ABSTRACT

The following study provides evidence that the use of a high number of test items in a subjective rating task with a bipolar scale does not affect the outcome detrimentally, a question hitherto unexplored in quantitative linguistics. By ‘contrastive bipolar scale’ we have in mind a scale with two different, explicit ‘options’ (here words), one at each end. We analyse a large-scale rating study consisting of nearly 1,000 participants and almost 700 pairs of word items per participant. A pair consisted of two synonymous words from a non-standard Silesian variety, one of German origin (a loan), one from the Polish Standard language. The judgement to be given was an estimation of the subjective frequency of the use of the German loan in comparison to its Polish equivalent in colloquial Silesian speech. We use non-linear regression analysis, GAMM, to examine if the presentation order of words affects the mean ratings. Findings show that results are not affected by either the high number of test items or the order of the presentation of word items.

摘要

以下研究提供了证据，表明在双极性量表的主观评分任务中使用大量测试项目不会不利地影响结果，这是迄今为止在定量语言学中尚未探讨的问题。通过“对比双极量表”，我们想到了一个具有两个不同的，明确的“选项”（在此为词语）的量表，每个选项一个。我们分析了一项由近1,000名参与者和每名参与者将近700对单词组成的大规模评级研究。一对由来自非标准西里西亚语的两个同义词组成，一个来自德国（借出），一个来自波兰标准语言。做出的判断是对口语西里西亚语中的德国借贷与其波兰语借用相比的主观使用频率的估计。我们使用非线性回归分析GAMM 检查单词的出现顺序是否会影响平均评分。结果表明，测试项目的数量过多或单词项目的显示顺序都不会影响结果。