KerstinFischer

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

Address:

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

University of Hamburg
Fachbereich Informatik
Arbeitsbereich NatS
phone: +49 40 42883 2516
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. 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.

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. A special issue for the Journal of Pragmatics on How People Talk to Computers and Robots is in the making.

• Alignment, Interaction and Recipient Design
  

In my habilitation thesis, 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, that is, her recipient design, 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 to robots.

• Discourse 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 moderate 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, and our new volume, documenting the results of the construction grammar network, has recently come out.

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 is in the making.

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

• Linguistic Variation

Related to the question of what determines the way we talk to artificial communication partners, children and foreigners is my general interest in the relationship between language and situation. In particular, I concentrate on the notion of recipient design, but I am interested in all kinds of situational aspects that matter in the definition of the relationship between language and context, including sociolinguistic variables, such as gender.

In this connection, I also investigate the relationship between what has been called contextualisation cues and the context of interaction. With Anita Fetzer, I have edited a book on Lexical Markers of Common Grounds which has come out as Studies in Pragmatics 3, Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Recently, I have been using Embodied Construction Grammar to model the relationship between constructions, schematic, e.g. situational, knowledge and metaphorical mappings.

• 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.

• 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:

• Course on InterculturalCommunication
• Course on ScientificEnglish
• Course on AppliedGrammar