Silje Susanne Alvestad

• Saric, Ljiljana & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2024). Slavonic noun phrases , The Oxford Guide to the Slavonic Languages. Oxford University Press. ISSN 000-00-000-0000-0.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2023). Towards detecting the language of disinformation: Experiences from the Fakespeak project. Collection of the Scientific Papers of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies of the National Defence University of Ukraine. ISSN 2304-2745. doi: 10.33099/2304-2745/2023-3-79/84-88.
• 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.

• Alvestad, Silje Susanne & Saric, Ljiljana (2018). De-type discourse particles in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Turkish. Turcologica. ISSN 0177-4743. p. 11–31. doi: 10.2307/j.ctvh4zh3p.7.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2017). Aspect use in Slavic infinitives and corresponding da-constructions :. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). ISSN 1890-9639. 9(1), p. 5–16. doi: 10.5617/osla.3866. Full text in Research Archive
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne & Edzard, Lutz (2016). Aspect in the Biblical Hebrew imperative from a modern Slavic perspective. In Edzard, Lutz (Eds.), The Morpho-Syntactic and Lexical Encoding of Tense and Aspect in Semitic. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISSN 978-3-447-10622-1. p. 22–52. doi: 10.2307/j.ctvc5pg9t.5.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). The typology of aspect in the Slavic imperative. In Lyutikova, Ekaterina; Zimmerling, Anton & Konoshenko, Maria (Ed.), Tipologija morfosintaksicheskikh parametrov. Materialy mezhdunarodnoj konferencii "Tipologija morfosintaksicheskikh parametrov 2015". Moscow State Pedagogical University. ISSN 978-5-4263-0293-8. p. 15–24.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). A DRT Account of Event Type Anaphora in Slavic Imperatives: Cases with a Covert Antecedent. In McCready, Eric (Eds.), The Proceedings of the Twelfth International Workshop on Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics (LENLS 12). Keio University. ISSN 978-4-915905-68-1. p. 255–270.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). Aspect use in the Slavic infinitive (and subjunctive). In Kitajo, Mitsushi (Eds.), Aspektual'naja semanticheskaja zona: tipologija sistem i scenarii diakhronicheskogo razvitija. Sbornik statej V Mezhdunarodnoj konferencii Komissii po aspektologii Mezhdunarodnogo komiteta slavistov. Tanaka Print. ISSN 978-4-905726-35-7. p. 7–14.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). Event token and event type anaphora in Slavic imperatives. In Zybatow, Gerhild; Biskup, Petr; Guhl, Marcel; Hurtig, Claudia; Mueller-Reichau, Olav & Yastrebova, Maria (Ed.), Slavic Grammar from a Formal Perspective. The 10th Anniversary FDSL Conference, Leipzig 2013. Peter Lang Publishing Group. ISSN 978-3-631-66246-5. p. 11–27.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). Canonical and non-canonical uses of the imperative in Slavic. In Edzard, Lutz (Eds.), Arabic and Semitic Linguistics Contextualized. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISSN 978-3-447-10422-7. p. 19–39. doi: 10.2307/j.ctvc2rmgq.6.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne & Edzard, Lutz (2015). Aspect in the Slavic and the Biblical Hebrew imperative. In Edzard, Lutz (Eds.), Arabic and Semitic Linguistics Contextualized. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISSN 978-3-447-10422-7. p. 361–390. doi: 10.2307/j.ctvc2rmgq.23.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2014). Arebica (Arabica). Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Online. ISSN 1570-6699.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2014). Aspect use in the imperative and the prescriptive infinitive in recipes in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Russian: A comparative account. Jezikoslovlje. ISSN 1331-7202. 15(2-3), p. 307–347.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2014). Evaluative Language in Academic Discourse: Euphemisms vs. Dysphemisms in ANDREWS’ & KALPAKLI’s "The Age of Beloveds" (2005) as a case in point. Journal of Arabic and Islamic studies. ISSN 0806-198X. p. 155–177. doi: 10.5617/jais.4643.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2014). Fake imperfective imperatives in Slavic. Oslo Studies in Language (OSLa). ISSN 1890-9639. 6(1), p. 1–14. doi: 10.5617/osla.692.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2014). Muhamed Hevai Uskufi Bosnevi’s 1631 work Maḳbūl-i ʿārif from a turcological perspective: The state of the art. In Edzard, Lutz & Huehnergard, John (Ed.), Proceedings of the Oslo-Austin Workshop in Semitic Linguistics. Oslo, May 23 and 24, 2013. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISSN 978-3-447-10227-8. p. 144–160.

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• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2016). The Uppsala manuscript of Muḥammed Hevāʾī Üskūfī Bosnevī´s "Maḳbūl-i ʿārif" (1631) from a turcological perspective: Transliteration, transcription, and an English translation. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-10635-1. 164 p.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne & Edzard, Lutz (2009). la-chshov, but la-chazor? Sonority, Optimality, and the Hebrew Forms primae chet. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-05910-7. 304 p.

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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

• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2024). Fakespeak - the language of fake news. Fake news detection based on linguistic cues.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2024). The Fakespeak project - linguistics in the service of fake news detection: Rationale, where we are now, and the way forward.
• Følstad, Asbjørn & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2024). Fakespeak, NxtGenFake og KI-RISK.
• Poldvere, Nele; Kibisova, Elizaveta & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2024). Fakespeak (linguistics).
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2023). The Fakespeak project: What it is, who we are and what we have found so far.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2023). The Fakespeak project: Linguistics in the service of national security.
• 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].

• 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].

• Põldvere, Nele & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2021). Fakespeak – A pilot study. Show summary

  In this talk, I present the results of a pilot study within the research project “Fakespeak: The language of fake news”. The project involves linguists and computer scientists whose primary objective is to reveal the grammatical and stylistic features of the language of fake news, Fakespeak. The secondary objective is to improve existing fake news detection systems through the automation of the defining linguistic features of Fakespeak. Fake news is defined here as news items that are meant to be deceptive and in which case the author knows that they are false. The pilot study is inspired by a study conducted by Woodfield and Grieve (2019) on Jayson Blair, who was found fabricating news stories for The New York Times. The newspaper tagged the fabricated stories, resulting in two datasets, one of genuine and one of fabricated stories. The linguists subjected the two datasets to Register Analysis, hypothesising that, given the distinct communicative purposes of the stories—to deceive versus to inform—the genuine and the fabricated stories should be grammatically distinct. Indeed, they found that the features of Blair’s genuine stories were similar to those of informationally dense writing, whereas the features of his false stories were similar to those of interactive discourse. I will use the Jayson Blair corpus to extend the analysis to include socio-cognitive features of language, namely metaphor. Based on previous findings that metaphor is limited in interactive spoken discourse (Cameron, 2003), I expect fake news to make use of metaphor to a lesser extent than genuine news, thus providing support for Woodfield and Grieve’s (2019) study. References Cameron, L. (2003). Metaphor in educational discourse. Continuum. Woodfield, H., & Grieve, J. (2019, August 29). Individual differences in fake news: The case of Jayson Blair [Conference session]. British Association of Applied Linguistics Annual Conference, Manchester, UK.

• Põldvere, Nele & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2021). Is metaphor the key to detecting fake news? First results from the Fakespeak project. Show summary

  This study presents the first results from Fakespeak, a project which defines the linguistic features of fake news in order to improve currently existing detection systems. We explore the possibility that the key to distinguishing between fake and genuine news is metaphor, a resource for talking about one thing (usually complex and abstract) in terms of another (simple and concrete). For instance, talking about viruses as coming in waves reflects the conceptual metaphor disease is a natural disaster, where disease is the ‘target’ domain and natural disaster the ‘source’ domain (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Previous research has suggested that metaphor is often used to describe personal experiences, which leads us to believe that genuine news makes use of metaphor to a greater extent than fake news. Moreover, we expect there to be differences in the source domains used. In order to evade issues of comparability, the data are from news written by a single journalist, Jayson Blair, who was caught fabricating stories for The New York Times in the early 2000s (Woodfield & Grieve, 2019). The dataset consists of 38 redacted and 47 non-redacted articles, which were read in full in order to identify the full range of metaphorical expressions. The preliminary results provide support for the expectation that metaphor is more limited in fake news. Moreover, the source domains used in fake news reflect very basic bodily experiences of the world, compared to the diverse range of complex and vivid metaphors used in genuine news (e.g., nature, war, sports). References Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. The University of Chicago Press. Woodfield, H., & Grieve, J. (2019, August 29). Individual differences in fake news: The case of Jayson Blair [Conference session]. British Association of Applied Linguistics Annual Conference, Manchester, UK.

• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2021). The Fakespeak project: Linguistics in the service of fake news detection.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2021). Fakespeak - the language of fake news.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2020). Fakespeak - the language of fake news. Fake news detection based on linguistic cues.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2020). The Fakespeak Project.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2020). Norwegian Fakespeak - A Pilot Study.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2020). - Beware of fakes! Detecting fake online contents based on linguistic cues.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2019). Fakespeak - the language of fake news.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2019). Linguistics in the service of fake news detection.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2019). Fakespeak: The language of fake news. Fake news detection based on linguistic cues.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2018). O. Nova 546: The Uppsala Manuscript of Maḳbūl-i ʿārif (1631). In Edzard, Lutz; Borgland, Jens Wilhelm & Hüsken, Ute (Ed.), Reading Slowly. A Festschrift for Jens E. Braarvig. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISSN 978-3-447-10964-2. p. 13–27. Full text in Research Archive
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2016). A corpus-based case study of aspect use in infinitives in Russian as compared with infinitives and corresponding da-constructions in some Balkan languages.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2016). Das literarische Werk Maḳbūl-i ʿārif [„Dem Weisen lieb“] von Muḥammed Hevāʾī Üskūfī Bosnevī (1631) .
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2016). Der Aspektgebrauch im slawischen Imperativ.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2016). The use of aspect in Slavic imperatives.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2016). Aspect use in Slavic infinitives and corresponding da-constructions.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2016). Multilingualism and translation in Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina: The versified (Ottoman) Turkish-Bosnian glossary Maḳbūl-i ʿārif [Dear to the Wise] from 1631 as a case in point.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2016). Aspect in Slavic infinitives and corresponding constructions.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). A DRT Account of Event Type Anaphora in Slavic Imperatives: Cases with a Covert Antecedent.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). Aspect in the Slavic infintive (and subjunctive).
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). Aspect use in the Slavic infinitive (and subjunctive).
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). A DRT account of event type anaphora in Slavic imperatives: Cases with and without an overt antecedent.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). The functional diversity of Slavic imperatives.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). Aspect and tense in the Slavic infinitive (and subjunctive): Interpretation and distribution.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2015). The typology of aspect in the Slavic imperative.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne; Saric, Ljiljana; Hauge, Kjetil Rå & Lazarova, Anna (2015). The particle "de" in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Bulgarian, Modern Greek, and Turkish.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2014). Muḥammed Hevāʾī Üskūfī Bosnevī and the Uppsala manuscript of Maḳbūl-i ʿārif from a turcological perspective.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2014). Aspekt og tempus i slaviske infinitiver (og konjunktiver).
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne & Edzard, Lutz (2014). Aspect in the Slavic and the Biblical Hebrew imperative.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2013). Event token and event type anaphora in Slavic imperatives.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2013). - Beware of fakes! 2.0. Fake Imperfectives in the Slavic Imperative.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2013). Makbul-i Arif or Potur Shahidiye revisited: Arabic elements in Turkish as used in Bosnia between 1500 and 1800.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2013). - Watch out for anaphors! Event token and event type anaphora in the Slavic imperative.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2012). - Beware of fakes! Fake imperfectives in the Slavic imperative.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2012). Makbul-i Arif: The Bosnian language in the 17th century based on Muhamed Hevai Uskufi's Bosnian-Turkish dictionary from 1631.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2011). - There are people who will be very upset by this... "Kjærlighet" mellom menn i Det osmanske riket. Eller: Hvordan kildene våre IKKE kan fortelle noe om mennesket.
• Edzard, Lutz & Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2008). Guttural phonology and the Hebrew p"ch-verbs.
• Alvestad, Silje Susanne (2013). - Beware of fakes! Fake imperfectives in the Slavic imperative. Nauka.

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