Pescuma, Valentina N. & Serova, Dina & Lukassek, Julia & Sauermann, Antje & Schäfer, Roland & Adli, Aria & Bildhauer, Felix & Egg, Markus & Hülk, Kristina & Ito, Aine & Jannedy, Stefanie & Kordoni, Valia & Kühnast, Milena & Kutscher, Silvia & Lange, Robert & Lehmann, Nico & Liu, Mingya & Lütke, Beate & Maquate, Katja & Mooshammer, Christine & Mortezapour, Vahid & Müller, Stefan & Norde, Muriel & Pankratz, Elizabeth & Patarroyo, Angela G. & Pleșca, Ana-Maria & Ronderos, Camilo R. & Rotter, Stephanie & Sauerland, Uli & Schnelle, Gohar & Schulte, Britta & Schüppenhauer, Gediminas & Sell, Bianca Maria & Solt, Stephanie & Terada, Megumi & Tsiapou, Dimitra & Verhoeven, Elisabeth & Weirich, Melanie & Wiese, Heike & Zaruba, Kathy & Zeige, Lars Erik & Lüdeling, Anke & Knoeferle, Pia (2022) “Situating language register across the ages, languages, modalities, & cultural aspects: Evidence from complementary methods”, Frontiers in Psychology 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.964658
Abstract
In the present review paper by members of the collaborative research center “Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation” (CRC 1412), we assess the pervasiveness of register phenomena across different time periods, languages, modalities, and cultures. We define “register” as recurring variation in language use depending on the function of language and on the social situation. Informed by rich data, we aim to better understand and model the knowledge involved in situation- and function-based use of language register. In order to achieve this goal, we are using complementary methods and measures. In the review, we start by clarifying the concept of “register”, by reviewing the state of the art, and by setting out our methods and modeling goals. Against this background, we discuss three key challenges, two at the methodological level and one at the theoretical level: (1) To better uncover registers in text and spoken corpora, we propose changes to established analytical approaches. (2) To tease apart between-subject variability from the linguistic variability at issue (intra-individual situation-based register variability), we use within-subject designs and the modeling of individuals’ social, language, and educational background. (3) We highlight a gap in cognitive modeling, viz. modeling the mental representations of register (processing), and present our first attempts at filling this gap. We argue that the targeted use of multiple complementary methods and measures supports investigating the pervasiveness of register phenomena and yields comprehensive insights into the cross-methodological robustness of register-related language variability. These comprehensive insights in turn provide a solid foundation for associated cognitive modeling.
Funding
This research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—SFB 1412, 416591334.
BibTeX entry
@article{PescumaEs2023,
author = {Pescuma, Valentina N. and Serova, Dina and Lukassek, Julia and Sauermann, Antje and Sch{\"a}fer, Roland and Adli, Aria and Bildhauer, Felix and Egg, Markus and H{\"u}lk, Kristina and Ito, Aine and Jannedy, Stefanie and Kordoni, Valia and K{\"u}hnast, Milena and Kutscher, Silvia and Lange, Robert and Lehmann, Nico and Liu, Mingya and L{\"u}tke, Beate and Maquate, Katja and Mooshammer, Christine and Mortezapour, Vahid and family=M{\"u}ller, given=Stefan, given-i={St.} and Norde, Muriel and Pankratz, Elizabeth and Patarroyo, Angela G. and Pleșca, Ana-Maria and Ronderos, Camilo R. and Rotter, Stephanie and Sauerland, Uli and Schnelle, Gohar and Schulte, Britta and Sch{\"u}ppenhauer, Gediminas and Sell, Bianca Maria and Solt, Stephanie and Terada, Megumi and Tsiapou, Dimitra and Verhoeven, Elisabeth and Weirich, Melanie and Wiese, Heike and Zaruba, Kathy and Zeige, Lars Erik and L{\"u}deling, Anke and Knoeferle, Pia},
title = {Situating language register across the ages, languages, modalities, and cultural aspects: {Evidence} from complementary methods},
date = {2023},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2022.964658},
journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
pages = {1--31},
publisher = {Frontiers},
volume = {13},
}
