Showing papers in "Journal of Language and Social Psychology in 2005"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined basic affective communication online, mirroring a dearth of empirical research identifying spontaneous affective verbal cues in face-to-face interaction, and found that the proportion of affect expressed verbally online compared to that which is verbal offline and specific behaviors that account for affective communications in each channel.
Abstract: Alternative views of computer-mediated communication suggest that it is devoid of affective cues and interpersonal expression, or that the translation of affect into verbal cues facilitates relational communication. Little research has examined basic affective communication online, mirroring a dearth of empirical research identifying spontaneous affective verbal cues in face-to-face interaction. An experiment prompted participants to enact greater or lesser affinity in face-to-face or synchronous computer chat dyads in order to assess the proportion of affect expressed verbally online compared to that which is verbal offline and the specific behaviors that account for affective communication in each channel.Partners’ ratings demonstrated affective equivalency across settings. Analyses of the verbal, kinesic, and vocalic behaviors of face-to-face participants and verbal transcripts from computer sessions revealed specific cues in each condition that led to these ratings. Results support a primary but previ...
415 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated attitude-mediated contact effects on language learners' motivational disposition by addressing the question as to whether increased intercultural contact through tourism will lead to enhanced language attitudes and language learning motivation.
Abstract: This article investigates attitude-mediated contact effects on language learners’ motivational disposition by addressing the question as to whether increased intercultural contact through tourism will lead to enhanced language attitudes and language learning motivation. The analysis is based on empirical data gathered in a repeated cross-sectional survey of 8,593 13- and 14-year-old Hungarian pupils in a national sample, stratified according to regions and dwelling types whose contact parameters were specified through objective census data and expert panel judgments. The results reveal a curvilinear contact-attitude relationship, with the highest contact group/locality being associated with some of the lowest attitudinal and motivational measures.
173 citations
TL;DR: This paper investigated how word use in a stressful narrative is related to levels of grief and intrusive and avoidant thinking associated with the stressful event and found that participants used more negative emotion, cause, sensory, and first person singular words when describing the breakup in comparison to describing the period when they were still dating.
Abstract: The authors investigated how word use in a stressful narrative is related to levels of grief and intrusive and avoidant thinking associated with the stressful event. A total of 218 college students who had experienced the breakup of a romantic relationship during the preceding 12 months produced a written narrative of the relationship and subsequent breakup using an expressive writing procedure. Participants used more negative emotion, cause, sensory, and first person singular words when describing the breakup in comparison to describing the period when they were still dating. In addition, greater avoidance of the breakup predicted greater use of negative emotion, first person singular and third-person pronouns, and less use of cognitive words. Conversely, levels of grief predicted less use of causal words and greater use of first person singular pronouns. The authors argue that use of cognitive words reflect an active search for meaning and understanding of the stressful event.
161 citations
TL;DR: The Emotional Broadcaster Theory (EBT) of emotional disclosure as mentioned in this paper proposes that the intrapsychic need to share experiences with others serves the interpersonal function of transmitting news, and the extent to which stories travel reflects the degree to which the original teller was affected by the experience shared.
Abstract: This article introduces the Emotional Broadcaster Theory (EBT) of emotional disclosure. EBT proposes that the intrapsychic need to share experiences with others serves the interpersonal function of transmitting news. According to the model, psychologically arousing stories will travel across social networks. In addition, the extent to which stories travel reflects the degree to which the original teller was affected by the experience shared. These hypotheses were tested in a field study wherein college students visited a hospital morgue. Students’ reactions to this experience predicted how many people they told (primary sharing), how many people their friends told (secondary sharing), and how many people their friends’ friends told (tertiary sharing). Within 10 days, nearly 900 people heard about this event through these cascading levels of disclosure. The relation of EBT to discrepancy theories of emotion and to basic beliefs is discussed, as are additional predictions arising from EBM.
121 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the effect of different markers of linguistic powerlessness (hedges, hesitations, and tag questions) on persuasion and found that strong arguments were no more persuasive than weak arguments when the message contained any of these markers.
Abstract: This research examined the unique effects of different markers of linguistic powerlessness (hedges, hesitations, and tag questions) on persuasion. Participants read (Experiment 1) or listened to (Experiment 2) a communication advocating comprehensive exams. Under high message relevance, messages containing powerless markers resulted in less favorable attitudes and more negative perceptions of the message and source than did the control message. This effect occurred in both experiments and was a result of these markers lessening the impact of strong arguments; in Experiment 2, strong arguments were no more persuasive than weak arguments when the message contained any of these markers. Under low message relevance, tag questions improved the persuasiveness of message arguments relative to the control condition. These results demonstrate that the effects of linguistic markers of powerlessness are complex and depend on marker type and processing depth.
103 citations
TL;DR: This paper investigated whether modern sexism predicts men's use of gender-biased terms for women and found that men lower in modern sexism used fewer genderbiased terms in a written format than did men higher in modern sexist.
Abstract: Two studies investigated whether modern sexism predicts men’s use of gender-biased terms for women. When established norms suggest a preference for neutral terms (e.g., woman, female), men lower in sexism should avoid potentially biased terms (e.g., lady, girl). Adhering to such an established norm, however, may require conscious effort. In Study 1, men lower in modern sexism used fewer gender-biased terms in a written format than did men higher in modern sexism. Study 2 replicated this result using an oral format but only when men were not cognitively busy with another task. Cognitive busyness apparently interfered with low modern sexists’ efforts to use more neutral terms. Implications for other forms of gender-biased language, as well as for long-term change in the use of gender-biased language, are discussed.
42 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the ways in which ethnic minority and majority group members account, in an interview context, for the existence of discrimination in Dutch society, and concluded that the discursive strategies used can be understood in relation to the way speakers position themselves within particular discourses.
Abstract: This article discusses the ways in which ethnic minority and majority group members account, in an interview context, for the existence of discrimination in Dutch society. Taking a discursive approach, the focus is on the strategies used to describe and explain discrimination. In both groups, certain members were found to use discursive strategies questioning the omnipresence of discrimination and problematizing its causes, whereas others employed devices that made discrimination appear factual, with the Dutch as its main agents. The use of these strategies was examined in relation to subject positions that the participants took up throughout the interview. It is concluded that the discursive strategies used can be understood in relation to the way speakers position themselves within particular discourses. Hence, similar discursive strategies function in different ways in different contexts, and both mainstream and discourse analytical studies on discrimination should not start from a simple majority-minority dichotomy.
37 citations
TL;DR: The present findings suggest that naïve listeners are sensitive to gender differences in speech production and are able to use those differences to reliably categorize unfamiliar male and female talkers by dialect.
Abstract: The identification of the gender of an unfamiliar talker is an easy and automatic process for naive adult listeners. Sociolinguistic research has consistently revealed gender differences in the production of linguistic variables. Research on the perception of dialect variation, however, has been limited almost exclusively to male talkers. In the present study, naive participants were asked to categorize unfamiliar talkers by dialect using sentence-length utterances under three presentation conditions: male talkers only, female talkers only, and a mixed gender condition. The results revealed no significant differences in categorization performance across the three presentation conditions. However, a clustering analysis of the listeners’ categorization errors revealed significant effects of talker gender on the underlying perceptual similarity spaces. The present findings suggest that naive listeners are sensitive to gender differences in speech production and are able to use those differences to reliably categorize unfamiliar male and female talkers by dialect.
33 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This paper examined the ways in which ethnic minority and majority group members account, in an interview context, for the existence of discrimination in Dutch society, and concluded that similar discursive strategies function in different ways in different contexts, and both mainstream and discourse analytical studies on discrimination should not start from a simple majorityminority dichotomy.
Abstract: This article discusses the ways in which ethnic minority and majority group members account, in an interview context, for the existence of discrimination in Dutch society. Taking a discursive approach, the focus is on the strategies used to describe and explain discrimination.In both groups,certain members were found to use discursive strategies questioning the omnipresence of discrimination and problematizing its causes,whereas others employed devices that made discrimination appear factual, with the Dutch as its main agents. The use of these strategies was examined in relation to subject positions that the participants took up throughout the interview. It is concluded that the discursive strategies used can be understood in relation to the way speakers position themselves within particular discourses. Hence, similar discursive strategies function in different ways in different contexts, and both mainstream and discourse analytical studies on discrimination should not start from a simple majority-minority dichotomy.
31 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined 74 Canadian judicial sentencing decisions (1993-1997) involving offenders who had sexually abused children and adolescents using discursive social psychology, and analyzed judicial explanations for the offenses, and their implications for mitigation and aggravation.
Abstract: The motives ascribed to offenders in the sentencing of sexual abuse crimes can be highly contentious. Some critics claim that sexual assaults are acts of power and violence and that reference to sexual motives minimizes violence and the seriousness of the offense. The present study examines 74 Canadian judicial sentencing decisions (1993-1997) involving offenders who had sexually abused children and adolescents. Using discursive social psychology, the authors analyze judicial explanations for the offenses, and their implications for mitigation and aggravation. Violent attributions were rare. Sex-based explanations predominated, variously invoking the selfish gratification of offenders’ sexual desires, sexual impulses, pedophilia, and offenders’ attraction to victims. However, in contrast to critics’ claims, these explanations are used by judges to emphasize the seriousness of these crimes. The findings highlight the importance of analyzing discourse in relation to action sequences rather than in isolation. The authors discuss the implications for the study of sexual assault and legal discourse.
25 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the diluting impact of nondiagnostic information results in part from rules of everyday communication, which usually grant relevance to presented information, and that the impact of diagnostic information on judgments and in decision making is often reduced when additional, non-diagnostic information is presented.
Abstract: The impact of diagnostic information on judgments and in decision making is often reduced when additional, nondiagnostic information is presented. This article argues that the diluting impact of nondiagnostic information results in part from rules of everyday communication,which usually grant relevance to presented information.In an experimental test, participants were presented with positive or negative information about a product.Positive diagnostic information resulted in more favorable judgments than negative diagnostic information. This impact of diagnostic information was diluted when nondiagnostic information was added. Most important, the dilution effect was not observed when the applicability of the conversation was experimentally called into question.
TL;DR: The authors found that negative mood produced more negative and less polite feedback strategies, and these effects were stronger for novices rather than experts, and the cognitive mechanisms mediating mood effects on verbal communication are discussed, and implications of the results for our understanding of verbal communication in organizations, and for recent affect-cognition theories are considered.
Abstract: How does mood influence verbal communication? Based on recent affect-cognition theories and communication research on message production, this experiment predicted and found (a) a significant affect-congruent influence on performance feedback messages, that (b) was significantly greater for inexperienced rather than expert communicators. Participants, who were either experts (managers) or novices (other staff) in a large consulting company, received a mood induction and then produced verbal feedback to an employee whose performance file they previously studied. Negative mood produced more negative and less polite feedback strategies, and these effects were stronger for novices rather than experts. The cognitive mechanisms mediating mood effects on verbal communication are discussed, and the implications of the results for our understanding of verbal communication in organizations, and for recent affect-cognition theories are considered.
TL;DR: The theory of communicative responsibility as mentioned in this paper posits that individuals in communicative situations make systematic judgments of the extent to which each party is responsible for contributing to the process of creating understanding in a communicative event.
Abstract: Two studies are presented that provide the first empirical tests of a theory of communicative responsibility. The theory posits that individuals in communicative situations make systematic judgments of the extent to which each party is responsible for contributing to the process of creating understanding in a communicative event. These judgments affect the extent to which communicators engage in implicature and inference-making during the communicative event. The first study demonstrates that judgments of communicative responsibility affect communicative performance. Respondents’ judgments of their personal communicative responsibility in a direction-giving task were positively associated with the length of their directions. The second study showed that a communicator’s failure to behave in a communicatively responsible manner was associated with negative perceptions of the communicative behavior. Communicative responsibility theory would be useful in a number of areas of communication research, including...
TL;DR: The authors compared the effects of self and other-face equivocation, and found that the use of ambiguity or vagueness is used to protect face when an interlocutor seeks to avoid a hurtful truth or a deception.
Abstract: Equivocation, the use of ambiguity or vagueness, is used to protect face when an interlocutor seeks to avoid a hurtful truth or a deception. This study compared the effects of self and other-face, ...
TL;DR: This paper evaluated the linguistic characteristics of writing about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks through a social cognitive processing theory framework and found that a total of 537 people completed an Inter...
Abstract: Linguistic characteristics of writing about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were evaluated through a social cognitive processing theory framework. A total of 537 people completed an Inter...
TL;DR: This paper examined whether variations in response latencies to a speaker's query can be used to infer certain characteristics of a respondent and found that the acceptance range of response latency behavior varied with different speech acts and evaluative dimensions.
Abstract: Four experiments examined whether variations in response latencies to a speaker’s query can be used to infer certain characteristics of a respondent. Across all experiments, participants listened to a set of monologues that varied in their underlying speech act (honesty, confidence, certainty, compliance). In Experiment 1, participants were asked to produce a designated one-word response to each monologue with the latency that conveyed either the most favorable or unfavorable impression. Experiment 2 relied on a perceptual rating task and confirmed that those latencies produced to express the most positive and negative impressions were in fact perceived as such by an independent group of participants. More important, the acceptance range of response latency behavior varied with different speech acts and evaluative dimensions. Experiments 3 and 4 extended these findings by revealing that the duration of inter-sentence pauses of a speaker’s monologue appears to be the primary determinant of response timing ...
TL;DR: This paper examined perspective taking, empathic concern, and attitude toward women as potential mediators of age and gender effects on college students' attitudes toward sexist language, and found that women were more likely to identify with women than men.
Abstract: This study examined perspective taking, empathic concern, and attitude toward women as potential mediators of age and gender effects on college students’ attitudes toward sexist language. Perspecti...
TL;DR: The authors examined the role of defining and characteristic features in the comprehension of OSAs and found that participants differentiated between ostensible, ambiguous, and sincere speech in their goodness ratings, they perceived the defining features in OSAs, but not in sincere speech, and the characteristic features served as cues that an utterance was ostensible.
Abstract: Ostensible speech acts (OSAs) have been defined as possessing pretense, mutual recognition, collusion, ambivalence, and an off-record purpose. These researchers also noted that several features occur more often in ostensible than sincere speech (e.g., speaker hedges, violates preparatory conditions). The authors examined the role of these defining and characteristic features in the comprehension of OSAs. Participants read conversations containing sincere, ambiguous, or ostensible speech acts, and provided ratings of “goodness,” pretense, or mutual recognition, predicted the next speech act, judged the attitude of the speaker, or indicated the reason for the speech act. Participants differentiated between ostensible, ambiguous, and sincere speech in their “goodness” ratings, they perceived the defining features in OSAs, but not in sincere speech, and the characteristic features served as cues that an utterance was ostensible. These results support Isaacs and Clark’s description of OSAs.
TL;DR: This article found that participants were more adept at judging author gender than genre, and were more accurate in judging male than female authorship, and that author gender was more closely aligned with actual than statistically predicted gender.
Abstract: Objective analyses of the language used in published literature have revealed effects of both author gender and literary genre. It is unclear, however, whether readers are sensitive to these differences. Participants’ ratings of author gender and literary genre were evaluated against actual gender and genre and statistically predicted gender and genre. Statistical predictions of gender and genre were based solely upon the authors’ use of a selection of gender-preferential language features. Overall, participants were far more adept at judging author gender than genre. They were also more accurate in judging male than female authorship. Judgments of author gender were more closely aligned with actual than statistically predicted gender. This suggests that authors display their gender in ways that extend beyond the specific language features they employ. In showing this, the study helps explain why gender is often difficult for authors to hide and for readers to ignore.
TL;DR: In a pretest-posttest design, subscribers to women's magazines were mailed a high- versus low-power message arguing a radical feminist view as mentioned in this paper, and the results showed that involved women changed their opinions more after the high-power style message and less after the low power style message.
Abstract: In a pretest-posttest design, subscribers to women’s magazines were mailed a high- versus low-power message arguing a radical feminist view. Uninvolved women changed their opinions more after the high-power-style message, and involved women more after the low-power-style message.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a lexicon of words that possess a unique meaning in African American English (AAE) and demonstrate the logic of the language through a model of paradigms for describing auxiliary AAE verb forms.
Abstract: More than a decade has passed since Wiley (1992) wrote Why Black People Tend to Shout, a provocatively titled collection of essays about African American culture.Two recent scholarly texts take substantially different approaches to a slightly different question—the ways in which African Americans communicate among themselves and with members of other ethnic groups. Green studies the topic from a linguistic perspective; Hecht, Jackson, and Ribeau, in contrast, adopt an interactional view. Green’s work owes much, as she readily acknowledges, to the extant work of Smitherman (1986), whose Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America introduced linguistic relativism to the study of what has previously been called Black English (among other things). At the center of Smitherman’s argument is the claim that Black English is not slang, “a version of bad English,” or “standard English with mistakes.”Rather, she argues,Black English is based on logic inherent in the mother tongues of Africans whose descendants were taken to what eventually would become the United States. Green develops Smitherman’s claim further, starting from an understanding that Black English is rule governed and systematic, and composing the first textbook on the grammar of African American English (AAE). African American English opens with a lexicon of words (e.g.,mannish) that possess a unique meaning in AAE. Perhaps more interesting than the lexicon, though, is the fact that Green generates this word list without drawing a conclusion as to whether AAE is a language or a dialect. (The distinction is insignificant, Green contends, because both languages and dialects are governed by rules.) In chapter 2, Green discusses the syntactic properties of AAE, including verbal markers such as unique forms and aspectual uses of be and do, the preverbal use of come, and the use of steady as a “predicate adverb” (Baugh, 1984).This chapter also illustrates the logic of the language through a model of paradigms for describing auxiliary AAE verb forms. The discussion of syntax continues into chapter 3, which explains the use of double negatives, the existential it and dey, the use of had as a preterite verb, the unique syntax of questions, and the morphosyntactic properties of AAE. The next section of the book analyzes the phonology (sound combinations) of AAE, exhibited in dropped
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an in-depth examination of the correlation between the linguistic resources and the power of a speech community in the United States, using an auto-ethnographic approach to study African American English.
Abstract: Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture delivers what the title promises: an in-depth examination of the correlation between the linguistic resources and the power of a speech community. Marcyliena Morgan tackles intellectually challenging and socially meaningful topics that highlight some pivotal points of language-based concern in racial relations in the United States. This review will offer a general overview of the book’s content, and delve into some key strengths and weaknesses. Morgan uses an (auto)ethnographic approach to studying African American English (AAE). The introduction clearly and succinctly reveals the focus around which the content coheres: “While one aim of this book is to describe and analyze contemporary language and communication among African Americans in the US, its main focus is on language as an aspect of culture and the ways in which it mediates identity across cultural and social contexts” (p. 9).Developing an understanding of the social construction of African American identity provides a useful framework with which to examine various discursive data. The book is divided into six chapters. The first chapter, studying the African American speech community, reveals some points of academic interest for scholars. First, the discussion of “speech community” implies that she is drawing from the tradition of ethnography of communication. The chapter also provides an effective historical context from which to see and hear the data that are presented in subsequent chapters. This historical overview is accomplished using some vivid data from African American poetry (involving a particularly eloquent analysis of the controversy surrounding Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s work), historic events, and narrative analysis. The chapter draws strongly upon Erving Goffman’s work, and is useful to anyone interested in studying face and/or marginalization. The second chapter focuses on “forms of speech.” This chapter explores different forms of African American speech such as indirectness,pointed indirectness, baited indirectness, direct and directed speech, reading, signifying, and playing the dozens. Morgan effectively describes how the form is performed as well as what is “getting done” through the use of the form. The third chapter, examining “language norms and practices,” opens with a case study of one situation in which AAE language practices caused significant concern in a workplace setting. The rest of the chapter explores very controversial subjects, such as the debates over AAE versus General English use in