Communication verbs as indicators of situational context:
Usage-based indexicality in corpus analysis and speaker knowledge (IndeKS)

FWF-Research project | 01.09.2025 – 31.08.2028 | Institute of German Studies | University of Innsbruck

The project investigates the assumptions of usage-based language models and their methodological implementation through corpus linguistic analysis, focusing on the phenomenon of indexicality.

Project description

News

At the end of August, the IndeKS team took part in the 11th International Conference of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association (DGKL 2026) at Bielefeld University. In our talk, “diskutieren = öffentlicher, erzählen = privater Kommunikationskontext? Profile und Granularität der Indexikalität von Kommunikationsverben in Sprachgebrauch und Sprachwissen” (“diskutieren = more public, erzählen = more private communication context? Profiles and granularity of the indexicality of communication verbs in language use and speaker knowledge”), we presented current work and findings from the project and discussed them with colleagues from the research community.

Next up is EURALEX 2026 in Vienna, , where we will give a presentation entitled “Indexicality in the Vocabulary of German Communication Verbs: Examining Language Use and Speaker Knowledge as a Basis for Lexicographical Conception” on 2 October. The presentation explores how insights into the indexicality of German communication verbs, derived from both language use and speaker knowledge, can inform their lexicographical description.

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The data collection software developed for the rating and free-text study, Indeks-Rating: Data Collection Software for Rating/Association Tasks, is available on Zenodo. In addition, the preregistration of the planned studies on ratings, elicitation, and pile sorting of domain-related indexicality in German communication verbs has been published on OSF.
These steps mark the completion of key preparatory work for the empirical study, and data collection for Subproject B is now ready to begin.