Bodo Winter
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View article: Iconic Words Are Associated With Iconic Gestures
Iconic Words Are Associated With Iconic Gestures Open
Iconicity ratings studies have established that there are many English words which native speakers judge as “iconic,” that is, as sounding like what they mean. Here, we explore whether these iconic English words are more likely to be accom…
View article: Manual <i>wh</i>-signs and English <i>wh-</i>mouthings differentiate BSL content and polar questions
Manual <i>wh</i>-signs and English <i>wh-</i>mouthings differentiate BSL content and polar questions Open
How do deaf BSL signers signal polar and content questions? This study quantitatively investigates the manual and non-manual forms used to signal polar and content questions during dyadic conversations documented in the BSL Corpus. We foun…
View article: The sociolinguistic foundations of language modeling
The sociolinguistic foundations of language modeling Open
In this article, we introduce a sociolinguistic perspective on language modeling. We claim that language models in general are inherently modeling varieties of language , and we consider how this insight can inform the development and depl…
View article: BSL signers combine different semiotic strategies to negate clauses
BSL signers combine different semiotic strategies to negate clauses Open
Signers of Deaf community signed languages negate clauses via manual negating signs and/or non-manual movements such as headshakes. Several claims about the dominance of manual versus non-manual negation across signed languages have been m…
View article: The alveolar trill is perceived as jagged/rough by speakers of different languages
The alveolar trill is perceived as jagged/rough by speakers of different languages Open
Typological research shows that across languages, trilled [r] sounds are more common in adjectives describing rough as opposed to smooth surfaces. In this study, this lexical research is built on with an experiment with speakers of 28 diff…
View article: Strategic use of English quantifiers in the reporting of quantitative information
Strategic use of English quantifiers in the reporting of quantitative information Open
This study investigates how quantifiers are used strategically to serve differ-ent argumentative goals. We report two experiments on how English speak-ers describe the results of school exams when being instructed to frame theirdescription…
View article: Visualizing map data for linguistics using <tt>ggplot2</tt>: A tutorial with examples from dialectology and typology
Visualizing map data for linguistics using ggplot2: A tutorial with examples from dialectology and typology Open
Maps are important in many areas of linguistics, especially dialectology, sociolinguistics, typology, and historical linguistics, including for visualizing regional patterns in the distribution of linguistic features and varieties of langu…
View article: Gesture size affects numerical estimates in quantifier comprehension.
Gesture size affects numerical estimates in quantifier comprehension. Open
People think and talk about numerical magnitude in terms of space, and co-speech gestures reflect this, with English speakers using expansive gestures when talking about greater quantities. Existing gestural research on the spatial concept…
View article: The Sociolinguistic Foundations of Language Modeling
The Sociolinguistic Foundations of Language Modeling Open
In this paper, we introduce a sociolinguistic perspective on language modeling. We claim that large language models are inherently models of varieties of language, and we consider how this insight can inform the development and deployment …
View article: The alveolar trill is perceived as jagged/rough by speakers of different languages
The alveolar trill is perceived as jagged/rough by speakers of different languages Open
Typological research shows that across languages, trilled [r] sounds are more common in adjectives describing rough as opposed to smooth surfaces. Here, we follow up on this lexical research with an experiment with speakers of 28 different…
View article: Numbers in Context: Cardinals, Ordinals, and Nominals in American English
Numbers in Context: Cardinals, Ordinals, and Nominals in American English Open
There are three main types of number used in modern, industrialized societies. Cardinals count sets (e.g., people, objects) and quantify elements of conventional scales (e.g., money, distance), ordinals index positions in ordered sequences…
View article: Winter, Woodin &amp; Perlman - Defining iconicity for the cognitive sciences
Winter, Woodin & Perlman - Defining iconicity for the cognitive sciences Open
Iconicity has become an increasingly hot topic in the cognitive sciences, but research is riddled with inconsistencies in the use of key terminology, including “iconicity” itself as well as other related terms. This chapter presents a prec…
View article: Digital Connection, Real Bonding: Brief Online Chats Boost Interpersonal Closeness regardless of the conversational topic
Digital Connection, Real Bonding: Brief Online Chats Boost Interpersonal Closeness regardless of the conversational topic Open
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has gained incredible popularity in the last decade. To test whether a brief written exchange would impact interpersonal dynamics between individuals, here we asked participants to engage in virtual wr…
View article: Multimodality matters in numerical communication
Multimodality matters in numerical communication Open
Modern society depends on numerical information, which must be communicated accurately and effectively. Numerical communication is accomplished in different modalities—speech, writing, sign, gesture, graphs, and in naturally occurring sett…
View article: Cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics Open
Cognitive linguistics is an interdisciplinary branch of linguistics that studies the intersection of language structure, language use, and the mind. Cognitive linguistics is characterized by a number of central themes. One theme is embodie…
View article: More is Better: English Language Statistics are Biased Toward Addition
More is Better: English Language Statistics are Biased Toward Addition Open
We have evolved to become who we are, at least in part, due to our general drive to create new things and ideas. When seeking to improve our creations, ideas, or situations, we systematically overlook opportunities to perform subtractive c…
View article: Large-scale patterns of number use in spoken and written English
Large-scale patterns of number use in spoken and written English Open
This paper describes patterns of number use in spoken and written English and the main factors that contribute to these patterns. We analysed more than 1.7 million occurrences of numbers between 0 and a billion in the British National Corp…
View article: Abstract concepts and emotion: cross-linguistic evidence and arguments against affective embodiment
Abstract concepts and emotion: cross-linguistic evidence and arguments against affective embodiment Open
How are abstract concepts such as ‘freedom' and ‘democracy' represented in the mind? One prominent proposal suggests that abstract concepts are grounded in emotion. Supporting this ‘affective embodiment' account, abstract concepts are rate…
View article: Tracing the Phonetic Space of Prosodic Focus Marking
Tracing the Phonetic Space of Prosodic Focus Marking Open
Focus is known to be expressed by a wide range of phonetic cues but only a few studies have explicitly compared different phonetic variables within the same experiment. Therefore, we presented results from an analysis of 19 phonetic variab…
View article: Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean
Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean Open
This paper explores the politeness-related functions of an ingressive hissing-like sound that occurs frequently in Korean and which is typically transcribed as ssup . This nonverbal sound is produced by drawing air alongside the tongue or …
View article: Managing Semantic Norms for Cognitive Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, and Lexicon Studies
Managing Semantic Norms for Cognitive Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, and Lexicon Studies Open
examples where researchers commonly do not use norms to elucidate some of the problems that may arise for norm-less semantics with respect to the reproducibility of these studies (section 2); followed by an overview of some common norm dat…
View article: The <i>bouba/kiki</i> effect is robust across cultures and writing systems
The <i>bouba/kiki</i> effect is robust across cultures and writing systems Open
The bouba/kiki effect—the association of the nonce word bouba with a round shape and kiki with a spiky shape—is a type of correspondence between speech sounds and visual properties with potentially deep implications for the evolution of sp…
View article: Poisson regression for linguists: A tutorial introduction to modelling count data with brms
Poisson regression for linguists: A tutorial introduction to modelling count data with brms Open
Count data is prevalent in many different areas of linguistics, such as when counting words, syntactic constructions, discourse particles, case markers, or speech errors. The Poisson distribution is the canonical distribution for character…