capturing reader perceptions of writer character (was: self-promotionn in written discourse)

[tian hailong]

Dear Jennifer and other Discourse members,
I agree that a reader's perception of a writer's character is indeed
difficult to gauge. I once examined twenty speakers' use of
"I" or "we" in their speech in a radio program. I found that they use
the pronouns differently, so diferently that it might be a kind of idiolect.
Through a questionaire I found that audience
have different perceptions of the speakers' character or personality.
In this study I tried to see some relationship between the use of pronoun
and the display of the users' character. I would be happy to  know other
studies that deal with this topic.

TIAN, Hailong


Jennifer Hrazdil wrote:

> Dear Dr. Maalej and Discourse members,
>
> I am very interested to read your paper and would appreciate a hard-copy.
> How to gauge a reader's perception of a writer's character is indeed a
> difficult task.
>
> I have come across quite a few studies measuring reader/listener perceptions
> in the Impression Management literature of social psychology. From what I
> can gather, these studies tend to involve administering empirically valid
> and reliable questionnaires to research participants in an effort to gauge
> their perceptions of the writer's character. The texts on which the
> perceptions of the writer are based are specially designed for the
> experiment, and variation between texts tends to be restricted to isolated
> variables. (For example, in studies on reader impressions of resumes, a base
> resume might be created with one variable, in say Educational Background,
> manipulated from resume to resume while everything else remains the same.)
>
> I am interested to know whether any Discourse members are familiar with, or
> interested in, research gauging the reader's perceptions of the writer's
> character in longer texts that have not been 'experimentally-modified'
> (i.e., on authentic texts from multiple writers - where many, many variables
> differ from text to text)?
>
> Thank you,
> Jennifer
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Zouhair Maalej <zmaalej at GNET.TN>
> To: <DISCOURS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 01:15
> Subject: Re: self-promotionn in written discourse
>
> > Dear all,
> > I have published a paper on self-promotional written discourse, with
> special
> > reference to dating ads or lonely heart ads:
> >
> > Maalej, Zouhair (1999). "Interpersonal Perception in Self-Promotional
> > Discourse." The Tunisian Review of
> > Modern Languages 9, 155-174.
> >
> > I was more interested in perception of males by females and vice versa. If
> > you are interested, I can send you a hard copy by snail-mail.
> >
> > I hope this will help you.
> > Kind regards
> > **********************
> > Dr Zouhair Maalej,
> > Department of English, Chair,
> > Faculty of Letters,
> > University of Manouba,
> > Tunis-Manouba, 2010, Tunis, Tunisia.
> > *********************************************
> > Office phone: (+216) 1 600 700  Ext. 174
> > Office Fax: (+216) 1 600 910
> > Home Telefax: (+216) 1 362 871
> > E-mail: zmaalej at gnet.tn
> > URL: http//: simsim.rug.ac.be/ZMaalej
> > **********************************************
> > CURIOSITY BRINGS JOY
> > JOY BRINGS HEALTH
> > HEALTH BRINGS LUCIDITY
> > LUCIDITY BRINGS CURIOSITY
> > ****************************************