Dataset Discourse Management Constructions in Wikipedia Talk Pages

This dataset forms the basis to the paper: Gillmann, M. (2024). Allostructions and stancetaking: a corpus study of the German discourse management constructions Wo/wenn wir gerade/schon dabei sind. Cognitive Linguistics, 35(1), 67-107. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2020-0117 Drawing on a corpus study of Wikipedia Talk pages, the paper presents a case study of German discourse management markers such as wo wir gerade dabei sind ‘Speaking of which’ or wenn wir schon dabei sind ‘while we’re at it’. Based on the dataset, the observed frequencies of the filler items were compared to the statistically expected ones, using Hierarchical Configural Frequency Analysis and Distinctive Collexeme Analysis. Those measures revealed that there are two different collocational types, namely wo wir/ich gerade bei NP sind/bin ‘as we are/I am just at NP’ and wenn wir/du schon bei NP sind/bist ‘as we/you are already at NP’. Both serve as discourse management markers, topic orientation markers in particular, whose purpose it is to shift the topic. They involve the same fixed pattern, combining the same categorical slots. However, they diverge in collocational preferences, which reflect functional differences. The raw dataset consists of a table, with each row containing one corpus occurrence as well as the lexical filler items of the categorical slots that recurred in both patterns. Those filler items comprise a) the connector slot with the connectors wo or wenn, b) the subject slot that in the vast majority of the cases contains a personal pronoun, c) the adverb slot, d) the preposition slot, e) lemmatas occurring in the noun slot that is embedded in a prepositional phrase, f) punctuation marks. These variables are the basis for the collocation measures presented in the paper. Methods The data come from a sub-corpus of the German Reference Corpus (Deutsches Referenzkorpus, DeReKo) hosted by the Leibniz Institute for the German Language (Mannheim), which consists of all editor discussions associated with specific Wikipedia articles between 2002 and 2017 (https://www.ids-mannheim.de/digspra/kl/projekte/korpora/archiv/wp/). In this dataset all occurrances of discourse management markers such wo wir gerade dabei sind or wenn wir schon dabei sind were extracted and subsequently analyzed.