Patrick Goethals | Ghent University (original) (raw)

Papers by Patrick Goethals

17 ème Rencontre Internationale du GÉRES, 2021

En este artículo se presenta un método avanzado para cuantificar el «carácter clave» (keyness) de... more En este artículo se presenta un método avanzado para cuantificar el «carácter clave» (keyness) de particularidades lingüísticas en los corpus de lenguas de especialidad. Para demostrar su uso, aplicamos la metodología a la dimensión sensorial en el lenguaje turístico. Los resultados muestran que la dimensión sensorial es más de tres veces más clave para el lenguaje turístico de lo que se podía esperar en general, corroborando así la importancia del fenómeno desde una perspectiva cuantitativa. Además, estudiamos la introducción innovadora de un componente de desambiguación semántica automática en la metodología, para lo cual desarrollamos un sistema basado en frases de ejemplo. El sistema consigue una exactitud de entre el 70% y el 80%, y podría convertirse en una herramienta decisiva para escalar la codificación semántica de los corpus de lenguas de especialidad. Palabras clave: análisis del discurso asistido por el ordenador, análisis de carácter clave, desambiguación del significado de las palabras, lingüística de corpus, tratamiento automático del lenguaje Résumé : Cet article présente une méthode avancée pour quantifier le «caractère clé» (keyness) des particularités linguistiques dans les corpus de langues de spécialité. Pour démontrer son utilisation, la méthode s'applique à la dimension sensorielle dans le langage du tourisme. Les résultats montrent que la dimension sensorielle est plus de trois fois plus typique pour le langage touristique que pour le «langage général», corroborant ainsi l'importance du phénomène d'un point de vue quantitatif. De plus, nous étudions l'introduction innovante d'un processus de désambiguïsation lexicale automatique dans la méthodologie, pour laquelle nous développons un système basé sur des phrases exemples. Le système atteint une précision de 70 à 80%, et il pourrait devenir un outil décisif pour le développement de l'annotation sémantique des corpus de langues de spécialité. Mots-clés : analyse du discours assistée par ordinateur, analyse de caractère clé, désambiguïsation lexicale, linguistique de corpus, traitement automatique de la langue 1. INTRODUCCIÓN Les Cahiers du GÉRES n°12-Juin 2021 92/181

Onomázein Revista de lingüística filología y traducción, 2020

The emergence of the Web 2.0 profoundly changed the tourist experience and its modes of interacti... more The emergence of the Web 2.0 profoundly changed the tourist experience and its modes of interaction and communication. Among the most pervasive forms of contemporary tourism discourse we find online reviews posted on social media platforms as TripAdvisor. Previous research on online travel reviews focused almost exclusively on negative reviews and mostly considered monolingual English dataset. In the present study we will explore positive reviews and we will add a cross-linguistic analysis comparing reviews written in English, Italian and Dutch. In this contribution, we first explore the move structure of reviews, and then delve into their different linguistic realizations, paying particular attention to potential cross-linguistic similarities and divergences. Our results show that positive reviews are generally formed by four main moves: positive and negative evaluations, offering extra/background information and future-oriented recommendations. These moves represent stable and rec...

Language, Mobility and Study Abroad in the Contemporary European Context, 2021

International educational experience is often assumed to provide crucial learning opportunities f... more International educational experience is often assumed to provide crucial learning opportunities for intercultural development, second language (L2) proficiency, global-mindedness, and personal growth. However, contemporary studies have challenged the immersion assumption regarding intercultural and linguistic progress abroad, pointing to a need for further investigation of the complex interrelationship of linguistic and intercultural development in SA settings. This study reports on the impact of a semester abroad on 118 Flemish participants’ progress in L2 lexical and pragmatic competence, as well as their intercultural development, conceptualised as Cultural Intelligence (CQ). Results show overall significant progress, except for their extrinsic motivation towards the Erasmus experience and their ability to plan intercultural interactions. While participants’ L2 lexical proficiency did not seem connected to their intercultural development, some links were found between sojourners’ pragmatic competence and changes in their CQ profile. These results show the need to further investigate the influence of language use abroad on participants’ intercultural abilities, as well as the need for additional efforts from home institutions in preparing students for potential intercultural interactions

In our case study negative reviews on TripAdvisor in English, Italian and Dutch have been analyze... more In our case study negative reviews on TripAdvisor in English, Italian and Dutch have been analyzed. Negative reviews’ characteristics will be presented, paying attention to the main topics of (negative) evaluation and discursive features. We will point out both language-specific traits and shared tendencies that emerge in the three languages under examination.

Language and Intercultural Communication, 2015

ABSTRACT This corpus-based study examines whether and how German-, French- and Spanish-speaking t... more ABSTRACT This corpus-based study examines whether and how German-, French- and Spanish-speaking tourists refer to language experiences when they write an online hotel review (specifically of hotels situated in Dutch-speaking Flanders, Belgium). We find that language is indeed an issue in hotel reviews, but to varying degrees according to the language group of the tourists. French and especially Spanish-speaking tourists refer far more frequently to language experiences, and in particular to the use of their mother tongue, than German-speaking tourists. According to the ‘face model of language choice’, this means that French- and Spanish-speaking tourists emphasize more explicitly their ‘ethnolinguistic face’ than German-speaking tourists. Also, the positive–negative polarity of the judgments differs, with Spanish-speaking tourists at the most positive pole, and French-speaking tourists at the most negative pole. Furthermore, the data also reveal that the use of the mother tongue of the tourist and the use of an international link language (by default, English) are functionally different options, and that the use of English even may lead to face-threatening situations. By comparing the data with staff-related judgments and hotel ratings, it is shown that language plays a specific and independent role in the hotel reviews.

The Study of Language and Translation, 2007

This paper shows how parallel corpus research can generate hypotheses that are relevant to Contra... more This paper shows how parallel corpus research can generate hypotheses that are relevant to Contrastive Linguistics, Translation Studies and Text Linguistics. The data that are used concern the use of demonstrative determiners and pronouns in Spanish and Dutch source and target texts. The study focuses primarily on three asymmetries between ST and TT: the asymmetry between demonstratives and non-demonstrative definite determiners, the asymmetry between pronouns and full noun phrases, and the asymmetry between distal and proximal demonstratives. Three conclusions are drawn. First, the data suggest a contrastive difference between Spanish and Dutch with regard to the opposition between demonstrative and non-demonstrative definite determiners: Dutch demonstratives seem to be more grammaticized than their Spanish counterparts. Secondly, the corpus provides more evidence for the well-known explicitation hypothesis in Translation Studies. Finally, the samples yield very different results with regard to the asymmetry between distal and proximal forms. These results cannot be explained by contrastive differences or general translation universals only: the individual characteristics of the texts or the individual preferences of the translator may also play an important role.

Proces. del Leng. Natural, 2020

In this paper, we argue that in current Universal Dependencies treebanks, the annotation of Spani... more In this paper, we argue that in current Universal Dependencies treebanks, the annotation of Spanish reflexives is an unsolved problem, which clearly affects the accuracy and consistency of current parsers. We evaluate different proposals for fine-tuning the various categories, and discuss remaining open issues. We believe that the solution for these issues could lie in a multi-layered way of annotating the characteristics, combining annotation of the dependency relation and of the so-called token features, rather than in expanding the number of categories on one layer. We apply this proposal to the v2.5 Spanish UD AnCora treebank and provide a categorized conversion table that can be run with a Python script.

Die Schlüsse, zu denen ich bei meinen Untersuchungen über die Physiologie der Schwangerschaft gek... more Die Schlüsse, zu denen ich bei meinen Untersuchungen über die Physiologie der Schwangerschaft gekommen bin und die ich am 18. Februar d. J. in der Genootschap ter bevordering der Natuur-, Genees-enHeelkunde vorgetragen habe, sind die folgenden:

ABSTRACT In this study, we investigate how Spanish Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was depicted i... more ABSTRACT In this study, we investigate how Spanish Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was depicted in English-language newspaper headlines over a period of twenty years (1990-2010). This case study further investigates the use of socio-culturally informed metaphorical projections in media discourse (Nerlich et al., 2002; Nerlich, 2005; Zinken et al., 2008). The analysis reveals how the newspapers in the corpus often used Spain’s colonial past as a metaphorical frame of reference for Spain’s international business activity.

Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, 2020

Contemporary research on language and intercultural learning during study abroad programs has led... more Contemporary research on language and intercultural learning during study abroad programs has led scholars to challenge the immersion assumption and to argue the need for interventions that would deepen and extend the learning potential of this experience (Jackson, 2018). In an attempt to underscore this point, this paper reports on an experimental study which explores the impact of a pedagogical intervention where two groups of Flemish students (n = 34) are tracked during their Erasmus stay in Spain. One group of students (n = 14) is enrolled in the intervention and encouraged to engage in linguistically and culturally challenging encounters while the other group is not (n = 20). Both language use and social network formation are examined through an extended version of the SASIQ questionnaire (Dewey et al., 2013), completed following their experience abroad. Although it is not straightforward to grasp the influence of such curricular initiatives on learner interaction and language ...

Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 2013

Resumen: En este trabajo analizamos un corpus piloto de intervenciones españolas, francesas y nee... more Resumen: En este trabajo analizamos un corpus piloto de intervenciones españolas, francesas y neerlandófonas en los debates plenarios del Parlamento Europeo, con el fin de averiguar si existen diferencias interculturales en cuanto al uso y la expresión de una estrategia de cortesía particular, que son los agradecimientos. Comprobamos que los agradecimientos figuran con mayor frecuencia en los discursos de los españoles y los franceses que en los discursos de los neerlandófonos. Además, cobran más relieve, por ejemplo porque son más extensos y se enfatizan más. Estudios anteriores han observado que los neerlandófonos tienden a usar muchos agradecimientos rutinarios en contextos donde podría existir una amenaza para la imagen negativa de uno de los interlocutores. Nuestro estudio muestra que los franceses y los españoles usan más agradecimientos que los neerlandófonos cuando está en juego la imagen positiva. Los datos apuntan además hacia la relevancia del concepto de la cortesía valorizante, por oposición a la cortesía mitigadora, para describir los datos españoles.

Across Languages and Cultures, 2012

This paper argues in favour of a more rigorous methodology for corpusbased translation studies. A... more This paper argues in favour of a more rigorous methodology for corpusbased translation studies. According to our proposal, research papers in the field should be minimally required to (i) provide a meticulous overview of the corpus materials used and of the exact procedures for selecting, annotating and sifting the data; (ii) comment on any specific problems encountered during data selection and annotation, including explicit and motivated statements as to the solutions being adopted; (iii) include elaborate testing for statistical significance as a complement of, not in opposition to, thorough qualitative analysis. This approach, we suggest, not only offers a way around many theoretical and methodological problems that have been noted in the recent literature (e.g., House 2008; Becher 2010; Bernardini and Ferraresi 2011), it also facilitates more rigorous replication and reinterpretation of previous work, potentially leading to a re-assessment of some popular but unproven assumptio...

Linguistics, 2013

This paper explores the constructional meaning of NPs preceded by a demonstrative determiner and ... more This paper explores the constructional meaning of NPs preceded by a demonstrative determiner and NPs preceded by a definite article, in both Spanish and Dutch. First, I will give a brief, general description of the meaning of the two constructions, focusing on three features: unique identifiability, deictic force and predicating force. Then, a contrastive analysis will show that demonstrative determiners and definite articles differ crosslinguistically. A quantitative analysis of translational shifts will reveal a systematic shift between Dutch demonstrative determiners and Spanish definite articles. Through the qualitative analysis of several subgroups of examples, I will show that the Dutch and Spanish paradigms differ with regard to the features of deictic and predicating force. Both Dutch demonstratives and definite articles seem to be more semantically bleached and hence more grammaticalized than their Spanish counterparts, which may well go some way to explaining the frequent and systematic translational shifts. Finally, I will draw attention to some specific phenomena, such as the cultural embeddedness of anaphoric relations, and the role of demonstratives in evoking a visual frame, which also motivate translational shifts between demonstratives and definite articles, but are better interpreted as local translator's decisions, rather than as systemic contrastive differences between Dutch and Spanish.

Meta: Journal des traducteurs, 2009

In this article, we explore the phenomenon of deictic center shifts in literary translation, conc... more In this article, we explore the phenomenon of deictic center shifts in literary translation, concentrating on the Spanish translation (La historia siguiente, 1992) of the Dutch novel Het volgende verhaal (1991 [The Following Story, 1993]). The empirical description focuses on lexical spatiotemporal markers and verbal tenses. We compare the source text and the target text in order to identify the translational shifts: we consider these shifts as textual traces of the translator’s interpretive process of resetting the spatiotemporal coordinates of the discourse. We will argue that the deictic shifts between source and target text are related to occasional hesitations of the translator, who tends to emphasize the most salient deictic center. On a methodological level, we hope to show that a close reading of a translated text, taking into account its thematic and structural peculiarities, can contribute both to Translation and Literary Studies.

éruditest un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l'Université de Mont... more éruditest un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l'Université de Montréal, l'Université Laval et l'Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche.éruditoffre des services d'édition numérique de documents scientifiques depuis 1998. Pour communiquer avec les responsables d'Érudit:

Ibérica, 2013

En el presente estudio describiremos el género de los diarios de viaje escritos por particulares.... more En el presente estudio describiremos el género de los diarios de viaje escritos por particulares. Empezaremos por situar los diarios de viaje en la taxonomía de textos turísticos elaborada en Calvi (2010). Luego describiremos más en detalle las diferentes dimensiones discursivas del género: los objetivos comunicativos, los movimientos retóricos más típicos, y la manera en que son presentados los participantes en el evento comunicativo. Los materiales empíricos provienen de un corpus piloto de diarios de viaje sobre Bélgica, escritos por turistas hispanohablantes, y publicados en el blog de comunidad <Losviajeros.com>.

Intercultural Pragmatics

In this study, we focus on a specific form of metacommunication found in an emerging digital genr... more In this study, we focus on a specific form of metacommunication found in an emerging digital genre: Hotel reviews posted on TripAdvisor. In particular, we investigate how tourists represent their service encounter interactions. The main goal of the present study is to identify what these digital metacommunicative practices reveal about communicative norms and expectations among groups of reviewers writing in three different languages. We analyzed a multilingual dataset of 1800 reviews written in English, Dutch, and Italian. The results reveal that reviewers commented upon a broad range of aspects when evaluating service encounters interactions, for instance, describing the quality of the interaction (e.g. polite, correct), or a lack of communication when a specific type of communication is expected (e.g. absence of greetings, or apologies after a service failure). Further, we found similar cross-linguistic patterns, such as appreciation for being able to communicate in one’s mother ...