A Sociopragmatic Study of Conventional Similes in Polish Drama (1772–1939): A Corpus-Based Approach Aleksandra Ryś University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
[email protected] freestar freestar freestar freestar As clear as crystal… or as dark as night? •Unique corpus:50 Polish dramas, c. 900.000 tokens, sociolinguistically annotated. •Methodological innovation: combining pragmatics, corpus, and historical linguistics. •Infrastructure in action: CLARIN tools make cross-disciplinary questions possible. •Future directions: models extendable to other languages, corpora, and domains. Every Simile is a Pin on the Map Similes are not just ornaments of language. They are shortcuts of thought — signals we repeat without noticing. Each simile is like a pin on a social map, marking the speaker’s emotions, identity, and societal place. But how can such signals be traced across history? That is where digital corpora — and CLARIN — matter. I use the Corpus of Polish Dramatic Texts (1772–1939), created through the cooperation of the University of Silesia in Katowice and CLARIN-PL. These plays imitate everyday speech, giving us artistic value and sociolinguistic authenticity. This project presents how infrastructure and tools unlock hidden patterns of society — turning similes into coordinates on a historical map… and maybe even a GPS for today’s language. This research presents how similes, mapped in a historical corpus, reveal the interplay of gender, age, and social status — made visible through CLARIN infrastructure. A simile is a fixed comparison: (as) X as Y. It’s how languages paint pictures! as fit as a fiddle stark wie ein Bär nudny jak flaki z olejem 忙得像热锅上的蚂蚁 (máng de xiàng règūo shàng de mǎyǐ) Glossary: What is a simile? It’s as easy as pie! The Language CODE: Similes Across Speech Acts and Social Roles Corpus Overview: Eavesdropping on the Past From Past Routes to Future Voices Trace the Road: How the Method Works → (strong symmetry) → (clear hierarchy: top down) → / (cross-group communication) → (symmetry: equal partners) Key insights: •Men dominate as senders in Content and Displays. •Women appear more often in Exchange and as receivers in Orders. •Hierarchy is most visible in Orders. •Symmetry dominates in Content and Exchange. •Cross-group links (across gender/status) emerge especially in Displays. Acknowledgement Bredin, H. (1998). Comparisons and similes. Lingua, 105(1–2), 67– 78. Elsevier. Culpeper, J. (2010). Historical Sociopragmatics. W: A.H. Jucker, I. Taavitsainen (red.). Historical Pragmatics (69–94). De Gruter Mouton. Mitrenga B., Pastuch M., Wąsińska W., The Corpus of Polish Dramatic Texts (1772–1939) – structure, specificity and application (in press). Wierzbicka A. (1987). English Speech Act Verbs: A Semantic Dictionary. Academic Press Australia.