Elizaveta Kibisova

• Poldvere, Nele; Kibisova, Elizaveta & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2023). Investigating the language of fake news across cultures. In Maci, Stefania; Demata, Massimiliano; McGlashan, Mark & Seargeant, Philip (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation. Routledge. ISSN 9781003224495. p. 153–165. doi: https:/doi.org/10.4324/9781003224495-11. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter presents the methodological considerations, the challenges and the opportunities, of investigating the language of fake news across cultures. The methodological considerations are based on the Fakespeak project, an interdisciplinary project involving linguists and computer scientists whose objectives are, firstly, to reveal the language and style of fake news in English, Norwegian, and Russian and, secondly, to see whether the findings can help improve existing fake news detection systems. The procedure of collecting data in the three languages representing three different cultures (e.g. English in the USA) presented several methodological challenges, which required innovative solutions. The challenges were quite different in each case, with access to quality data (collections of fake and genuine news individually labelled for veracity by experts) being especially limited for Norwegian and Russian, albeit for different reasons. The datasets that have emerged from the Fakespeak project so far are very diverse, including both large datasets with news written by a mix of authors (so-called general datasets) and smaller datasets with fake and genuine news written by the same author (single-authored and hybrid, multiauthored datasets). The diversity of data types is important for linguistic analyses of fake news so that meaningful comparisons with genuine news can be made, as well as for the subsequent development of automatic detection systems.

• Kibisova, Elizaveta (2020). How do we measure “measure”? Measure constructions and Metaphor . Poljarnyj vestnik: Norwegian Journal of Slavic Studies. ISSN 1500-7502. 23, p. 1–17. doi: 10.7557/6.5548.

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• Poldvere, Nele; Kibisova, Elizaveta; Trnavac, Radoslava & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2024). Is stance in fake news expressed differently across languages? Show summary

  In this corpus study, we examine the use and distribution of stance expressions in fake news in three languages: English, Norwegian and Russian. Stance is a major communicative resource in language, and it plays an important role in how news organisations and social media users inform, persuade and entertain their audiences. Stance may also be an indicator of the ‘fakeness’ of news. Indeed, previous research (Trnavac & Põldvere, 2024) has identified significant differences in evaluative language use between fake and genuine news in English; however, it is unclear how these differences are reflected across languages and cultures. Therefore, the present study sets out to compare and contrast the occurrence of a range of lexico-grammatical features of stance across English in the US, Norwegian in Norway and Russian in Russia, based on Biber (2006). The lexico-grammatical features are divided into major structural and pragmatic categories (e.g., adverbs expressing epistemic stance: certainly). The data are from three comparable corpora, collected from fact-checking websites covering news in the respective languages. Based on previous cross-linguistic research on stance in news discourse (Marin-Arrese, 2015), we expect there to be considerable differences across the three languages due to general differences in argumentative and persuasive style, as well as specific cultural characteristics associated with each country (e.g., varying levels of freedom of expression). References Biber, D. (2006) Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 97–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.05.001 Marin-Arrese, J. I. (2015). Epistemicity and stance: A cross-linguistic study of epistemic stance strategies in journalistic discourse in English and Spanish. Discourse Studies, 17(2), 210–225. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445614564523 Trnavac, R., & Põldvere, N. (2024). Investigating Appraisal and the language of evaluation in fake news corpora. Corpus Pragmatics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41701-023-00162-x

• Poldvere, Nele; Kibisova, Elizaveta & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2024). Fakespeak (linguistics).
• Kibisova, Elizaveta & Poldvere, Nele (2023). Stance, fake news and corpora: A contrastive study of English, Norwegian and Russian.
• Poldvere, Nele; Kibisova, Elizaveta & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2023). Stance, fake news and corpora: A contrastive study of English, Norwegian and Russian. Show summary

  In this work-in-progress presentation, we outline the main aims and steps of implementation of a corpus-based analysis of stance in fake news in English, Norwegian and Russian. In our previous study, we found significant differences in Appraisal expressions between fake and genuine news in English (Trnavac & Põldvere, 2023), but it is unclear how these differences are reflected across languages and cultures. Based on Biber’s (2006) stance framework, we set out to compare and contrast the use and distribution of a wide range of lexico-grammatical features of stance across English in the US, Norwegian in Norway and Russian in Russia. To the best of our knowledge, the framework has not been applied to fake news research before, nor are we aware of any extensions of the framework to Norwegian and Russian to facilitate cross-linguistic comparisons. The data are from three corpora of fake and genuine news, collected from fact-checking websites covering news in the respective languages. In this presentation, we focus on and seek feedback on the first steps of the analysis: (i) the development of the stance frameworks in all three languages and (ii) the design and compilation of comparable corpora in terms of size and genre. We also present the outputs of preliminary semi-automatic searches of the stance expressions in the corpora, which give interesting first insights into how stance-taking works in fake news in English, Norwegian and Russian. References Biber, D. (2006). Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 97–116. Trnavac, R., & Põldvere, N. (2023). Investigating Appraisal and the language of evaluation in fake news corpora [Manuscript under review].

• Sokolova, Svetlana; Birzer, Sandra; Ignatieva, Aleksandra & Kibisova, Elizaveta (2023). A usage-based approach to morphological variation: The choice of suffix in Russian loan verbs.
• Poldvere, Nele; Kibisova, Elizaveta; Alvestad, Silje Susanne & Trnavac, Radoslava (2023). Fake news around the world: A corpus-based analysis of stance in fake news in English, Norwegian and Russian. Show summary

  This talk presents a corpus-based analysis of stance in fake news in English, Norwegian and Russian. In our previous research, we found significant differences in Appraisal expressions between fake and genuine news in English (Trnavac & Põldvere, 2023), but it is unclear how these differences are reflected across languages and cultures. Based on Biber’s (2006) stance framework, we set out to compare and contrast the use and distribution of a wide range of lexico-grammatical features of stance across English in the US, Norwegian in Norway and Russian in Russia. The lexico-grammatical features are divided into major structural categories with meanings related to epistemic stance, evidentiality, attitude, and more (e.g., I believe, evidently, it is surprising that, and equivalent constructions in other languages). To the best of our knowledge, the stance framework has not been used in fake news research before, nor are we aware of any extensions of the framework to Norwegian and Russian to facilitate cross-linguistic comparisons. The data are from three comparable corpora of fake and genuine news, collected from fact-checking websites covering news in the respective languages. For Russian, for example, we relied on websites operating in countries neighbouring Russia, taking into account the recent implementation of laws in Russia which have considerably limited freedom of expression in the country. The corpora are comparable in terms of size and the fact that the fake news stories are mainly from news websites, blogs and social media posts. Based on previous cross-linguistic research on stance in news discourse (Marin-Arrese, 2015), we expect there to be considerable differences in the way in which stance is expressed in fake news in the three languages due to general differences in argumentative and persuasive style, as well as specific cultural characteristics associated with each country (e.g., high levels of state propaganda in Russia). References Biber, D. (2006). Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 97–116. Marin-Arrese, J. I. (2015). Epistemicity and stance: A cross-linguistic study of epistemic stance strategies in journalistic discourse in English and Spanish. Discourse Studies, 17(2), 210–225. Trnavac, R., & Põldvere, N. (2023). Investigating Appraisal and the language of evaluation in fake news corpora [Manuscript in preparation].

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