do so by analyzing the association between linguistic structures and innovation output. We evaluate three distinct linguistic categories (grammatical gender marking, the use of second-person pronouns, and the use of first-person singular pronouns) and demonstrate that the corresponding linguistic variables are strongly associated with innovation output and performance. Our paper makes several contributions to the literature. We advance management scholarship by demonstrating how the Sapir-Whorf theory of the language relativity can provide a deeper understanding of business innovation processes. Specifically, our quantitative results with regard to the association between the three metrics of linguistic structure and innovation have important implications for theory, policy, and practice. Finally, we contribute to the ongoing theoretical debates on gender inequality, group creativity, and collaborative innovation.

Diachronic Corpora, Genre, and Language Change by Richard J. Whitt

REVIEWS Diachronic Corpora, Genre, and Language Change. Ed. by R J. W. (Studies in Corpus Linguistics, ) Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins. . viii+ pp. €. ISBN ––––. Over the last forty years ‘genre’ has been one of the most important concepts in historical linguistics, at least in historical sociolinguistics (see Terttu Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg, ‘Historical Sociolinguistics: Origins, Motivations, and Paradigms’, in e Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, ed. by Juan M. Hernández-Campoy and J. Camilo Conde-Silvestre (Malden: Blackwell, ), pp. – (p. )). It is thus the laudable aim of this volume to provide a state-ofthe -art overview of the study of genre as an influence on language change as well as the locus of language change, and to supplement other collections of papers on this topic. e book consists of fourteen chapters originally presented at a conference at the University of Nottingham in April . e collection is divided into three sections: Part  on ‘Methods in Diachronic Corpus Linguistics’; Part  on ‘Genre and Diachronic Corpora’; and Part  on ‘Genre-Based Analyses of Linguistic Phenomena’. A richly referenced and intellectually comprehensive introduction by the book’s editor offers a readable and insightful definition of genre in general and the particular challenges faced by addressing these issues in the compilation and mining of diachronic corpora. at the very concept of genre is still under discussion is demonstrated by the fact that, despite the remarks in the general introduction, most papers give their own definition as well. Following on from the general introduction, the first part begins with a contribution by Konstantin Niehaus and Stephan Elspaß, who introduce their corpus project on nineteenth-century German, a project with a special focus on the balance of regional variation and register variation. ey illustrate the benefits of their corpus with a case study of three German grammatical features, one from syntax, one from derivational morphology, and one from inflectional morphology. Because of their corpus design, they can provide evidence that regional variation in German was rather pluriareal than pluricentric and that the view ‘from below’ uncovers more variation for research into the history of modern German. e next chapter, by Bryan Jurish, introduces the formal bases of DiaCollo, an open-source tool for diachronic collocation profiling. ird, Eric Atwell presents a range of corpus resources and their applications developed for classical and modern Arabic, and how they are used despite their different genres and variants to train machine learning of modern texts. e second part consists of two papers, the first by Irma Taavitsainen on the change in genre in English medical writing between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, and the second by Bethany Gray and Douglas Biber, who show with convincing detail how language change actually happens in the genre of academic writing, a genre that is generally seen to be ‘resistant to change’ (p. ). e grammatical changes under scrutiny by the authors did not originate in speech, as  Reviews their cross-genre comparison shows. is contribution leads into the third part, starting with Georgia Fragaki and Dionysis Goutsos tracking the actual language use between H variety katharévousa and L variety dhimotikí in Greek over nine decades in different genres, showing the changes and their dependence on genre. It is followed by Florian Haas on the increase of the impersonal use of ‘you’ independent of the overall use of second-person pronouns in different genres in English. Ole Schützler maps out the frequencies and semantics of the concessive conjunctions ‘although’, ‘though’, and ‘even though’ in American English. Karolina Rudnicka traces the relation between sentence length, genre, and the syntactic usage of ‘in order to’ in English. Whereas up to this point the third part presents sound studies on linguistic features in corpora and their dependence on genre, the second half of Part  focuses a little more on corpus design itself. e preferred use of single-genre over multigenre corpora is discussed in Carola Trips and Achim Stein’s paper on the rise of the recipient passive in English in the contact situation of Middle English and Old French, an approach similar to that of Andrés Enrique-Arias, who tests the pros and cons...

Storytelling in legal settings

Abstract A number of linguistic studies on courtroom discourse deal with witness examinations, however counsels’ opening statements have been given relatively little attention. Drawing on the analysis of a Crown Prosecutor’s opening statement in a murder trial held at the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and using the Systemic Functional Linguistics framework (Halliday 1994), this study highlights the ways in which the prosecutor constructs his narrative of the crime in his opening statement in order to persuade the jurors of his views. Specifically, the analysis highlights the ways in which the narrative is made persuasive through its specific rhetorical organization and over-specification of orientational information, as well as more credible through quotations from participants with personal experience in the related events. It also shows the ways in which the prosecutor seeks to engage the jurors through his use of second-person pronouns, as well as his differentiated use of the crime participants’ names. Finally, this study highlights the dialogic and heteroglossic characteristics of the adversarial legal process, in that it both refers to what was previously stated and tries to anticipate the response of the jury, whose voice comes as the last word through their verdict.

Functions of “you” in conference presentations

The construction of a suitable image of the addressee is crucial for the success of academic communication. Unlike in writing, second person pronouns abound in academic and research speech. This paper studies the discourse functions of explicit you-mentions in conference presentations, trying to explain how they contribute to achieving speakers' goals. I also investigate possible differences between native and non-native speakers in the way they conceptualize audiences into their presentations. In general, speakers employ second-person pronouns to impart knowledge, secure shared interpretations, direct the audience's attention to visuals, and reinforce interpersonal links with the audience. Patterns of second-person pronoun use found in NNS presentations are sometimes reminiscent of pedagogic discourses, and show a mitigated use of second-person pronouns for specific functions like expressing positive politeness. However, they also show an enhanced sensitiveness towards the communicative needs of the audience, which translates into a greater awareness and readiness to exploit the communicative potential of the visual modes to ensure the audience's understanding.

Such stuff as dreams are made on: Dream language, LIWC norms, and personality correlates.

We describe the language features of dream narratives from 3 large samples of normal persons using Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC), a computer text analysis program. Compared with LIWC norms from waking narratives, LIWC dream narratives showed more use of function words in general, common words, past tense verbs, relativity (particularly space), inclusion, leisure, friend, and home words, and less use of second-person pronouns, present and future verbs, causation words, large words, and assent words. Dream narratives did not contain more negative emotion words. These patterns were consistent across investigators, samples gathered at different times from student and online sources, and instructions for dream reports (i.e., recent dream vs. important dream). Statistically significant correlations between dream language features and personality (as measured by the Ten-Item Personality Inventory and the Big Five Inventory) were few in number and small in effect sizes. We conclude with discussing the implications of computer text analysis of dreams in more systematic studies comparing linguistic features with dream themes in cross-cultural clinical populations, and the implications of these features for scientific understanding of the continuum of consciousness.

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can also hurt me: The relationship between customer verbal aggression and employee incivility.

Customer service employees tend to react negatively to customer incivility by demonstrating incivility in return, thereby likely reducing customer service quality. Research, however, has yet to uncover precisely what customers do that results in employee incivility. Through transcript and computerized text analysis in a multilevel, multisource, mixed-method field study of customer service events (N = 434 events), we found that employee incivility can occur as a function of customer (a) aggressive words, (b) second-person pronoun use (e.g., you, your), (c) interruptions, and (d) positive emotion words. First, the positive association between customer aggressive words and employee incivility was more pronounced when the verbal aggression included second-person pronouns, which we label targeted aggression. Second, we observed a 2-way interaction between targeted aggression and customer interruptions such that employees demonstrated more incivility when targeted customer verbal aggression was accompanied by more (vs. fewer) interruptions. Third, this 2-way interaction predicting employee incivility was attenuated when customers used positive emotion words. Our results support a resource-based explanation, suggesting that customer verbal aggression consumes employee resources potentially leading to self-regulation failure, whereas positive emotion words from customers can help replenish employee resources that support self-regulation. The present study highlights the advantages of examining what occurs within customer-employee interactions to gain insight into employee reactions to customer incivility. (PsycINFO Database Record

Marginalisation, Exclusion and Identity of Santals

Santals, being a tribal community, have faced the consequences of economic backwardness. Therefore, they have migrated to different areas in order to search for jobs. This paper focuses on the Santals in the age group of 20 and above who live in Rakshitpur village of Kanksa block in Burdwan district of West Bengal. In order to facilitate communication with the dominant community, they have taken up Bangla as their language of communication. Now a significant difference is observed in Bangla as spoken by Santals and that spoken by the Bengali community. This difference is in use of second person pronouns to indicate tu-vous (T/V) distinction. This tu-vous (T/V) distinction is a marker of power-distinction and solidarity prevalent within the society. While in other variations of Bangla there are three distinct terms ‘tui-tumi-aapni’ to indicate this distinction, Santals use only/tui/as a second person pronoun which is a tu (T) form. Thus, the migration of Santals has led to their social exclusion which finally resulted in their marginalisation. Apparently, Santals have left their linguistic identity as one of the consequences of marginalisation. However, a deeper analysis will reveal that they have retained their linguistic identity through certain subtle usages. This paper attempts to analyse how the particular usage of ‘tui’ by Santals has affected the solidarity-power distinction between the Santal and Bengali communities and also how this particular usage becomes a marker of the identity of the Santals.

Impressive Words: Linguistic Predictors of Public Approval of the U.S. Congress.

What type of language makes the most positive impression within a professional setting? Is competent/agentic language or warm/communal language more effective at eliciting social approval? We examined this basic social cognitive question in a real world context using a “big data” approach—the recent record-low levels of public approval of the U.S. Congress. Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), we text analyzed all 123+ million words spoken by members of the U.S. House of Representatives during floor debates between 1996 and 2014 and compared their usage of various classes of words to their public approval ratings over the same time period. We found that neither agentic nor communal language positively predicted public approval. However, this may be because communion combines two disparate social motives (belonging and helping). A follow-up analysis found that the helping form of communion positively predicted public approval, and did so more strongly than did agentic language. Next, we conducted an exploratory analysis, examining which of the 63 standard LIWC categories predict public approval. We found that the public approval of Congress was highest when politicians used tentative language, expressed both positive emotion and anxiety, and used human words, numbers, prepositions, numbers, and avoided conjunctions and the use of second-person pronouns. These results highlight the widespread primacy of warmth over competence as the primary dimensions of social cognition.

The Use of Second Person Pronouns in Shakespeare�s Tragedy of Hamlet and Macbeth

This article concerns on the use of second person pronouns thou and you in Shakespeares Tragedy of Hamlet and Macbeth. Throughout the history of English language, second person pronouns have undergone many changes until they become only one form you. In the earlier period, the distinction between thou and ye was in a matter of the number of people being addressed. However, in early modern English, the use of second person pronouns did not depend only on the number of people, but also on the power and solidarity relations. Dealing with its changes, the use of second person pronouns thou and you in Shakespeares plays is interpreted in this article. Results show that Shakespeares plays provide a different view of the use of these pronominal forms. Nevertheless, Shakespeare actually follows the rule of pronominal forms dictated by society, yet some cases show inconsistency. The inconsistency refers to the switching between thou and you. It indicates that something emotionally happens among the characters which can be observed through their conversations.

Swift, Satire and the Second-Person Pronoun

This article examines Jonathan Swift’s use of second-person pronouns and his direct addresses to a ‘Reader’, surveying his works and closely examining passages from A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels . Data relating to pronoun distribution across Swift’s corpus are analysed in the broader context of the historical development and eighteenth-century deployment of the pronouns. The analysis demonstrates the close interaction of these pronouns with Swift’s other modes of address to his imagined readers, and his exploitation of their surprisingly complex range of connotations. A more accurate understanding of their potential and nuance is shown to be central to a fuller perception of Swift’s satiric method, especially in those passages involving dramatic and ironic play with the notions of author, reader, and their constructed textual relationship.

Differential lexical correlates of social cognition and metacognition in schizophrenia; a study of spontaneously-generated life narratives

ObjectivesSocial cognition and metacognition have been identified as important cognitive domains in schizophrenia, which are separable from general neurocognition and predictive of functional and treatment outcomes. However, one challenge to improved models of schizophrenia has been the conceptual overlap between the two. One tool used in previous research to develop cognitive models of psychopathology is language analysis. In this article we aimed to clarify distinctions between social cognition and metacognition in schizophrenia using computerized language software. MethodsFifty-eight (n=58) individuals with schizophrenia completed the Metacognitive Assessment Scale Abbreviated and measures of social cognition using the Hinting, Eyes, BLERT and Picture Arrangement test. A lexical analysis of participants’ speech using Language Inquiry and Word Count software was conducted to examine relative frequencies of word types. Lexical characteristics were examined for their relationships to social cognition and metacognition. ResultsWe found that lexical characteristics indicative of cognitive complexity were significantly related to level of metacognitive capacity while social cognition was related to second-person pronoun use, articles, and prepositions, and pronoun use overall. The relationships between lexical variables and metacognition persisted after controlling for demographics, verbal intelligence, and overall word count, but the same was not true for social cognition. ConclusionsOur findings provided support for the view that metacognition requires more synthetic and complex verbal and linguistic operations, while social cognition is associated with the representation and clear identification of others.

The use of second person pronouns in a literary work

Abstract For this study we investigated all occurrences of Dutch second person pronoun subjects in a literary novel, and determined their interpretation. We found two patterns that can both be argued to be functionally related to the de-velopment of the story. First, we found a decrease in the generic use of second person, a decrease which we believe goes hand in hand with an increased distancing of oneself as a reader from the narrator/main character. Second, we found an increase in the use of the descriptive second person. The increased descriptive use of second person pronouns towards the end of the novel is very useful for the reader, because the information provided by the first person narrator himself becomes less and less reliable. Thus, the reader depends more strongly on information provided by other characters and what these characters tell the narrator about himself.

Use of second-person pronouns and schizophrenia

A masked analysis of videotaped assessments of people at high genetic risk of schizophrenia revealed that those who subsequently went on to develop schizophrenia used significantly more second-person pronouns. This was evident before diagnosis, at two separate assessments approximately 18 months apart. This supports the view that people who go on to develop schizophrenia may have an abnormality in the deictic frame of interpersonal communication - that is, the distinction between concepts being self-generated or from elsewhere may be blurred prior to the onset of a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The pronoun of address in Piers Plowman

This paper is a study of the singular pronoun of address in Piers Plowman. Previous studies have held that Langland’s use of second-person pronouns conformed to the Old English system where the distinction between the thou and ye type pronouns was strictly based on number. This view has accorded with the assumption that singular ye in the late fourteenth century was restricted to “courtly” genres (Burnley 2003: 29). The appearance of singular ye in the manuscripts has mainly been explained by scribal interference; at best, Samuels (1988: 214) states that authorial usage is impossible to define. The present study is based on a detailed analysis of scribal variants in all three versions of Piers Plowman. It suggests that the use of ye comes no less naturally to Langland than to Chaucer, and that it forms an integral part of the language of Piers Plowman. The extent of scribal alteration with regard to this feature was modest, and there seems to be no reason to interpret the shared usage as anything but authorial. Finally, it is suggested that the choice between thou and ye in this period was not merely a question of authorial creativity but an obligatory choice for the speaker, with real social and pragmatic implications.