Verbs as Linguistic Markers of Agency - The Social Side of Grammar

Basic grammatical categories may carry social meaning irrespective of their semantic content. In a set of four studies, we demonstrate that verbs – a basic linguistic category present and distinguishable in most languages – are related to the perception of agency, a fundamental dimension in social perception. In an archival analysis on actual language use in Polish and German, we found that targets stereotypically associated with high agency (men and young people) are presented in the immediate neighborhood of a verb more often than non-agentic social targets (women and old people). Moreover, in three experiments using a pseudo-word paradigm, verbs (but not adjectives and nouns) were consistently associated with agency (but not communion). These results provide consistent evidence that verbs, as grammatical vehicles of action, are linguistic markers of agency. In demonstrating meta-semantic effects of language, these studies corroborate the view of language as a social tool and of language as an integral part of social perception.

Handbook of the linguistic geography of New England,

Issued as part of the author's Linguistic atlas of the United States and Canada.

The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States; based upon the collections of the linguistic atlas of the Eastern United States.

Mode of access: Internet.

Joy and freude; a comparative study of the linguistic field of pleasurable emotions in English and German,

Bibliography; p. 134-141.

Handbook of the linguistic geography of New England /

Supplements the Linguistic atlas of New England.

Language and literature in society : a sociological essay on theory and method in the interpretation of linguistic symbols : with a bibliographical guide to the sociology of literature.

Bibliography: p. [141]-214.

Linguistic interludes,

Mode of access: Internet.

Linguistic survey of India.

"Except in a few trifling instances, each dialect and sub-dialect is represented by a version of the parable of the prodigal son, printed in the vernacular character when such exists, and also in the roman character ... Other specimens of the more important dialects are also given. These are mainly pieces of folklore recorded in the actual words of the persons who narrated them"--Note inserted in vol. V, pt. 1.

Historical and linguistic studies in literature related to the New Testament.

Mode of access: Internet.

Essays of an Americanist: Ethnologic and archaeologic. Mythology and folk lore. Graphic systems and literature. Linguistic.

Mode of access: Internet.

Outline of a theory of linguistic change,

Reproduced from type-written copy.