The Stacks (Library of Anglo-American Culture & History - FID AAC, Göttingen State and University Library)
Not a member yet
3117 research outputs found
Sort by
Mediale Identitäten – multimodal und mehrsprachig
No full textOpen Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Universität zu Köln (1017
Can Chatbots Effectively Verify Political Information?
No full textThis article presents a comparative analysis of the potential of two large language model (LLM)-based chatbots—ChatGPT and Bing Chat (recently rebranded to Microsoft Copilot)—to detect veracity of political information. We use AI auditing methodology to investigate how chatbots evaluate true, false, and borderline statements on five topics: COVID-19, Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Holocaust, climate change, and LGBTQ + -related debates. We compare how the chatbots respond in high- and low-resource languages by using prompts in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. Furthermore, we explore chatbots’ ability to evaluate statements according to political communication concepts of disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy theory, using definition-oriented prompts. We also systematically test how such evaluations are influenced by source attribution. The results show high potential of ChatGPT for the baseline veracity evaluation task, with 72% of the cases evaluated in accordance with the baseline on average across languages without pre-training. Bing Chat evaluated 67% of the cases in accordance with the baseline. We observe significant disparities in how chatbots evaluate prompts in high- and low-resource languages and how they adapt their evaluations to political communication concepts with ChatGPT providing more nuanced outputs than Bing Chat. These findings highlight the potential of LLM-based chatbots in tackling different forms of false information in online environments, but also point to the substantial variation in terms of how such potential is realized due to specific factors (e.g. language of the prompt or the topic).Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschunghttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100002347Weizenbaum-Institut e.V. (1789
Directive, Commissive, Expressive and Representative Participles in Germanic Root Configurations
No full textThe present paper investigates participial root configurations, i.e. participial clauses that are grammatically independent of a host clause. Unlike previous work, which has focussed on either directive or (non-directive) performative uses of so-called past participles (i.e. participles that have passive and/or perfect(ive) interpretations), the present paper establishes a typology of ‘root participles’ in Germanic and contrasts the properties of four main types: (1) directive (RP dir ), (2) expressive (RP exp ), (3) commissive (RP com ), (4) representative root participles (RP rep ). The main claim with respect to the properties of these distinct types is that they differ in terms of whether they include a verbal or an adjectival (passive) participle. In fact, arguments based on argument structure, orientation, aspect, and adverbial modification are presented to substantiate the claim that types (1) and (2) are formed with verbal and types (3) and (4) with adjectival participles. Additionally, the distinct types will be shown to differ in their status of either being non-sentential (i.e. structurally different from potential clausal counterparts) or merely elliptical (just phonologically reduced): types (1) and (3) can be shown to be non-sentential and hence receive a dedicated syntactic analysis, where special attention is paid to the contribution of the (imperative vs. declarative) left periphery.Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEA
Comparing Agricultural Yields and Expansion in the Spanish and U.S. Philippines, 1870–1925 CE
No full textBurgeoning global trade and colonial policies promoted transformations in land use and agriculture throughout tropical regions in the 19 th and 20 th centuries, but the local and regional ecological consequences of landscape changes are still being identified and analysed. The Philippine Archipelago, which experienced successive colonial regimes across more than 7100 islands, exemplifies the multiplicity of ecological outcomes produced by these transformations. To better characterise diverse landscape change, we use colonial censuses and datasets to assess land use, production and agricultural yields in the Philippines during the late Spanish and early U.S. colonial periods (ca. 1870–1925). Our novel digital, quantitative analysis indicates that, at the national and provincial scales, agricultural production and land use increased for all major crops in both periods, while agricultural yields were mostly constant. Our results suggest that colonial investments to “improve” Philippine agriculture, specifically their efforts to increase production per hectare, were not effective. Our provincial-scale analysis also confirms the importance of distinct labour patterns, geographies and socio-political arrangements in defining this period’s ecological consequences, and we provide quantified and historically contextualised data in a format amenable to ecologists to promote future, localised historic ecological research
Langlebigkeit, Unsterblichkeit und Wiedergeburt in Mittelerde
No full textLanglebigkeit und Unsterblichkeit spielen in den Geschichten von J.R.R. Tolkien eine wesentliche Rolle, der Aspekt der Wiedergeburt hingegen taucht nur vereinzelt auf. Tolkiens Ausführungen zu diesen Themen in seinem zu Lebzeiten veröffentlichten Werk sind nicht sehr umfangreich. Die Konzepte von Sterblichkeit und Unsterblichkeit sind durchgehend und schlüssig, in seinen Texten zu Wiedergeburt, Körper und Seele hingegen gibt es vor allem in den später veröffentlichten Schriften Umbrüche und Widersprüche. In diesem Artikel werden Tolkiens Konzepte in ihrer Entwicklung vorgestellt und es wird aufgezeigt, warum sich diejenigen, die mehr als The Hobbit und The Lord of the Rings lesen, entscheiden müssen, welche Teile von Tolkiens Werk sie für ihr Mittelerdebild heranziehen.Longevity and immortality play an important role in the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien, whereas the aspect of rebirth only appears sporadically. Tolkien’s explanations of these themes in the works published during his lifetime are not very extensive. The concepts of mortality and immortality are consistent and coherent, whereas in his texts on rebirth, body and soul there are discontinuities and contradictions, especially in his later published writings. In this article, Tolkien’s concepts are presented in their development, and it is demonstrated why those who read more than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will have to decide which parts of Tolkien’s work they use for their personal image of Middle-earth
Nation, Environment, and Identity in Australia
No full textAustralien, der ‘trockenste bewohnte Kontinent’, erlebt seit Jahren erbitterte ‘Water Wars’. Deren Zentrum ist das Murray-Darling-Becken (MDB), das Herz der australischen Landwirtschaft. Bundesstaaten, ländliche Gemeinden, Landwirt_innen, Agrarkonzerne, Native-Title-Inhaber_innen und die Umwelt konkurrieren um die knapper werdenden Wasserressourcen in dieser wirtschaftlich und ökologisch wichtigen Großregion. Durch die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels werden diese Kämpfe in Zukunft voraussichtlich noch an Intensität gewinnen. Dieser Beitrag verfolgt die historische Genealogie dieser ‘Konfliktlandschaft’ seit den späten 1960er Jahren, um die gegenwärtige Situation besser zu verstehen. Die hier entwickelte These lautet, dass in der Zeit zwischen 1968 und 1994 die Grundlagen für die heutige Konfliktstruktur gelegt wurden. Während dieser Zeit eskalierte einerseits eine Umweltkrise im MDB, die Versalzung der Böden und des Wassers. Insgesamt verschlechterte sich die Situation durch übermäßigen Wasserverbrauch, sodass das MDB am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts in einem ökologisch katastrophalen Zustand war. Andererseits wurde in dieser Zeit das staatliche Monopol auf die nicht-urbanen Wasserressourcen aufgelöst. Unter dem doppelten Vorzeichen der Durchsetzung der Paradigmen des Neoliberalismus und der Nachhaltigkeit wurde Wasser von einem öffentlichen Gut zu einer Ware. Heute hat Australien den am weitesten entwickelten Wassermarkt der Welt – ein ökologisches und soziales Experiment mit offenem Ausgang, das wir uns auch in Europa genau ansehen sollten
Aesthetics
No full textDonald Trump’s presidency deserves to be remembered for its art, but not the art patronized by the first couple or White House cultural events celebrated American expressive traditions and innovations. Trump’s populist moment, from the 2016 campaign through his tumultuous exit and return to the presidency, should be remembered, among other things, for the varied and unconventional citizen-made art that it inspired. His presidencies emboldened citizens of different political persuasions to participate in, display, exchange and sell their idiosyncratic artworks. The art that best exemplifies the Trump era’s populist politics is not fine art, but rather art by, of and for the people, crafted with common tools and made to speak to the specifics of the moment in its visual and aural vernacular rather than transcend it. For populist movements in the US, from the frontier to the present, popular culture has been the mode and medium of exchange that has performed the vital task of creating political (and oppositional) community and shared, but not monolithic, identity as “the people.” In this moment, the aesthetics of “the people” is not found in formal traits that are shared among works, but in a relational aesthetic – one of domination. Through analysis of two small, digital works, this essay examines two aspects of this: the aestheticization of domination, through violence and ridicule; and the power to re-signify objects to ventriloquize them as partisan, erasing previous meanings and histories