Opinion Markers

Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, University of Applied Sciences in Konin, Poland
barbara.lewandowska-tomaszczyk@konin.edu.pl

Opinion markers are linguistic devices that signal a speaker's or writer's subjective stance, attitude, or evaluation towards the information being conveyed. They are crucial for expressing personal viewpoints rather than presenting objective facts. These markers can take various forms, including: Adjectives and Adverbs: Words like ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘important,’ ‘sadly,’ ‘fortunately,’ ‘clearly,’ or ‘possibly’ directly convey judgement or a degree of certainty; Verbs: Verbs such as ‘believe,’ ‘think,’ ‘feel,’ ‘seem,’ ‘appear,’ ‘consider,’ or ‘doubt’ indicate a mental state or an assessment; Nouns: Certain nouns, like ‘opinion,’ ‘belief,’ ‘view,’ or ‘impression,’ explicitly refer to subjective perspectives; (Introductory) Phrases and Clauses: Expressions such as ‘in my opinion,’ ‘it seems to me,’ ‘I agree,’ ‘I disagree,’ or ‘from my perspective’ clearly delineate the subjective nature of the statement.

Opinion markers can also take the form of the comparative and superlative degrees (more adequate, the best, etc.) and emotive expressions (I hate it, I love it, etc.). Evaluative terms are related to emotional stances, subject to the application of automatic sentiment analysis in discourse datasets. Besides linguistic opinion markers, one can also identify visual opinion markers, such as gestures and body language, and, in the case of written language, graphic design or text layout. Opinion markers are vital for effective communication, allowing for the nuanced expression of personal interpretations and fostering dialogue. They help distinguish between factual statements and subjective assessments, guiding the audience in understanding the speaker's position and the level of certainty associated with the information. Soylu et al. as well as Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and Liebeskind (413-412) discuss opinion markers as closely related to attitude markers and various stance expressions.

Keywords: emotion, evaluation, opinion, stance

Related Entries: Opinion Expression, Sentiment Analysis, Emotions

References:
Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B., Baczkowska, A., Ruzaitė, J., Dylgjeri, A., Kazazi, L., & Lombart, E. (2023). Opinion events: Types and opinion markers in English social media discourse. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics, 19(2), 447–481. https://doi.org/10.14746/lpp.2023.19.2.6
Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B., & Liebeskind, C. (2024). Opinion events and stance types: Advances in LLM performance with ChatGPT and Gemini. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics, 20(2).
Soylu, M., Soylu, A., & Ras, R. (2023). A new approach to recognizing the use of attitude markers by authors of academic journal articles. Expert Systems with Applications, 230, 120538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2023.120538