Construal and impersonalization in German and English: Comparing impersonal pronouns in online hotel reviews

IF 1.1 3区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Lingua Pub Date : 2024-08-02 DOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2024.103773

Bridgit Fastrich

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The current work explores the concept of construal in German and English, focusing specifically on the communicative feature of (im)personalization. Incorporating insights from cognitive linguistics, semantics and pragmatics, it takes as object of analysis a means of impersonalization, namely the use of human impersonal pronouns (HIPs) and, using a form-to-function approach, analyzes the dedicated HIPs man and one, as well as impersonally used 2nd personal pronouns du and you regarding their featural composition and pragmatic effects. The data consists of two parallel corpora of negative online hotel reviews taken from Booking.com. The findings reveal that German-speaking reviewers make use of HIPs more frequently and use the ‘less personal’ of the HIPs (man) as compared to English-speaking reviewers (who use the ‘more personal’ you), confirming the established contrast of German speakers using more impersonalized language. They further uncover a flexibility in the distribution and usage of German man that is not yet widely established in the literature, showing that German speakers use man in a myriad of ways to simultaneously impersonalize certain aspects of their reviews and indicate relevance to the reader. The findings point to a mixture of typological and linguacultural influences at play regarding the HIPs’ role in impersonalization in German and English negative online hotel reviews.

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德语和英语中的构词法和非人格化：比较在线酒店评论中的人称代词

本研究探讨了德语和英语中的构式概念，特别关注（非）个性化的交际特征。它结合认知语言学、语义学和语用学的观点，将非人格化的一种手段，即使用人称非人格代词（HIPs）作为分析对象，并采用从形式到功能的方法，分析了专用的人称代词 man 和 one，以及非人格化使用的第二人称代词 du 和 you 的特征构成和语用效果。数据由两个平行语料库组成，均来自 Booking.com 上的负面在线酒店评论。研究结果表明，与英语评论者（使用 "更人性化 "的 you）相比，德语评论者使用人称代词的频率更高，并且使用人称代词中 "较不人性化 "的人称代词（man），这证实了德语使用者使用更多非人性化语言的既定对比。他们进一步发现了德文 "人 "在分布和使用上的灵活性，而这种灵活性在文献中尚未得到广泛证实，这表明德语评论者使用 "人 "的方式多种多样，既能使评论的某些方面非个人化，又能向读者表明评论的相关性。研究结果表明，在德语和英语负面在线酒店评论中，HIPs 在非个人化方面的作用受到了类型学和语言文化的双重影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Lingua Multiple-

CiteScore

2.50

自引率

9.10%

发文量

审稿时长

24 weeks

期刊介绍： Lingua publishes papers of any length, if justified, as well as review articles surveying developments in the various fields of linguistics, and occasional discussions. A considerable number of pages in each issue are devoted to critical book reviews. Lingua also publishes Lingua Franca articles consisting of provocative exchanges expressing strong opinions on central topics in linguistics; The Decade In articles which are educational articles offering the nonspecialist linguist an overview of a given area of study; and Taking up the Gauntlet special issues composed of a set number of papers examining one set of data and exploring whose theory offers the most insight with a minimal set of assumptions and a maximum of arguments.