Item Details

The Effect of Noun Phrase Grammar on the Affective Meaning of Social Identity Concepts

Issue: Vol 5 No. 1-2 (2018)

Journal: Journal of Research Design and Statistics in Linguistics and Communication Science

Subject Areas: Linguistics

Abstract:

We examine the influences of determiners (a/an, the, and all) and grammatical number (singular or plural) on the affective meaning of social identity concepts. Some linguistic evidence suggests that changes in the grammatical form of a noun phrase may shift its affective meaning, while other research highlights the importance of context for such shifts. We conceptualize and measure affective meaning in terms of evaluation (goodness), potency, and activity drawn from research in affect control theory (ACT), a social psychological theory of culture and language. In two experiments, participants rate 28 social identity concepts, which are either count or collective nouns, presented in one of five grammatical forms. In congruence with ACT, the data support that the bulk of a concept’s affective meaning is carried by the noun itself, rather than by the grammatical features of the noun phrase in which the concept is expressed.

Author: Daniel B. Shank, Sarah E. Hercula, Brent Curdy

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References :

Andrews, E. (1996). Cultural sensitivity and political correctness: The linguistic problem of naming. American Speech 71: 389-404.
https://doi.org/10.2307/455713

Curdy, B. H. (2018). Explaining Variance in Affect Control Theory: Cultural Consensus, Deflection, and Redefinition. Dissertation, Duke University. https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16952

Desmond-Harris, J. (2016). Why Donald Trump says 'the' before 'African Americans' and 'Latinos'. In Vox. https://www.vox.com/2016/10/20/13342646/donald-trump-african-americans-latinos-race-racism-inner-city.

Eriksen, T. H. (2002). Ethnicity and nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto Press.

Heise, D. R. (1979). Understanding Events: Affect and the Construction of Social Action. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Heise, D. R. (2007). Expressive Order: Confirming Sentiments in Social Actions. New York: Springer.

Heise, D. R. (2010). Surveying Cultures: Discovering Shared Conceptions and Sentiments. Chichester: Wiley.

Heise, D. R. (2019). Cultural Meanings and Social Institutions. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03739-0

Heise, D. R. and MacKinnon, N. J. (2010). Self, identity, and Social Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230108493

Hobbs, A. (2017). Trump and Black History Month. In The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-black-history-month.

MacKinnon, N. J. (1994). Symbolic Interactionism as Affect Control. New York: State University of New York.

Mason, W. and Siddharth S. (2012). Conducting behavioral research on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Behavior Research Methods 44: 1-23.
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0124-6

McConnell-Ginet, S. (2008). Words in the world: How and why meanings can matter. Language 84: 497-527.
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Murphy, L. (2016). Linguistics explains why Trump sounds racist when he says 'the' African Americans. In Quartz. https://qz.com/806174/second-presidential-debate-linguistics-explains-why-donald-trump-sounds-racist-when-he-says-the-african-americans/.

Osgood, C. E., May, W. E. and Miron, M. S. (1975). Cross-Cultural Universals of Affective Meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.

Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J. and Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The Measurement of Meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.

Payne, T. E. (2011). Understanding English Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. (2010). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Delhi: Pearson Education India.

Sand, A. (2004). Shared morpho‐syntactic features in contact varieties of English: Article use. World Englishes 23: 281-298.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0883-2919.2004.00352.x

Sapir, E. (1921). Language. In An Introduction to the Study of Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.

Scherer, K. R. (1992). On Social Representations of Emotional Experience: Stereotypes, Prototypes, or Archetypes?. Göttingen: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.

Scholl, W. (2013). The socio-emotional basis of human interaction and communication: How we construct our social world. Social Science Information 52: 3-33.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018412466607

Shank, D. B. (2010). An Affect Control Theory of Technology. Current Research in Social Psychology 15: 1-13.

Shank, D. B. (2016). Using crowdsourcing websites for sociological research: The case of Amazon Mechanical Turk. The American Sociologist 47: 47-55.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-015-9266-9

Shank, D. B. and Burns, A. (2018). Comparing groups' affective sentiments to group perceptions. Current Research in Social Psychology 26: 55-66.

Shank, D. B. and Lulham, R. (2017). Products as affective modifiers of identities. Sociological Perspectives 60: 186-205.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121416629996

Sibley, C. G, Houkamau, C. A. and Hoverd, W. J. (2011). Ethnic group labels and intergroup attitudes in New Zealand: Naming preferences predict distinct ingroup and outgroup biases. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 11: 201-220.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-2415.2011.01244.x

Smith, A. L and Eisenstein, A. (2013). Thoroughly mixed yet thoroughly ethnic: Indexing class with ethnonyms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 23: E1-E22.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12012

Smith, C. S. (1964). Determiners and relative clauses in a generative grammer of English. Language 40: 37-52.
https://doi.org/10.2307/411923

Thomas, L. and Heise, D. R. (1995). Mining error variance and hitting pay-dirt: Discovering systematic variation in social sentiments. The Sociological Quarterly 36: 425-439.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1995.tb00446.x

Wahid, R. (2013). Definite article usage across varieties of English. World Englishes 32: 23-41.
https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12002

Whorf, B. L. (1950). An American Indian model of the universe. International Journal of American Linguistics 16: 67-72.
https://doi.org/10.1086/464066

Workneh, L. (2016). Donald Trump really needs To quit saying 'The African Americans'. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-really-needs-to-quit-saying-the-african-americans_us_58084053e4b0b994d4c43831: Huffington Post.

Andrews, E. (1996). Cultural sensitivity and political correctness: The linguistic problem of naming. American Speech 71: 389-404. https://doi.org/10.2307/455713

Curdy, B. H. (2018). Explaining Variance in Affect Control Theory: Cultural Consensus, Deflection, and Redefinition. Dissertation, Duke University. https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16952

Desmond-Harris, J. (2016). Why Donald Trump says 'the' before 'African Americans' and 'Latinos'. In Vox. https://www.vox.com/2016/10/20/13342646/donald-trump-african-americans-latinos-race-racism-inner-city.

Eriksen, T. H. (2002). Ethnicity and nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto Press.

Heise, D. R. (1979). Understanding Events: Affect and the Construction of Social Action. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Heise, D. R. (2007). Expressive Order: Confirming Sentiments in Social Actions. New York: Springer.

Heise, D. R. (2010). Surveying Cultures: Discovering Shared Conceptions and Sentiments. Chichester: Wiley.

Heise, D. R. (2019). Cultural Meanings and Social Institutions. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03739-0

Heise, D. R. and MacKinnon, N. J. (2010). Self, identity, and Social Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230108493

Hobbs, A. (2017). Trump and Black History Month. In The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-black-history-month.

MacKinnon, N. J. (1994). Symbolic Interactionism as Affect Control. New York: State University of New York.

Mason, W. and Siddharth S. (2012). Conducting behavioral research on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Behavior Research Methods 44: 1-23. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0124-6

McConnell-Ginet, S. (2008). Words in the world: How and why meanings can matter. Language 84: 497-527. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.0.0040

Murphy, L. (2016). Linguistics explains why Trump sounds racist when he says 'the' African Americans. In Quartz. https://qz.com/806174/second-presidential-debate-linguistics-explains-why-donald-trump-sounds-racist-when-he-says-the-african-americans/.

Osgood, C. E., May, W. E. and Miron, M. S. (1975). Cross-Cultural Universals of Affective Meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.

Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J. and Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The Measurement of Meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.

Payne, T. E. (2011). Understanding English Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Politico. (2017). https://www.vox.com/2016/10/20/13342646/donald-trump-african-americans-latinos-race-racism-inner-city.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. (2010). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Delhi: Pearson Education India.

Sand, A. (2004). Shared morpho‐syntactic features in contact varieties of English: Article use. World Englishes 23: 281-298. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0883-2919.2004.00352.x

Sapir, E. (1921). Language. In An Introduction to the Study of Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.

Scherer, K. R. (1992). On Social Representations of Emotional Experience: Stereotypes, Prototypes, or Archetypes?. Göttingen: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.

Scholl, W. (2013). The socio-emotional basis of human interaction and communication: How we construct our social world. Social Science Information 52: 3-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018412466607

Shank, D. B. (2010). An Affect Control Theory of Technology. Current Research in Social Psychology 15: 1-13.

Shank, D. B. (2016). Using crowdsourcing websites for sociological research: The case of Amazon Mechanical Turk. The American Sociologist 47: 47-55. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-015-9266-9

Shank, D. B. and Burns, A. (2018). Comparing groups' affective sentiments to group perceptions. Current Research in Social Psychology 26: 55-66.

Shank, D. B. and Lulham, R. (2017). Products as affective modifiers of identities. Sociological Perspectives 60: 186-205. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121416629996

Sibley, C. G, Houkamau, C. A. and Hoverd, W. J. (2011). Ethnic group labels and intergroup attitudes in New Zealand: Naming preferences predict distinct ingroup and outgroup biases. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 11: 201-220. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-2415.2011.01244.x

Smith, A. L and Eisenstein, A. (2013). Thoroughly mixed yet thoroughly ethnic: Indexing class with ethnonyms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 23: E1-E22. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12012

Smith, C. S. (1964). Determiners and relative clauses in a generative grammer of English. Language 40: 37-52. https://doi.org/10.2307/411923

Thomas, L. and Heise, D. R. (1995). Mining error variance and hitting pay-dirt: Discovering systematic variation in social sentiments. The Sociological Quarterly 36: 425-439. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1995.tb00446.x

Wahid, R. (2013). Definite article usage across varieties of English. World Englishes 32: 23-41. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12002

Whorf, B. L. (1950). An American Indian model of the universe. International Journal of American Linguistics 16: 67-72. https://doi.org/10.1086/464066

Workneh, L. (2016). Donald Trump really needs To quit saying 'The African Americans'. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-really-needs-to-quit-saying-the-african-americans_us_58084053e4b0b994d4c43831: Huffington Post.