@article{16f2638affcb4e7da94cba8c82f5797a,
title = "Language vs. individuals in cross-linguistic corpus typology",
abstract = "There is a long tradition in linguistics of seeing each language as a powerful factor setting out predetermining grooves in how people express themselves. But how strong is this effect? We know that despite the forces of linguistic habit people nonetheless enjoy some freedom in formulating their thoughts. Can we measure the relative contributions of language structures and individual variation to how people formulate statements about the world? Do accounts of typological differences need to take individual variation into account, and is such variation more prevalent in some kinds of linguistic domains than others? In this paper, we deploy a parallax corpus across thirteen languages from around the world and explore four case studies of linguistic choice, two grammatical and two semantic. We assess whether differences are accounted adequately just by individual participant variation, just by language information, or whether taking into account both helps account for the patterns we see. We do this through comparisons of statistical models. Our results make it clear that participants using the same language do not always behave similarly and this is especially true of our semantic variables.",
keywords = "Corpus-based typology, Family problems picture task, Model comparison, Sapir-whorf hypothesis, Social cognition",
author = "Danielle Barth and Nicholas Evans and Arka, {I. Wayan} and Henrik Bergqvist and Diana Forker and Sonja Gipper and Gabrielle Hodge and Eri Kashima and Yuki Kasuga and Carine Kawakami and Yukinori Kimoto and Dominique Knuchel and Norikazu Kogura and Keita Kurabe and John Mansfield and Heiko Narrog and Pratiwi, {Desak P.Eka} and {van Putten}, Saskia and Chikako Senge and Olena Tykhostup",
note = "Funding Information: of Grammatical Diversity, DP0878126), when the actual task was developed and many recordings made. Continuation into the present phase of analysis, in particular the employment of Barth as a postdoc and the funding of the ongoing workshops bringing together language-speci(Lc investigators for “annotation jams”, was made possible by an Anneliese-?aier Forschungspreis awarded to Evans by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Federal ?inistry of Education and Research, plus support from the ARC Research Centre for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL), funded by the Australian Research Council (CE140100041) and the School of Culture History and Language, ANU College of Asia and the Paci(Lc. Sonja Gipper received funding from the Deutsche Forschungsge-meinscha(d (DFG project number 275274422, reference number GI 1110/1-1). We thank the above-named institutions for their generous support of our research. We also thank universities who have hosted SCOPIC project meetings: Otto-Friedrich-Universit{\"a}t Bam-berg, Universit{\"a}t Leipzig, Universit{\"a}t zu ?{\"o}ln, Stockholms Universitet and The Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. We also thank Naijing Liu for her meticulous job in formatting the manuscript, Nick Thieberger for good advice along the way, the participants at the DGfS workshop Corpus-based typology: Spoken language from a cross-linguistic perspective in Hamburg in ?arch 2020 for their questions and comments, Geo(Ⰰrey Haig and Stefan Schnell for organising the workshop, and Frank Seifart and an anonymous reviewer for their usefully critical comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Funding Information: 1 First we would like to thank the speakers and signers of all the languages represented in this study, both for their participation in the Family Problems Task and, in many cases, for teaching us their languages over many years. This work originated as a project funded by the Australian Research Council (Language and Social Cognition: The Design Resources Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022. Language Documentation and Conservation.All Rights Reserved.",
year = "2022",
language = "English",
volume = "SpecialIssue25",
pages = "179--232",
journal = "Language Documentation and Conservation",
issn = "1934-5275",
publisher = "University of Hawaii Press",
}