Contrasting instructions: from grammar to layout

1
Contrasting instructions from grammar to layout

• Judy Delin
• University of Stirling
• Information Design Unit
• John Bateman
• University of Bremen

Ghent, Saturday 22 September 2001 CoLLaTE
2
Overview of Talk

• Instructions a contrastive view
• and some contrastive discourse-functional results
• But what is the text?
• An approach to multimodal text
• Uses
• Outlook

3
Why instructions?
Instructional texts provide a body of linguistic
products where one can be very sure that many
similar functional goals will need to be
achieved... regardless of exact content,
regardless of language and regardless of culture.
4
Why instructions?
1994 onwards several projects with the goal of
producing instructional texts automatically using
the technology of Natural Language Generation
5
Target language independent specification of
content and style
NaturalLanguage Generation System
InstructionalTexts
Multilingual Grammars, Semantics and Discourse
Strategies
6
Drafter Project (EU) Gist Project (EU) Agile
Project (EU) Drafter-II (UK EPSRC)
Target language independent specification of
content and style
NaturalLanguage Generation System
InstructionalTexts
Multilingual Grammars, Semantics and Discourse
Strategies
7
Target language independent specification of
content and style
NaturalLanguage Generation System
InstructionalTexts
Multilingual Grammars, Semantics and Discourse
Strategies
8
InstructionalTexts
Multilingual Grammars, Semantics and Discourse
Strategies
9
InstructionalTexts
functional motivation for the particular
grammatical and semantic selections made in any
instructional text
?
Multilingual Grammars, Semantics and Discourse
Strategies
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Method

• A collection of instructional texts were
  collected in English, Spanish, Portuguese,
  French, Japanese...
• Functional categories were proposed for
  utterances in the texts
• The texts were annotated for the functional
  categories
• The range of linguistic realisations of a
  category were considered

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Directives

• Asking/telling the user to perform actions or not
  perform them

Very widespread and very varied English
(8page document) 136 tokens / 14 types Japanese
(91page document) 285 tokens / 37 types
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Examples (English)

• (1) Lift at sides of lid and remove. Lift out
  dust bag.
• (2) ...please contact your nearest Electrolux
  Service Centre.
• (3) To check the bag first disconnect the hose
  coupling.
• (4) These warning are provided in the interest of
  safety. You must read them.
• (5) Ensure that the lengths of wire inside the
  plug are prepared correctly.
• (6) The suction control will normally be kept
  fully closed to maintain maximum suction.
• (7) Release the hinged right-hand part of the
  Grille by moving the left-hand part a little to
  the left.

13
Examples (English)

• (1) Lift at sides of lid and remove. Lift out
  dust bag.
• (2) ...please contact your nearest Electrolux
  Service Centre.
• (3) To check the bag first disconnect the hose
  coupling.
• (4) These warning are provided in the interest of
  safety. You must read them.
• (5) Ensure that the lengths of wire inside the
  plug are prepared correctly.
• (6) The suction control will normally be kept
  fully closed to maintain maximum suction.
• (7) Release the hinged right-hand part of the
  Grille by moving the left-hand part a little to
  the left.

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Directives overview (English)
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Motivations?

• Previous work (e.g. Ervin-Tripp) mention
• face-work
• giving the directed room to manoever
• power relations
• speaker/writer as beneficiary

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Motivations?

• Previous work (e.g. Ervin-Tripp) mention
• face-work
• giving the directed room to manoever
• power relations
• speaker/writer as beneficiary

But these issues are not relevant in
instructions, ... or if relevant, are the
same within all instructions and so cannot be
source of variation
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Directive motivations (English)
18
Directive motivations (English)
Main body of instructions
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Directive motivations (English)
Outside main body of task
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Directive motivations (English)
Uncertainty about actor
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Directive motivations (English)
task logical structure
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Directive motivations (English)
too patronising?
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Summary of Motivations

• sensitive to whether the required action is
  considered outside the set of acts that the user
  is committed to by buying the device
• dependent on location in document structure
• warnings/recommendations
• critical instructions
• genuine indeterminacy of actor
• interaction of semantic/rhetorical constraints

24
Directives overview (Japanese)
Request -te kudasai (please V) -o V
kudasai (honorific-polite please V) Gerund /
conjunction V- te (V and ... / by V-ing) V
(-masu form) (V and ...) Declarative -u / -ru
ending (plain affirmative) -masu
ending (polite affirmative) Collective/tentative
address -shiyou (plain lets) -shimashou (p
olite lets)
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Two dimensions
distance/formality
respect(keigo)
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Summary of Variation (Japanese)

• interaction of semantic/rhetorical constraints
• dependent on location in document structure
• warnings/recommendations
• critical instructions
• TEXTUAL SIGNPOSTING
• sensitive to how much of an imposition an action
  is on the user

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Example of very finely balanced estimation of
imposition

• Hoshoukikan-chu wa ... hanbaiten ga shuuri sasete
  itadakimasu
• Within the guarantee period ... the shop will
  repair it.
• Hoshoukikan-ga sugite iru toki wa ... gokibou ni
  yori yuuryou shuuri itashimasu
• When the guarantee has expired... if you wish,
  we will repair it for a charge

28
Example of very finely balanced estimation of
imposition

• Hoshoukikan-chu wa ... hanbaiten ga shuuri sasete
  itadakimasu
• we will receive the favour of your allowing us
  to repair it
• Hoshoukikan-ga sugite iru toki wa ... gokibou ni
  yori yuuryou shuuri itashimasu
• repairpolite it for you

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Genre-specificy of form/function matches across
languages

• -te kudasai please
• but occurs throughout main body of instructions
• -te itadaki / itashimasu respect
• in situations of imposition

30
An interim conclusion...
Contrastive accounts that involve functional
motivations of construction use need to be
carried our relative to genre
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An interim conclusion...
However, ... we also need to pay close
attention to Language/culture ....
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The English instructions...
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Warning hierarchy VCR recorder
Warning hierarchy rice cooker
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We consider that it would be a mistake to treat
this as some cute feature of Japanese
instructions irrelevant for the linguistic
analysis. The information to be presented
differs in its modality assignment in the two
languages in this genre.
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One example will do for thousands, one complex
type for hundreds of possible types. I select
from Paiute, the language of the Indians of the
arid plateaus of southwestern Utah. The word
wii-to-kuchum-punku-rügani-yugwi-va-ntü-m(ü) is
of unusual length even for its own language, but
it is no psychological monster for all that. It
means they who are going to sit and cut up with
a knife a black cow (or bull), or, in the order
of the Indian elements, knife-black-buffalo-pet-c
ut-up-sit (plur.)-future-participle-animate-plural
. The formula of this word, in accordance with
our symbolism, would be (F)(E)CdAB(g)(h)(i
)(0). It is the plural of the future participle
of a compound verb to sit and cut up AB. The
elements (g)which denotes futurity(h)a a
participle unitand (i)indicating the animate
pluralare grammatical elements which convey
nothing when detached. The formula (0) is
intended to imply that the finished word conveys,
in addition to what is definitely expressed, a
further relational idea, that of subjectivity in
other words, the form can only be used as the
subject of a sentence, not in an objective or
other syntactic relation. The radical element A
(to cut up), before entering into combination
with the coordinate element B (to sit), is
itself compounded with two nominal elements or
element-groupsan instrumentally used stem (F)
(knife), which may be freely used as the
radical element of noun forms but cannot be
employed as an absolute noun in its given form,
and an objectively used group(E)Cd (black cow
or bull). This group in turn consists of an
adjectival radical element (E) (black), which
cannot be independently employed..., and the
compound noun Cd (buffalo-pet). ... ...
appended to B alone, but to the whole basic
complex as a unitand that the elements
(h)(i)(0) transform the verbal expression into
a formally well-defined noun. (Sapir.
Language. 192131-32)
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Sapirs analysis into immediate constituents
drawn as a tree
(h) (i) (0)
0- subject
m(ü)- animate-plural
ntü- participle
va- future
(g)
yugwi sit
B
wii- knife
rügani cut up
to- black
A
kuchum buffalo
punku pet
(F) (E) C d
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Research Goal to investigate the use of
different modes of information presentation
across genres and languages

• the GeM project
• Genre and Multimodality
• http//www.gem.stir.ac.uk

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The GeM model

• Content structure
• Rhetorical structure
• Layout structure
• Navigation structure
• Linguistic structure
• Canvas constraints
• Production constraints
• Consumption constraints

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Stages in Analysis

• Content analysis what facts are being
  communicated?

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Stages in Analysis

• Content analysis what facts are being
  communicated?
• Rhetorical analysis what is the RST structure?

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Stages in Analysis

• Content analysis what facts are being
  communicated?
• Rhetorical analysis what is the RST structure?
• Layout analysis
• what layout elements are there?
• what is their hierarchical structure?

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Stages in Analysis

• Content analysis what facts are being
  communicated?
• Rhetorical analysis what is the RST structure?
• Layout analysis
• what layout elements are there?
• what is their hierarchical structure?
• Does the layout support the rhetoric?

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Stages in Analysis

• Content analysis what facts are being
  communicated?

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Content Analysis
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Stages in Analysis

• Rhetorical analysis what is the RST structure?

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RST analysis
background
background
elaboration
elaboration
body parts
Tiger
pic
attributes
relationships
comparisons
lifespan
diet
weight
length
young
height
season
body
maturity
gestation
tail
joint
purpose
means
elaboration
joint
function
coat
joint
coating
of stripes
background
eyes
hearing
joint
Tiger mouth
(
pic
)
back of ears
white spots

claws
canines
molars
(
pic
)
function
purpose
(
pic
)
claws
why
retract
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Stages in Analysis

• Layout analysis
• what layout elements are there?
• what is their hierarchical structure?

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Layout Structure
Types of element
Drawing
Intermediate
Caption
Textblock
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Stages in Analysis

• Does the layout support the rhetoric?

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Layout Structure
Types of element
Drawing
Intermediate
Caption
Textblock
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Layout Structure
Types of element
Drawing
Intermediate
Caption
Textblock
eyes ears coat mouth teeth
claws
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Layout Structure
Types of element
Drawing
Intermediate
Caption
Textblock
eyes ears coat mouth teeth
claws
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Layout Structure
Types of element
Drawing
Intermediate
Caption
Textblock
eyes ears coat mouth teeth
claws
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TEI Text Encoding Initiative
CES Corpus Encoding Standard
XCES XML version
GEM annotation scheme
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An XML-compatible annotation scheme consists
ideally of...

• a single base element annotated file
• several stand-off layers of annotation
• a Document Type Definition (DTD) for each layer
  of annotation

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navigation structure
rhetorical structure
layout structure
base level items
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Initial Corpus Target (English)

• 5 newspapers
• 5 website versions of newspapers
• 10 instructional texts
• 10 wildlife guides

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Initial Corpus Target (English)

• 5 newspapers
• 5 website versions of newspapers
• 10 instructional texts
• 10 wildlife guides

Further target the same across languages
71
Being contrastive...
Contrasts across
72
Contrastive...
Languages
Contrasts across
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Contrastive...
Genres
Contrasts across
Languages
74
Contrastive...
Genres
Contrasts across
Languages
Time
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Contrastive...
Genres
Contrasts across
Languages
Time
Modalities
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Contrastive...
Genres
Genres
Genres
Genres
Genres
Languages
Genres
Languages
Genres
Genres
Languages
Languages
Genres
Languages
Languages
Genres
Time
Time
Time
Time
Time
Modalities
Modalities
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Contrastivity needs to be considered across
Languages
Time
Genres
Modalities
and
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A conclusion...
For a useful contrastive rhetoric, not only
linguistic resources, but also the social and
cultural context of text production and
interpretation must be taken into account.
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A conclusion...
For a useful contrastive rhetoric, not only
linguistic resources, but also the social and
cultural context of text production and
interpretation must be taken into account.
Differences permeate every level of
representation, from the knowledge to be
communicated right through to its layout and
typography.
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A conclusion...
For a useful contrastive rhetoric, not only
linguistic resources, but also the social and
cultural context of text production and
interpretation must be taken into account.
Differences permeate every level of
representation, from the knowledge to be
communicated right through to its layout and
typography. Any theory that aims at achieving
pragmatic equivalence between two languages must
include both text and graphics within its
semiotic resources