Call for Abstracts

'Towards Linguistically Motivated Computational Models of Framing'

Date: Feb 28 - Mar 1, 2024 Location: Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Organizers: Annette Hautli-Janisz (University of Passau), Gabriella Lapesa (University of Stuttgart), Ines Rehbein (University of Mannheim)

Homepage: https://sites.google.com/view/dgfs2024-framing

Call for Papers:

Framing is a central notion in the study of language use to rhetorically package information strategically to achieve conversational goals (Entman, 1993) but also, more broadly, in the study of how we organize our experience (Goffman, 1974). In his seminal article, Entman (1993) defines framing as "to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described." This frame definition has recently been operationalized in NLP in terms of coarse-grained topic dimensions (Card et al., 2015), e.g., by modeling the framing of immigration in the media as a challenge to economy vs. a human rights issue. But there is more to frames than just topics.

The breadth of the debate on what constitutes a frame and on its (formal and cognitive) definition naturally correlates to the interdisciplinary relevance of this phenomenon: a theoretically motivated (computational) model for framing is still needed, and this is precisely the goal of this workshop, which will bring together researchers from theoretical, applied and computational linguistics interested in framing analysis. Our main interest is in furthering our understanding of how different linguistic levels contribute to the framing of messages, and to pave the way for the development of linguistically-driven computational models of how people use framing to communicate their attitudes, preferences and opinions.

We thus invite contributions that cover all levels of linguistic analysis and methods: from phonetics (e.g., euphony: the use of repetition, alliteration, rhymes and slogans to create persuasive messages) and syntax (e.g., topicalization, passivization) to semantics (lexical choices, such as Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice; the use of pronouns to create in- vs. out-groups; the use of metaphors; different types of implicit meaning) to pragmatics (e.g., pragmatic framing through the use of presupposition-triggering adverbs). We also invite work on experimental and computational studies on framing which employ linguistic structure to better understand instances of framing.

The workshop is part of the 46th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS 2024), held from 28 Feb - 1 March 2024 at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.

Submission instructions:

We invite the submission of anonymous abstracts for 30 min talks including discussion. Submissions should not exceed one page, 11pt single spaced (abstract + references), with an optional additional page for images. The reviewing process is double-blind; please ensure that the paper does not include the authors' names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the author's identity, e.g., "We previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...", should be avoided. Instead, use citations such as "Smith previously showed (Smith, 1991) …".

Submissions open: June 1, 2023 - Aug. 18, 2023

Abstract review period: Aug. 21, 2023 - Sept. 5, 2023

Meeting email: dgfs2024-framing@fim.uni-passau.de