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Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 64:4 (2018) ► pp.594–618

Formal ontology for discourse analysis of a corpus of court interpreting

| Infosys
| Freelance translator-interpreter
| Hong Kong Polytechnic University

We develop a new method of discourse analysis using speech act theory and formal ontology. The method constitutes an attempt to make discourse analysis more formal and repeatable. We apply the method to a corpus of bi-lingual, interpreted legal dialogue, focusing on the speech act of clarification and its component acts. While discourse analysis is primarily a qualitative tool, it can be applied quantitatively by counting certain types of discourse, such as clarification speech acts. Dialogues are still analysed, utterances are classified as speech acts and their semantic relationships are qualitatively assessed. Subjectivity of human analysis is minimised using a new method of discourse analysis that employs a formal ontology. The ontology is stated in higher-order logic making the annotation of the corpus more objective, formal and repeatable than prior research.

Keywords: court interpreting, ontology, corpus, Hong Kong
Article outline
  • 1.Problem statement
    • 1.1Application domain
  • 2.Prospective applications
    • 2.1Translation gap analysis and chunking
    • 2.2Objectives
    • 2.3Speech act theory
    • 2.4Formalizing speech acts
  • 3.Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO)
  • 4.Conceptual framework
    • 4.1Quantifying clarification dialogues in terms of repair turns and speech acts
      • 4.1.1Clarification as repairs
      • 4.1.2Clarification speech acts
    • 4.2Clarification speech acts in SUMO definition
      • 4.2.1Speech acts of clarification dialogue
    • 4.3Definition of clarification dialogue set
    • 4.4Original turn number and splitting turn
    • 4.5Speakers of the turn
    • 4.6Agent vs patient
    • 4.7Language
    • 4.8Speech acts
  • 5.Pilot study
    • 5.1Discussion
    • 5.2Special discourse in the courtroom
    • 5.3How formalized speech acts help defining clarification dialogues
    • 5.4When sorry is not an apology
    • 5.5How to handle tacit consent
    • 5.6Borderline clarification endeavours
    • 5.7Redefine elaborating in SUMO
  • 6.Definitions
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 23 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00054.pea
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