New attribute @toWhom

[morethanbooks]

As already mentioned in the TEI List, I think there should be an attribute complementary to @who for the target of the communication. It could be something like: @towhom, @targetperson or @corresptarget.

This is not only a theoretical need. I have been encoding in the last years the Bible in Spanish, marking (together with basic structural information like books, chapters, pericopes and verses) references in names to people, places and groups, and the direct speech. At the beginning I only marked who was communicating and how (oral, written, prayer, dream…). But the text was pointing me out very clearly that there was something missing in my encoding: to whom. In the majority of the cases is not only true that is clear to a human reader whom is being talked to; there are also very clear references normally in the previous verses. One example (Mat 3.13-14) of John the Baptist (#per18) talking to Jesus (#per1):

<ab xml:id="b.MAT.3.13" type="verse" n="13">Entonces <rs key="#per1">Jesús</rs> vino de <rs key="#pla7">Galilea</rs> al <rs key="#pla9">Jordán</rs>, a <rs key="#per18">Juan</rs>, para ser bautizado por él.</ab>

<ab xml:id="b.MAT.3.14" type="verse" n="14">Pero <rs key="#per18">Juan</rs> procuraba Impedírselo diciendo: <q type="oral" who="#per18" corresp="#per1">Yo necesito ser bautizado por ti, ¿y Tú vienes a Mí?</q></ab>

Until now I have used the attribute @corresp, which is not an awful decision but probably not the best that it could exist. Of course this attribute shouldn't be mandatory, there are many times in which the people talk without a clear target or we don't know who it could be.

Another example from The picture of Dorian Gray, encoded in a similar way in this GitHub Repository:

<ab type="direct-speech"><said who="#BasilHallward" corresp="#HenryWottom">Yes, that is his name. I didn’t intend to tell it to you.</said></ab>
<ab type="direct-speech"><said who="#HenryWottom" corresp="#BasilHallward">But why not?</said></ab>

At the DH17 Conference there was a great number of papers and panels about networks applied to different areas, one of them literary texts. I can mention projects using networks for representing interactions between characters in USA, Canada, Germany, UK, France, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland, Russia… And these are just on the top of my head. Networks are on fire. When these projects discuss what format should they use for the annotation of this information, the arguments for TEI would be stronger if there was nice attributes for that and they didn't have to customize it. Therefor we would have more data in TEI.

[morethanbooks]

I also think that in some cases it would be useful to encode not who the target of the communication is, but who is also listening to it. In a conversation with more than two people, it could happen that two of them speak directly to each other, not addressing the rest directly. If we encode the ignored people in the @towhom attribute, we wouldn't encode correctly the fact that they are actually been ignored by the speakers; if we don't encode them in any attribute, we wouldn't encode the fact that they are also listening to the communication and that the speakers know that they are listening. One example from Dorian Gray where you can see how Henry, Dorian and Basil speak either only to one or to two in different paragraphs:

<ab type="direct-speech">The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard <rs key="#HenryWottom">Lord Henry</rs>’s last remark he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said, <said who="#BasilHallward" corresp="#HenryWottom"><rs key="#HenryWottom">Harry</rs>, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?</said></ab>
<ab type="direct-speech"><rs key="#HenryWottom">Lord Henry</rs> smiled, and looked at <rs key="#DorianGray">Dorian Gray</rs>. <said who="#HenryWottom" corresp="#DorianGray">Am I to go, Mr. <rs key="#DorianGray">Gray</rs>?</said> he asked.</ab>
<ab type="direct-speech"><said who="#DorianGray" corresp="#HenryWottom">Oh, please don’t, <rs key="#HenryWottom">Lord Henry</rs>. I see that <rs key="#BasilHallward">Basil</rs> is in one of his sulky moods; and I can’t bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell me why I should not go in for philanthropy.</said></ab>
<ab type="direct-speech"><said who="#HenryWottom" corresp="#DorianGray #BasilHallward">I don’t know that I shall tell you that, Mr. <rs key="#DorianGray">Gray</rs>. It is so tedious a subject that one would have to talk seriously about it. But I certainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. You don’t really mind, <rs key="#BasilHallward">Basil</rs>, do you? You have often told me that you liked your sitters to have someone to chat to.</said></ab>
<ab type="direct-speech"><rs key="#BasilHallward">Hallward</rs> bit his lip. <said who="#BasilHallward" corresp="#DorianGray #HenryWottom">If <rs key="#DorianGray">Dorian</rs> wishes it, of course you must stay. <rs key="#DorianGray">Dorian</rs>’s whims are laws to everybody, except himself.</said></ab>

Another example of that is in the Bible the book of Job, a dialogue between Job and his "friends" Elifaz, Bildad and Zofar. In the different chapters either one of these three argues with Job (ex: Job 4.1) or Job answers to them (ex: Job 6.2). The interesting thing is that the friends don't talk directly to each other, only to Job, but Job does address the three of them in the majority of the cases. In some chapters Job even stops talking to his friends and speaks directly to God (ex: Job 7.12), although he know that the three are listening. The Book of Job has been already encoded in TEI-XML Bible, you can see examples and code in the GitHub Repository.

These are all nuances that would need another attribute. Not @towhom but something like @alsoto or @indirecttarget.

[laurentromary]

I think this attribute could be useful for indicating addressees in transcription of spoken language, in particular in multi-parties dialogues. This would make us even more compliant to ISO 24617-2 on dialogue acts where the notion is explicitly stated as part of the description of the context of a dialogue act. Addressee is defined there as "dialogue participant oriented to by the sender in a manner to suggest that his utterances are particularly intended for this participant and that some response is therefore anticipated from this participant, more so than from the other participants". So, I am all in favor of this.

[who]

+1 😄

[christofs]

+1, especially for the "@towhom" attribute. It would be great to be able to encode this information clearly for narrative fiction (on the "said" element) but also in drama (on the "sp" element). There is increasing interest in building more precise dialogue networks based on this kind of information, rather than using simplifying assumptions such as "the next speaker is probably the one the current speaker is addressing". The cases where this is not true are in fact the ones that are particularly interesting.

[martindholmes]

@towhom or @toWhom?

[laurentromary]

Telle est la question. I tend to like camel case...

[martindholmes]

All our existing two-word attributes are camelCase, with the exception of some of the dating atts. I vote for @toWhom.

[lb42]

Insofaras there are any rules, the use of camel case for identifiers made by agglutination of two or more free standing words is not optional but a requirement of TEI house style. I am aware of no exceptions to this rule.

[martindholmes]

@when-iso is one.

[lb42]

Hm, yes, I suppose the "-iso" or -w3c suffixes might be construed as infringing this rule, a bit. So it ought to have been "notAfterIso" etc. Which just looks weird.

[christofs]

Glad to see the discussion already centers on how to do this, not on why or whether ;-)

[morethanbooks]

+1 to toWhom :)

[sydb]

First of all, absolutely @toWhom (not @towhom). But more importantly, I think the main question is what set of elements should have this new element? Obviously <said>. But what about <sp> or <u>? How about <div> for memos and letters? How does it interact with correspondence description, if at all?

[ebeshero]

Council suggestion (from JC): what about @target instead of an attribute that implies a person must be the object of the pointing?

Alternatives: @addressee

[bansp]

@target would simplify this greatly

Edit: although I see a certain conflict in the intended semantics :-/

[laurentromary]

I would rather see a balanced semantics between @who and @toWhom and keep @target for other needs (especially if the new attribute is not limited to semantically loaded elements such as <u> or <sp>.

[bansp]

I feel convinced by Laurent's remark that I quote:

I think this attribute could be useful for indicating addressees in transcription of spoken language, in particular in multi-parties dialogues. This would make us even more compliant to ISO 24617-2 on dialogue acts where the notion is explicitly stated as part of the description of the context of a dialogue act. Addressee is defined there as "dialogue participant oriented to by the sender in a manner to suggest that his utterances are particularly intended for this participant and that some response is therefore anticipated from this participant, more so than from the other participants".

... that there should be an attribute different from @target, and onto which the addressee role of ISO 24617-2 is mapped. This attribute could then be used for the purpose (actually the first of two purposes) described by the original poster. There is also a role of indirect addressee mentioned in further discussion, and this suggests to me that it might be good to stop at introducing one attribute (@addressee or the ugly @toWhom), and to resort to non-attribute-based means of description if bystanders or indirect addressees also need to be described.

[morethanbooks]

@lb42 good question. I think @toWhom should be usable in all the elements that already accept @who (so att.ascribed) but Laurent is already mentioning other elements where it could be useful.

About @target, I think the definition of att.pointing and the specific attribute differ from the uses that we are mentioning here.

@addressee could be also a good option; let's don't call them names ;)

@bansp I didn't understand that you say about "non-attribute-based means of description". Could you give an example?

I think is a matter of time that people want to encode not only direct addressees but also indirect ones. Even in written texts this happens, for example when someone writes a letter to someone and submit it to a journal: he would be talking to two different addressees at the same time.

[bansp]

"non-attribute-based means of description" = using elements and external pointing; I don't think attributes are flexible enough to express the information on bystanders or secondary addressees (+ modes of reference and what not). Plus, the three sets of 'addressees' are not fully mutually dependent, are they. So in order to reflect their dynamics by using attributes, you'd sometimes have to keep the granularity of your elements really low. Instead, you can adopt the slightly idealistic but pragmatically acceptable assumption that @who and @addressee can be kept constant in a single element, and handle the rest (if you need to handle it) by external pointing, possibly to sub-sequences of the elements on which you keep the two attributes. Such non-attribute-based approach has the advantage of being flexible and is suitable for specialized contexts.

[morethanbooks]

Thanks @bansp, I think I understand your proposal for the indirect addressee, but I think it would be useful to see how an specific example could look like. For example with the examples of Dorian Gray. When Henry says to Basil "But why not?", how could Dorian be encoded in a non-attribute-based way as an indirect addressee?

[bansp]

Hi there, I believe this ticket focuses on the issue adding a certain single attribute. It's good to keep the discussion focused, for the sake of the Council members who will have to go through it before implementation. Cheers, P.

Edit, PS. I did not make any proposal for an indirect addressee. My only (admittedly indirect, at first) proposal was to keep side issues aside :-)

[morethanbooks]

Hi, so... I guess the attribute is about to get accepted and published in the guidelines? :)

[scstanley7]

Hi @morethanbooks! I believe this is going to be discussed during the F2F at the end of the month. I'll make sure to update you as soon as we have more details on the specifics of implementation. I think the main thing that we will need to discuss is what elements should have this attribute as @sydb mentioned in a previous comment from September.

[scstanley7]

Speaking of, Syd mentioned the possibility of using this attribute for <said> (the original proposal), <u>, <sp>, and even <div> for correspondence. Are there others we should consider?

[morethanbooks]

Hi @scstanley7, thanks for your answer. I have been using it within the element q in the example of the Bible. In general I would say that any element that uses who could be also accept towhom, but I am checking right now the elements and I haven't used some of them, so I am not sure (pause, move...).
I would say definitely: q, said, sp, spGrp. I am not sure about u, writing and vocal. And since div does not accept who, I wouldn't expect it to accept towhom. Regards!

[laurentromary]

<u>, <writing> and <vocal> are clear candidates for @toWhom.

[jamescummings]

I agree with @morethanbooks and @laurentromary. If going to have this attribute then it should go only elements that have a @who attribute. The easiest way to do this would be to add it to att.ascribed class. http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ref-att.ascribed.html
However, that means that it would be available on:
annotationBlock change incident kinesic move pause q said setting shift sp spGrp stage u vocal writing
I suspect that it is not needed on change and shift. Some of the other things like setting, incident and pause are doubtful that these can be ascribed towards another individual? It isn't needed on div for correspondence since that should be done in a correspAction.

So I'd propose that either:
a) We add it to att.ascribed, these other elements get it, but whatever, that is the nature of entropy.
b) We create a new class alongside att.ascribed which contains this and is added to a yet-to-be-determined subset of the current members of att.ascribed.

[scstanley7]

New suggested subclass includes: <kinesic>, <move>, <pause>, <q>, <said>, <sp>, <spGrp>, <stage>, <u>, <vocal>, <writing>

This would exclude annotationBlock change incident setting shift
We can call it att.directed.

[morethanbooks]

So, that means it is accepted it and I will see at some point a @toWhom attribute in the TEI Guidelines?

[peterstadler]

@morethanbooks

So, that means it is accepted it and I will see at some point a @toWhom attribute in the TEI Guidelines?

Exactly!

[ebeshero]

@scstanley7 Quick question about this commit: 3bb055a I might be misreading the git diff view, but it looks like att.ascribed was removed from several elements and replaced with att.ascribed.directed? Shouldn't both attribute classes apply, since presumably they could take @who and @toWhom?

[scstanley7]

Hey @ebeshero ! It was @sydb's suggestion that since all of the elements in att.directed were members of att.ascribed that att.directed should be a subclass of att.ascribed. So we created att.ascribed.directed, which is itself a member of att.ascribed. All elements will still get both @who and @toWhom.

[sydb]

No, @ebeshero, a member of the new att.ascribed.directed gets both @who and @toWhom. (Members of att.ascribed get just @who.) But we (@scstanley7 and I) should not have closed this ticket until Mr. Jenkins was happy, which he isn’t, so it’s a good thing (IMHO) that you reopened it.

[ebeshero]

@sydb and @scstanley7 The whole subclasses thing with attributes always confuses me--sorry! I just tested that out with an element from att.global (<abbr>) using the one and only attribute in global.facs (@facs) and yes, the whole thing is fine. Skimming the specs and appendices in the Guidelines, we don't use subclasses very often and when we do (global!), the whole class seems to typically subscribe to the subclass...Anyway, that's clearly not the issue here--looks like you're just missing a specGrp reference in the Guidelines (sigh). Thanks for bringing @toWhom into the world!

[scstanley7]

Thanks for double checking it, Elisa! Deleting @who altogether would have definitely been bad, so it's better to be sure on that front. And I think we fixed the issue? I didn't realize that the bibliography had language-specific <listBibl>s so I accidentally put it in the French one. We'll see if Jenkins is happy with the fix...

[scstanley7]

oh, and @ebeshero, there is a <specGrp> reference to att.ascribed.directed.xml in ST. Is there somewhere else it should be included?

[ebeshero]

@scstanley7 That was a just a guess from the Jenkins error: 'ERROR: Guidelines.epub/OPS/ref-att.ascribed.directed.html(1,8753): 'toWhom-eg-1': fragment identifier is not defined in 'OPS/BIB.html' , and I bet you already fixed it as you described above.

[sydb]

@scstanley7 (with some kibitzing by yours truly) has implement, and Mr. Jenkins is thrilled.