Marcus Tomalin
Biographic Data
| ID | 147532 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marcus Tomalin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marcus |
| FAMILY NAME | Tomalin |
| SIGNATURE | TOMALIN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6723-6075 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Multimodal social semiotics and the challenge of artificial intelligence
This article proposes an alternative analysis for the relationship between the sign maker and the sign in Multimodal Social Semiotics (MSS). A revised framework is required to ensure that MSS remains relevant in sociotechnical contexts where AI systems can create multimodal ensembles autonomously. When an automated intelligent system outputs a multimodal sign, no human sign maker’s intentionality and agency are directly involved in the process, a…
Italian Gestures and Victorian Forefingers
Measuring perceived empathy in dialogue systems
Dialogue systems, from Virtual Personal Assistants such as Siri, Cortana, and Alexa to state-of-the-art systems such as BlenderBot3 and ChatGPT, are already widely available, used in a variety of applications, and are increasingly part of many people’s lives. However, the task of enabling them to use empathetic language more convincingly is still an emerging research topic. Such systems generally make use of complex neural networks to learn the p…
An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication
Efforts to develop empathetic agents, or systems capable of responding appropriately to emotional content, have increased as the deployment of such systems in socially complex scenarios becomes more commonplace. In the context of human-machine communication (HMC), the ability to create the perception of empathy is achieved in large part through linguistic behavior. However, studies of how language is used to display and respond to emotion in ways…
The practical ethics of bias reduction in machine translation: Why domain adaptation is better than data debiasing
This article probes the practical ethical implications of AI system design by reconsidering the important topic of bias in the datasets used to train autonomous intelligent systems. The discussion draws on recent work concerning behaviour-guiding technologies, and it adopts a cautious form of technological utopianism by assuming it is potentially beneficial for society at large if AI systems are designed to be comparatively free from the biases t…
The Literary Lutes of the Long Eighteenth Century
Recent revisionist historiographical and organological studies have shown that, contrary to the traditional narrative, western lutes continued to be made and played throughout the long eighteenth century. Much more is known now about the luthiers who created them, the professional and amateur musicians who played them, and the performance spaces in which they were encountered. This in turn invites a sustained reconsideration of the many reference…
The French Language and British Literature, 1756-1830
From the 1750s to the 1830s, numerous British intellectuals, novelists, essayists, poets, playwrights, translators, educationalists, politicians, businessmen, travel writers, and philosophers brooded about the merits and demerits of the French language. The decades under consideration encompass a particularly tumultuous period in Anglo-French relations that witnessed the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), the American War of Independence (1775-1783), …
French Poets and British Reviewers, 1814–30
In mainstream studies of French literary history, the Bourbon Restoration of 1814 is often viewed as a pivotal event which encouraged the burgeoning of French Romanticism. The familiar narrative is that, while (with a few notable exceptions) poetry largely stagnated during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, it flourished again after 1814 with the emergence of writers such as Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Alphonse de Lamartine, Alfred de Vigny,…
“And he knew our language”: Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast
This ambitious and ground-breaking book examines the linguistic studies produced by missionaries based on the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America (and particularly Haida Gwaii) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Making extensive use of unpublished archival materials, the author demonstrates that the missionaries were responsible for introducing many innovative and insightful grammatical analyses. Rather than merely ado…
And he knew our language: Missionary linguistics on the Pacific northwest coast
Anthropological approaches
Exploring Nineteenth‐Century Haida Translations of the New Testament
Although a considerable amount has been written about the missionaries who were based on the Pacific Northwest Coast during the nineteenth century, many aspects of their life and ministry still await detailed consideration. This article seeks to contribute to an ongoing process of elucidation by examining the scripture translations produced by Church Missionary Society representatives stationed on the Haida Gwaii archipelago (off the West Coast o…
Missionary Linguistics / Lingüística misionera IV: Lexicography. Selected Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Mérida, Yucatán, 14–17 March 2007 . Edited by Otto Z…
Missionary Linguistics / Lingüística misionera IV: Lexicography. Selected Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Mérida, Yucatán, 14–17 March 2007
No connection or cooperation'? Missionaries and anthropologists on the Pacific Northwest Coast
This article examines the collaborative research that was accomplished by certain missionaries and anthropologists who were based on the Pacific Northwest Coast during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although it is still sometimes suggested that these interactions were minimal, this article reveals their depth and extent. In particular, the way in which prominent researchers such as Franz Boas made use of linguistic analyses th…
Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast
This article reconsiders various aspects of missionary linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the late 19th century. In particular, it explores the complex relationship between Alfred Hall's (1853-1918) A Grammar of the Kwagiutl Language (1888) and Charles Harrison's (d.1926) Haida Grammar (1895), and it is shown that, in many cases, both the basic analytical framework and the clarificatory examples that Harrison used were largely derived …
Reconsidering recursion in syntactic theory
To This Rule There Are Many Exceptions: Robert Maunsell and the Grammar of Maori
This article assesses Robert Maunsell’s (1810–1894) Grammar of the New Zealand Language (1842). In particular, it is shown that, contrary to established belief, Maunsell’s Grammar was not exclusively based upon European or Hebrew grammatical models, but rather that it constituted an intriguing synthesis of different aspects of both traditions. Consequently, the relationship between Maunsell’s work and influential English texts such as Robert Lowt…
Leonard Bloomfield: Linguistics and mathematics
This paper considers various aspects of Leonard Bloomfield's (1887-1949) interest in contemporaneous mathematics. Specifically, some of the sources from which he obtained his mathematical knowledge are discussed, as are his own proposals for a linguistics-based solution to the foundations crisis which preoccupied leading mathematicians during the first half of the 20th century. In addition, his attitude towards the role of meaning in linguistic t…
Goodman, Quine, and Chomsky: From a Grammatical Point of View
The formal origins of syntactic theory
Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast
This article reconsiders various aspects of missionary linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the late 19th century. In particular, it explores the complex relationship between Alfred Hall's (1853-1918) A Grammar of the Kwagiutl Language (1888) and Charles Harrison's (d.1926) Haida Grammar (1895), and it is shown that, in many cases, both the basic analytical framework and the clarificatory examples that Harrison used were largely derived …
Reconsidering recursion in syntactic theory
To This Rule There Are Many Exceptions: Robert Maunsell and the Grammar of Maori
This article assesses Robert Maunsell’s (1810–1894) Grammar of the New Zealand Language (1842). In particular, it is shown that, contrary to established belief, Maunsell’s Grammar was not exclusively based upon European or Hebrew grammatical models, but rather that it constituted an intriguing synthesis of different aspects of both traditions. Consequently, the relationship between Maunsell’s work and influential English texts such as Robert Lowt…
The French Language and British Literature, 1756-1830
From the 1750s to the 1830s, numerous British intellectuals, novelists, essayists, poets, playwrights, translators, educationalists, politicians, businessmen, travel writers, and philosophers brooded about the merits and demerits of the French language. The decades under consideration encompass a particularly tumultuous period in Anglo-French relations that witnessed the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), the American War of Independence (1775-1783), …
The formal origins of syntactic theory
Missionary Linguistics / Lingüística misionera IV: Lexicography. Selected Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Mérida, Yucatán, 14–17 March 2007
The formal origins of syntactic theory
Goodman, Quine, and Chomsky: From a Grammatical Point of View
Leonard Bloomfield: Linguistics and mathematics
This paper considers various aspects of Leonard Bloomfield's (1887-1949) interest in contemporaneous mathematics. Specifically, some of the sources from which he obtained his mathematical knowledge are discussed, as are his own proposals for a linguistics-based solution to the foundations crisis which preoccupied leading mathematicians during the first half of the 20th century. In addition, his attitude towards the role of meaning in linguistic t…
To This Rule There Are Many Exceptions: Robert Maunsell and the Grammar of Maori
This article assesses Robert Maunsell’s (1810–1894) Grammar of the New Zealand Language (1842). In particular, it is shown that, contrary to established belief, Maunsell’s Grammar was not exclusively based upon European or Hebrew grammatical models, but rather that it constituted an intriguing synthesis of different aspects of both traditions. Consequently, the relationship between Maunsell’s work and influential English texts such as Robert Lowt…
Reconsidering recursion in syntactic theory
Reassessing Nineteenth-Century Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast
This article reconsiders various aspects of missionary linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the late 19th century. In particular, it explores the complex relationship between Alfred Hall's (1853-1918) A Grammar of the Kwagiutl Language (1888) and Charles Harrison's (d.1926) Haida Grammar (1895), and it is shown that, in many cases, both the basic analytical framework and the clarificatory examples that Harrison used were largely derived …
No connection or cooperation'? Missionaries and anthropologists on the Pacific Northwest Coast
This article examines the collaborative research that was accomplished by certain missionaries and anthropologists who were based on the Pacific Northwest Coast during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although it is still sometimes suggested that these interactions were minimal, this article reveals their depth and extent. In particular, the way in which prominent researchers such as Franz Boas made use of linguistic analyses th…
Missionary Linguistics / Lingüística misionera IV: Lexicography. Selected Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Mérida, Yucatán, 14–17 March 2007 . Edited by Otto Z…
Missionary Linguistics / Lingüística misionera IV: Lexicography. Selected Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Mérida, Yucatán, 14–17 March 2007
“And he knew our language”: Missionary Linguistics on the Pacific Northwest Coast
This ambitious and ground-breaking book examines the linguistic studies produced by missionaries based on the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America (and particularly Haida Gwaii) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Making extensive use of unpublished archival materials, the author demonstrates that the missionaries were responsible for introducing many innovative and insightful grammatical analyses. Rather than merely ado…
And he knew our language: Missionary linguistics on the Pacific northwest coast
Anthropological approaches
Exploring Nineteenth‐Century Haida Translations of the New Testament
Although a considerable amount has been written about the missionaries who were based on the Pacific Northwest Coast during the nineteenth century, many aspects of their life and ministry still await detailed consideration. This article seeks to contribute to an ongoing process of elucidation by examining the scripture translations produced by Church Missionary Society representatives stationed on the Haida Gwaii archipelago (off the West Coast o…
French Poets and British Reviewers, 1814–30
In mainstream studies of French literary history, the Bourbon Restoration of 1814 is often viewed as a pivotal event which encouraged the burgeoning of French Romanticism. The familiar narrative is that, while (with a few notable exceptions) poetry largely stagnated during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, it flourished again after 1814 with the emergence of writers such as Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Alphonse de Lamartine, Alfred de Vigny,…
The French Language and British Literature, 1756-1830
From the 1750s to the 1830s, numerous British intellectuals, novelists, essayists, poets, playwrights, translators, educationalists, politicians, businessmen, travel writers, and philosophers brooded about the merits and demerits of the French language. The decades under consideration encompass a particularly tumultuous period in Anglo-French relations that witnessed the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), the American War of Independence (1775-1783), …
The Literary Lutes of the Long Eighteenth Century
Recent revisionist historiographical and organological studies have shown that, contrary to the traditional narrative, western lutes continued to be made and played throughout the long eighteenth century. Much more is known now about the luthiers who created them, the professional and amateur musicians who played them, and the performance spaces in which they were encountered. This in turn invites a sustained reconsideration of the many reference…
The practical ethics of bias reduction in machine translation: Why domain adaptation is better than data debiasing
This article probes the practical ethical implications of AI system design by reconsidering the important topic of bias in the datasets used to train autonomous intelligent systems. The discussion draws on recent work concerning behaviour-guiding technologies, and it adopts a cautious form of technological utopianism by assuming it is potentially beneficial for society at large if AI systems are designed to be comparatively free from the biases t…
An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication
Efforts to develop empathetic agents, or systems capable of responding appropriately to emotional content, have increased as the deployment of such systems in socially complex scenarios becomes more commonplace. In the context of human-machine communication (HMC), the ability to create the perception of empathy is achieved in large part through linguistic behavior. However, studies of how language is used to display and respond to emotion in ways…
Measuring perceived empathy in dialogue systems
Dialogue systems, from Virtual Personal Assistants such as Siri, Cortana, and Alexa to state-of-the-art systems such as BlenderBot3 and ChatGPT, are already widely available, used in a variety of applications, and are increasingly part of many people’s lives. However, the task of enabling them to use empathetic language more convincingly is still an emerging research topic. Such systems generally make use of complex neural networks to learn the p…
Multimodal social semiotics and the challenge of artificial intelligence
This article proposes an alternative analysis for the relationship between the sign maker and the sign in Multimodal Social Semiotics (MSS). A revised framework is required to ensure that MSS remains relevant in sociotechnical contexts where AI systems can create multimodal ensembles autonomously. When an automated intelligent system outputs a multimodal sign, no human sign maker’s intentionality and agency are directly involved in the process, a…
Italian Gestures and Victorian Forefingers
Philosophy (13 works) · Linguistics (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · History (10 works) · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies (9 works) · History (9 works) · Art (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Indigenous (4 works)