SEMINAR

Genres can be understood in many different ways. They are often perceived as a primarily sociological construction, or, alternatively, as a stylostatistically or philologically observable objective characteristic of texts. The latter view is more common in the research field of information and language technology. These two views can be quite compatible and can inform each other; this talk will discusses how one might look at texts from the point of their observable features on the one hand and on their usage, by observing reader and author behaviour on the other. The latter view, if taken to its conclusion, will have effects on the choice of features and their aggregation for language technologists.