Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text Types

Causality and subjectivity are relevant cognitive principles in the categorization of coherence relations and connectives. Studies in various languages have shown how both notions can explain the meaning and use of different connectives. However, the Spanish language has been understudied from this...

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Main Authors: Andrea Santana, Dorien Nieuwenhuijsen, Wilbert Spooren, Ted Sanders
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses universitaires de Caen 2017-09-01
Series:Discours
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/discours/9307
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author Andrea Santana
Dorien Nieuwenhuijsen
Wilbert Spooren
Ted Sanders
author_facet Andrea Santana
Dorien Nieuwenhuijsen
Wilbert Spooren
Ted Sanders
author_sort Andrea Santana
collection DOAJ
description Causality and subjectivity are relevant cognitive principles in the categorization of coherence relations and connectives. Studies in various languages have shown how both notions can explain the meaning and use of different connectives. However, the Spanish language has been understudied from this perspective. Also, most of the existing research on connectives has used manual analyses. This paper explores the use of automatic analyses of subjectivity in causal connectives. The goal is to determine the degree to which Spanish causal connectives encode subjectivity across different text types, by carrying out automatic analyses. A corpus was constructed to identify causal connectives in journalistic texts (news and editorials) and academic texts (essays, research articles and textbooks in education and psychology). A Spanish lexicon of subjectivity was used to automatically identify the frequency of subjective words in the texts and the segments linked by the most frequent causal connectives. Our assumption is that supposedly subjective connectives will occur in more subjective environments, that is, a context containing relatively many subjective words. The results show a statistically significant relationship between the use of connectives and text type, and also between the text type and subjectivity. From a methodological point of view, the use of automatic analyses appears not to be without difficulties. However, it allowed us to explore various text types, to analyze the degrees of subjectivity in each of them and to identify tendencies related to the use of connectives in Spanish. More interestingly, the combination of automatic and manual analyses can result in a promising methodology for the study of discourse coherence and connectives.
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spelling doaj-art-c9015e97975e41f2854ff089e1c657642025-01-30T09:53:01ZengPresses universitaires de CaenDiscours1963-17232017-09-012010.4000/discours.9307Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text TypesAndrea SantanaDorien NieuwenhuijsenWilbert SpoorenTed SandersCausality and subjectivity are relevant cognitive principles in the categorization of coherence relations and connectives. Studies in various languages have shown how both notions can explain the meaning and use of different connectives. However, the Spanish language has been understudied from this perspective. Also, most of the existing research on connectives has used manual analyses. This paper explores the use of automatic analyses of subjectivity in causal connectives. The goal is to determine the degree to which Spanish causal connectives encode subjectivity across different text types, by carrying out automatic analyses. A corpus was constructed to identify causal connectives in journalistic texts (news and editorials) and academic texts (essays, research articles and textbooks in education and psychology). A Spanish lexicon of subjectivity was used to automatically identify the frequency of subjective words in the texts and the segments linked by the most frequent causal connectives. Our assumption is that supposedly subjective connectives will occur in more subjective environments, that is, a context containing relatively many subjective words. The results show a statistically significant relationship between the use of connectives and text type, and also between the text type and subjectivity. From a methodological point of view, the use of automatic analyses appears not to be without difficulties. However, it allowed us to explore various text types, to analyze the degrees of subjectivity in each of them and to identify tendencies related to the use of connectives in Spanish. More interestingly, the combination of automatic and manual analyses can result in a promising methodology for the study of discourse coherence and connectives.https://journals.openedition.org/discours/9307subjectivityconnectiveslexiconcausalitySpanishautomatic analyses
spellingShingle Andrea Santana
Dorien Nieuwenhuijsen
Wilbert Spooren
Ted Sanders
Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text Types
Discours
subjectivity
connectives
lexicon
causality
Spanish
automatic analyses
title Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text Types
title_full Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text Types
title_fullStr Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text Types
title_full_unstemmed Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text Types
title_short Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text Types
title_sort causality and subjectivity in spanish connectives exploring the use of automatic subjectivity analyses in various text types
topic subjectivity
connectives
lexicon
causality
Spanish
automatic analyses
url https://journals.openedition.org/discours/9307
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AT doriennieuwenhuijsen causalityandsubjectivityinspanishconnectivesexploringtheuseofautomaticsubjectivityanalysesinvarioustexttypes
AT wilbertspooren causalityandsubjectivityinspanishconnectivesexploringtheuseofautomaticsubjectivityanalysesinvarioustexttypes
AT tedsanders causalityandsubjectivityinspanishconnectivesexploringtheuseofautomaticsubjectivityanalysesinvarioustexttypes