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Discourse-marking of concession and contrast in asynchronous online discussion

2011-05-14T14:26:15Z

140.203.154.5:

{{Summary
|title=Discourse-marking of concession and contrast in asynchronous online discussion
|authors=Diane M. Lewis
|url=http://sws.bu.edu/bfraser/CDM%20Papers/Lewis%20-%20DM%20of%20Concession....doc
|tags=pragmatics, linguistics, discourse-markers, concession, contrast, discourse analysis, CMC, online communication, online journalism, discussions, online argumentation, political discourse, online news
|summary=This linguistics conference paper discusses the concession markers "of course" and "bien sûr", contrasting their use in online forums and political speeches. Specifically, the online corpus comes from two UK (The Financial Times and The Guardian) and two French periodicals (Le Monde and Le Nouvel Observateur). (See Table 1). (Further usage data from UK conversations and periodicals is also presented from Lewis 2003, [[Rhetorical motivations for the emergence of discourse particles, with special reference to English of course]], but equivalent French data is not available.)

There are six regular uses of "of course" and "bien sûr":
# emphatic affirmation or denial
# hedging
# backgrounding
# introducing a sub-topic
# concession marking
# irony/disapproval (to distance the speaker from the proposition).

Irony is absent from political speeches but accounts for 15% of the use online, where irony, sarcasm, and mockery are acceptable argumentation strategies, and the discourse markers "of course" and "bien sûr" are used to discount the position.

Concession is the most common use (37%) in UK political speeches yet this use "of course" is comparatively rare (21%) in English online. In French, the percentages (35% in political speeches, 34% online) are similar, but the concessions use more straightforward constructions. In political speeches, concession is structural, setting up a contrast which discounts a satellite idea while emphasizing (e.g. following 'but' or 'mais') a nuclear idea. (See Table 6 for a typical concession construction.)

The author notes that "of course" is used more frequently in online forums than in political speeches and that it is "bleached: 39% of the time it is a relevance hedge providing little extra information. "Bien sûr", on the other hand, is most common (34%) in online forums as a concession device, which the author likens to an information-structuring role because of the tightly-structured concessions; further, French has alternatives in "certes" and "il est/c'est vrai (que)".

==Discussion Forums==
The corpus used is online discussion forums, enabling the author to make several interesting observations about this conversational, written genre.

First, she observes that messages are like both "conversational turns" (see e.g. Ferrara, K., Brunner, H., & Whittemore, G. (1991). [Interactive written discourse as an emergent register]. Written communication, 8(1), 8.) and "scripted monological speeches".

She presents two examples. First, a forum discussion from Le Monde is analyzed from the perspective of coherence, turntaking, agreement/disagreement. She considers the first 19 messages and first indexes these messages by participant (see Table 3). Table 4 indicates which message is answered, the subject line (abbreviated A-K, with e.g. Re A, J disagreement, etc), and the opening idea. Table 5 indicates the Message openings which react--either through quoting, stating disagreement or partial agreement.

Second, she presents a Guardian-Unlimited discussion illustrating topic decay as well as how one-to-many conversations on a topic "can turn into a set of overlapping dyadic 'conversations' (which apparently happens offline as well, per [Zimmerman, D.H. and Boden, D. (1991). '[[Structure in action: an introduction]]'. In D. Boden and D.H. Zimmerman (eds) Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press, 3-21.) Such dyadic conversations use more dialogic language (with more interpersonal references, modal and attitudinal markers (see Yates, S.J. (1996) '[[Oral and written linguistic aspects of computer conferencing: a corpus-based study]]'. In Herring, S. (ed.) (1996) [[Computer-mediated communication. Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives.]] Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 29-46.

"The dislocation of turn-taking and the jumbling of several 'conversations', far from deterring participants, can speed up the discussion." She finds evidence of "multiple intertwined dyadic conversations", indicated through the use of names (see Werry, C.C. (1996) '[[Linguistic and interactional features of Internet Relay Chat]]'. In Herring, S. (ed.) (1996) [[Computer-mediated communication. Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives.]] Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 47-63.), exact quotes (e.g. see Mondada, L. (1999) '[[Formes de séquentialité dans les courriels et les forums de discussion. Une approche conversationnelle de l'interaction sur Internet]]'. Apprentissage des Langues et Systèmes d'Information et de Communication vol. 2, no. 1, 3-25.), and the tendency to send "several consecutive messages each directed at a different participant".

In contrast to the Herring's 'basic electronic message schema' (link to an earlier message, express views, appeal to other participants) (from page 91 of Herring, S.C. (1996) '[[Two variants of an electronic message schema]]'. In Herring, S.C. (ed.) [[Computer-mediated communication. Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives.]] Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 81-106), the author finds no uniformity in message length, language style, structure, or topic, and few appeals to other participants.

The main message structure is [reaction] + position + evidence. Reactions are often coded in discourse mesages such as oh, yes, exactly, so, well, but, ok, yep, and, actually, of course, erm, anyway. Within political forums, the general position statement is often backed up by one or more supporting statements and argumentation. Here is an example supplied from an FT.com Globalization discussion:

"In globalisation, ideas of democracy are a major cause of division.
For example, a five-page essay last year on Taiwan told us ... "

Coherent sequences found in the argumentation sections include "question + answer", "concession and counterargument", "claim + evidence", "denial + correction or account". These tend towards either dialogic (e.g. Q&A) or monologic argument, though they can appear in both contexts. Examples of each are presented.

The author believes that material influences such as screen size and transmission speed are less important than "social and economic factors that new technologies are given rise to".

==Future Work==
Longtitudinal studies of CMC could start to address other linguistics-oriented questions like:
* "How quickly do new online discourse communities establish their own styles and conventions?"
* "What kind of dialect levelling takes place and how?"
* "How do discourse practices circulate online among different communities?"

This paper is likely among the first to address online argumentation, yet does not present suggestions for future work in that area.

==Context of this Conference Paper==
This was presented at a panel on 'Different approaches to spoken interaction' organized by Anna-Brita Stenström and Karin Aijmer, citation from [http://perso.univ-lyon2.fr/~dlewis/ccaod.htm author]

An updated journal article is based on this paper; see Lewis, D. M. (2005). [[Arguing in English and French asynchronous online discussion]]. Journal of Pragmatics, 37(11), 1801-1818. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2005.02.014

===Other related work on genre analysis/linguistics in new media, connectives, and discourse pragmatics===
The author's dissertation was about discourse connectives: Diana LEWIS. [Some emergent discourse connectives in English: Grammaticalization via rhetorical patterns]. (U. Oxford, 2000).

(Following selected from citations on [http://perso.univ-lyon2.fr/~dlewis/Publ.htm her publication page]):

* 2007. '[[From temporal to contrastive and causal: the emergence of connective after all]]'. In Agnès Celle and Ruth Huart (eds) Connectives as discourse landmarks, 89-99. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
* 2006. '[[Contrastive analysis of adversative relational markers using comparable corpora]]'. In K. Aijmer and A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen (eds) Pragmatic Markers in Contrast, 139-153. Oxford: Elsevier.
* 2006. '[[Discourse particle: A discourse-pragmatic category]]'. In K. Fischer (ed.) Approaches to Discourse Particles, 43-60. Oxford: Elsevier.
* 2005. '[[Mapping adversative coherence relations in English and French]]'. Languages in Contrast 5(1), 33-48.
* 2005. '[[Corpus comparables et analyse contrastive: L'apport d'un corpus français/anglais de discours politiques à l'analyse des connecteurs adversatifs]]'. In G. Williams (ed.) La Linguistique de corpus, 179-190. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Abstract
* 2003. '[[Rhetorical motivations for the emergence of discourse particles, with special reference to English of course]]'. In Ton van der Wouden, Ad Foolen and Piet Van de Craen (eds.) Particles (Belgian Journal of Linguistics vol. 16), 79-91. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Abstract]
* 2003. '[[Online news: a new genre?]]' In J. Aitchison and D.M. Lewis (eds.) New Media Language, 95-104. London: Routledge.
|relevance=Among the first linguistics studies of online argumentation. Important for considering coherence and rhetorical markers. The variant uses (and divergent semantics) of even simple terms like "of course" provides a caution against simple keyword-based indexing of online argumentation.

Further details on methodology would have been helpful for future researchers.

}}

Beyond Wikipedia: Coordination and conflict in online production groups

2010-07-21T15:56:33Z

140.203.154.5:

{{Summary
|title=Beyond Wikipedia: Coordination and Conflict in Online Production Groups
|authors=Aniket Kittur, Robert E. Kraut
|url=http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/connect/CSCW_10/docs/p215.pdf
|tags=Wikia, Wikipedia, CSCW, coordination, conflict
|summary=In this paper, Kittur & Kraut study "online production groups" by trying to understand whether "some common processes are involved in the growth of all wiki communities". The generalizations on wikis are generated by comparing 6000+ Wikia wikis to (English) Wikipedia. Wikipedia has specific qualities that make it hard to generalize:
* it is an established community
* has established policies and norms
* many active volunteers
* social network/reputation
To provide a basis for generalizing, much of the study focuses on Wikia, which uses similar structures and norms as Wikipedia (including MediaWiki software).

==Background theory and questions==
Goals, norms, policies, and contributors may affect how work is organized. Coordination, in particular, changes as groups grow in size. They are particularly interested in conflict (under what conditions does it arise? How effective are "coordination mechanisms in managing conflict at different scales"?)

Wikipedia is more than the accretion of numerous edits (see [[Power of the few vs. wisdom of the crowd: Wikipedia and the rise of the bourgeoisie]]). Coordination is more complex in wikis because the group is more diffuse, without a control-command structure. Thus (citing [[Discontinuities and continuities: A new way to understand virtual work]] (ref 40)), collaboration requires "developing a common view of their task, their work processes and the work product."
Three main coordination mechanisms (from the "classic" understanding of group process and organizational behavior) are expected:
# direct peer-to-peer contact and communication
# group structure (role differentiation, formal and informal management).
# shared mental models - either from spending time in a common environment or the use of standards, guidelines, and policies
These form the core of the paper, where coordination, group structure, and use of standards, guidelines and policies are later studied.

==Their Analysis==
They used the full history from 6811 public wikis hosted on Wikia - 5 million pages created and maintained by 1 million editors. These show a skewed distribution of contributions and "very few communities survive to become highly successful with continued activity". (This notion of success focuses on the community, rather than the wiki knowledge base.)

===Coordination===
The amount of communication increases over time, to become 10-15% of edits in Wikipedia and Wikia wikis. They hypothesize that "user talk scales with the number of users while article talk remains relatively constant"; they suggest looking for a common law governing coordination.

In Wikipedia article talk edits are 6-8% of all edits "for most of the lifespan of Wikipedia". User talk edits grew substantially from 2003-2005 (increased by a factor of 78); as of 2008, user talk edits were 6-7% of all edits.

====Standards, Guidelines and Policies====
Wikipedia is different from the other wikis studied in this respect: it uses policies and procedures much more heavily. "While policy and procedure edits grew up to 10% of all edits made in Wikipedia, their influence remains relatively small in other wikis, hovering around 3%." They provide some evidence that the Wikipedia namespace is a reasonable choice for review of standards, guidelines, and policies; however, as they note, deletion, WikiProjects, and other material is also contained in this space.

====Group Structure====

They use the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient Gini coefficient] to show the differences between heavily edited and non-highly edited wikis; these are evident even "at inception". A core group of contributors seem to make most of the edits -- which they say points to the relevance of a workgroup structure.

===Conflict===
They look to revert patterns to understand conflict, based on several past studies (se ref 3, 22, 35 below). They find the number of contributors to to be the most important factor, and find that the contributor density (number of contributors per page) is also important. This may relate to "the degree to which those editors are forced to interact".

===Influence of Coordination on Conflict===
They try to predict the number of reverts based on certain figures from the previous month: number of editors and coordination methods.

The proportion of article talk is associated with conflict though "It is difficult to distinguish whether article talk is a cause of conflict or a marker of conflict, since much conflict happens during the discussion of an article, but given that we are predicting conflict for a given month using the article talk from the previous month, this suggests that the more communication there is, the more likely it is for conflict to occur. ".

Having work concentrated in a core group is also associated with increase conflict (but also with improved article quality): "This suggests that there may be a risk/reward situation with having a small group of editors doing most of the work: if they work well together, avoid territoriality, and help structure the work of less involved contributors they can be extraordinarily effective in improving quality; but if they do not, having a few highly committed editors who are highly committed only to their own personal viewpoints can be a source of high conflict. An intriguing possibility is that in some situations both may be true, if conflict between editors is constructive and helps to clarify arguments and improve the page."

Policy and procedural work may help manage conflict, but changes in policy and procedure "are associated with greater conflict in subsequent time periods".

Article talk, user talk, and concentration of workgroup structure seem to increase in effectiveness for managing conflict as the wiki grows, counter to previous research. The authors hypothesize a "social benefit" to communication, perhaps by promoting shared mental models.

Further work is also needed to explain differences in these results, compared to related research.

==Selected References==
* ref 3: Brandes, U. and Lerner, J. [[Visual analysis of controversy in user-generated encyclopedias]]. Information Visualization 7 (2008), 34–48.
* ref 22: Kittur, A., Suh, B., Chi, E., & Pendleton, B. A. [[He says, she says: Conflict and coordination in Wikipedia]]. In Proceedings of CHI (2007).
* ref 35: Suh, B., Chi, E., Pendleton, B. A., & Kittur, A. [[Us vs. them: Understanding Social dynamics in Wikipedia with revert graph visualizations]]. In Proceedings of VAST (2007).
* ref 40: Watson-Manheim, M., K. Chudoba, and K. Crowston, [[Discontinuities and continuities: A new way to understand virtual work]]. Information Technology & People, 15 (2002), 191- 209.
|relevance=* Importance of workgroups and core groups.
* Early results about counterintuitive results about conflict

The authors suggest further research on "how task and relationship factors interact". That might help predict "more optimal coordination patterns"; they suggest running experiments and interventions combining macro and micro models -- large scale network dynamics and micro-level coordination dynamics.
|journal=CSCW 2010
|pub_date=2010
|subject=Computer Science
|pub_open_access=yes
}}