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  3. Since the dawn of e-mail, using sarcasm in digital communication has created strife and confusion between friends, colleagues an

Since the dawn of e-mail, using sarcasm in digital communication has created strife and confusion between friends, colleagues an

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问题     Since the dawn of e-mail, using sarcasm in digital communication has created strife and confusion between friends, colleagues and romantic partners. Sarcasm, after all, is best conveyed using tone of voice, a wink or a nudge.
    Now, as more people are sharing their opinions with casual acquaintances and strangers on social-media sites like Twitter and Facebook—rather than in private text messages to people who know their senses of humor—the sarcasm disconnect is even greater.
    "My work e-mail is down. I’m devastated," or, "because that was so much fun the last time we did it," could mean completely different things to different readers. The confusion has driven some people to create special symbols and characters to clearly mark their snark.
    And woe is the data miner who has the challenge of determining what is sarcasm and what isn’t. Defined as stating the opposite of what is truly meant, sarcasm is proving to be an obstacle for the academics and marketers who create computer programs to analyze massive pools of online chatters to gauge public opinions about products and politicians.
    Sarcasm "is one of the toughest problems in computing," says Shrikanth Narayanan, a professor of computer science, linguistics and psychology at the University of Southern California.
    Computer programming follows strict rules, while natural language, particularly the inside-joke culture of the Web, doesn’t.
    That is the hurdle faced by USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab, an interdisciplinary center that brings together social and computer scientists. The lab’s "Twitter Sentiment Analysis" project unites linguists, sociologists and computer scientists to try to build a modern-day lexicon for computers to read and interpret huge chunks of data provided by the millions of people who share their opinions online. The scientists at the lab have been using the political season to try to teach a computer to better understand the true sentiment behind tweets.
    "If we can crack through political sarcasm, everything else will be easier," says Jonathan Taplin, a onetime film producer, Bob Dylan tour manager and investment banker who now runs the Annenberg lab, which is sponsored by IBM, DirecTV, Warner Bros, and other companies.
    All data-mining services—or "online sentiment listeners," as they are sometimes called—rely on a combination of natural-language computer programming and human analysts.
    Sentiment listeners and computers are trained to look for cues and symbols such as exclamation marks or emoticons—keyboard characters that, when typed together, convey smiles, winks or other expressions.
    Looking to punctuation and other symbols to signal earnestness can be misleading, says Kate Paulin, the director of the insights and planning department at digital marketing agency 360i. Ms. Paulin says working for brands such as Coca-Cola has taught her that little can be taken at smileyface value.
    Teens and tweeters use emoticons sarcastically, she says. And a single exclamation mark—as opposed to multiple marks—may actually convey a lack of enthusiasm, she says.
    Lovers of sarcasm who like to tweet are taking matters in their own keyboards. Aliza Licht, the senior vice president of global communications for Donna Karan LLC, who was "devastated" to lose her work e-mail on Tuesday, calls sarcasm "a religion." Yet, as the hand that controls all of the fashion label’s social outreach— and the popular @ dkny twitter feed—she needs to be sure not to ruffle feathers with her humor.
    So she invented a short, twitter-friendly sign to denote sarcasm—"(* S)"—and uses it to let her followers know when her tongue is in cheek, such as with her tweet about losing email. "We can’t read tonality in text, and it’s a problem," she says.
    When his best friend failed to recognize his use of sarcasm in emails about 10 years ago, Doug Sak. an accountant in Washington Township, Mich. , saw a market: He since has created the "SarcMark," an upside-down lowercase E with a dot in the center, helpful for things that might actually not have been "so much fun the last time we did it." He says he is approaching phone carriers to try to get them to include the symbol in their fonts.
Which of the following best defines sarcasm?
选项 A、The using of voice, a wink or a nudge.
B、Stating the opposite of what is truly meant.
C、Symbols used for communication online.
D、One of the toughest problems in computing.
答案B
解析 推断题。由题干关键词defines sarcasm定位至第四段。根据“Defined as stating the opposite of whatis truly meant，sarcasm is…"可以直接判断，[B]是正确的。
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