KerstinFischer

• Name: Kerstin Fischer
• Email: _email0
• Group: NatsGroup, CxGGroup

Address:

IFKI University of Southern Denmark
Alsion 2
DK-6400- Sonderborg
phone +45-6550-1220

University of Hamburg
Fachbereich Informatik
Arbeitsbereich NatS
phone: +49 40 42883 2391
Vogt-Koelln-Str. 30
D-22527 Hamburg

Research:

Short CV:

Publications

Here is my (almost) complete list of Publications.

Research Topics:

• Verbal Human-Computer and Human-Robot Communication

Spoken interaction between humans and artificial communication partners has become an important area of study for me in the last years. My book What Computer Talk Is and Is not consists of conversation analytic and corpus linguistic investigations of the properties of speech directed at dialogue systems.

Within the project Ontospace with John Bateman in the framework of the DFG-funded transregional research area Spatial Cognition, I investigated the variables that determine the way we talk to artificial communication partners.

The proceedings of my Workshop on How People Talk to Computers, Robots, and other Artificial Communication Partners, April 21st-23rd, 2006, at the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg, Delmenhorst can be dowloaded here. I have also edited a special issue for the Journal of Pragmatics on How People Talk to Computers and Robots.

In the framework of the ITALK project I extend my work on human-robot interaction to the acquisition perspective, comparing how speakers address children with how they address robots in a language acquisition context. With Arne Zeschel I work on the automatic acquisition of grammar in human-robot interaction. Our project homepage at SDU provides further information.

Within the past two years, I have worked as a visiting scholar at Stanford in the framework of the H-star project on interpersonal variation in human-computer and human-robot interaction.

• Alignment, Interaction and Recipient Design
  

In my habilitation thesis (submitted in December, yeah!), I investigate the relationship between alignment, interaction and recipient design. Alignment has been found to be a pervasive mechanism taking place on all levels of linguistic representation (Pickering and Garrod 2004). However, so far it is not clear under which circumstances speakers align, why they do so only sometimes and to particular degrees. I investigate how the speaker's partner model, alignment and interaction are interrelated by studying the structure and function of infant/child-directed speech, so-called foreigner talk, and robotalk, that is, speech directed towards robots.

• Discourse and Modal Particles
  

I have written my dissertation on the functional polysemy of English and German discourse particles. My collection:

Fischer, Kerstin (ed.): Approaches to Discourse Particles. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

in which scholars like Deborah Schiffrin, Bruce Fraser, Eddy Roulet, Harald Weydt, Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and many others outline their approaches to discourse particles/discourse markers in a comparable form, has appeared as Studies in Pragmatics 1 with Elsevier.

• Construction Grammar

I came into contact with Construction Grammar as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1995/6. The notion of a construction, a complex form-meaning pair, has proven very useful in the description of numerous linguistic domains, which we also explore for automatic grammar learning in the framework of the ITALK project.

With Anatol Stefanowitsch, I moderated the DFG-funded Scientific Network on Construction Grammar, more on which can be found here. Our introductory collection on construction grammar has just gone into reprint for the second time.

I have also been using Embodied Construction Grammar to model the relationship between constructions, schematic, e.g. situational, knowledge and metaphorical mappings, but mostly I work on the relationship between construction grammar and spoken interaction.

I'm also leading a project generously funded by the Velux foundation on Construction Grammar and the Description of Situated Spoken Interaction, in which we investigate how construction grammar can be extended ro the description of verbal interaction, with modal particles as the example domain.

I furthermore maintain the Construction Grammar Network on this site.

• Cognitive Linguistics

I am furthermore interested in the cognitive linguistic perspective on language in general. During my year at Berkeley, I was not only introduced to Construction Grammar, but I also received a thorough training in cognitive linguistic approaches to language structure. Since then, I combine cognitive linguistic concepts with pragmatic, mainly conversation analytic methods, but also with quantitative approaches. Regarding the latter, I have organised a panel at the ICLC in Krakow with Dylan Glynn on Usage-based Approaches to Cognitive Semantics, a volume on which has come out in 2010.

I am also a member of the German Society of Cognitive Linguistics.

• Pragmatics

I am furthermore interested in various topics in pragmatics, in particular interactional issues. I am associate editor for Studies in Pragmatics (Emerald) and member of the editorial board of the Journal of Pragmatics.

With Jacob Mey and Hartmut Haberland, I am also founding editor of the new journal Pragmatics and Society, whose first issue has just come out. We try to provide a forum for all socially-oriented pragmatics, and in particular for studies investigating the social impact of technology on communication.

• The Bremen Translation Corpus

With Anatol Stefanowitsch, I have built up a pilot corpus of texts with five different translations each. Currently, we focus on self-help news group postings in English and German.

• The Linguistic Expression of Emotion

In the framework of the Verbmobil project, I have elicited a corpus of emotional (mostly angry) human-computer interaction. Some of my findings, in particular those involving application of the results to speech technology, are joint work in cooperation with my project partners from Erlangen. I am mostly interested in the relationship between the linguistic features that are used to express emotion, in particular, anger, and other interactional functions, such as the attempt to make oneself understood.

Teaching:

At the University of Southern Denmark at Sonderborg, where I teach, we have developed a new master program in Communication Design.