Scare Quotes as Markers of "Questionable" Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study

Aina Garí Soler; Juan Carlos Zevallos Huaco; Matthieu Labeau; Chloé Clavel

doi:10.63317/4g6qf5k2z4pw

Scare Quotes as Markers of "Questionable" Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study

Aina Garí Soler, Juan Carlos Zevallos Huaco, Matthieu Labeau, Chloé Clavel

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Abstract

Scare quotes are a subtle yet powerful device: they can mark irony, distance, or disagreement about word meaning or lexical choices. We present a large-scale manual annotation of quoted word usages focused on the scare versus non-scare quote distinction as well as on their role in managing (mis)alignment in conversation. Our analysis reveals that scare quotes can mark problematic word usages, and they are often used to contest or criticize other speakers’ word choices. However, non-scare, meta-linguistic usages of quotes are also often involved in explicit efforts toward lexico-semantic alignment.

Anthology ID:: 2026.lrec-1.927
Volume:: Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference
Month:: May
Year:: 2026
Address:: Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Editors:: Stelios Piperidis, Núria Bel, Henk van den Heuvel, Nancy Ide, Simon Krek, Antonio Toral
Venue:: LREC
SIG:
Publisher:: ELRA Language Resource Association
Note:
Pages:: 11834–11851
Language:
External URL:: https://lrec.elra.info/lrec2026-main-927
DOI:: 10.63317/4g6qf5k2z4pw
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):: Aina Garí Soler, Juan Carlos Zevallos Huaco, Matthieu Labeau, and Chloé Clavel. 2026. Scare Quotes as Markers of "Questionable" Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, pages 11834–11851, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. ELRA Language Resource Association.
Cite (Informal):: Scare Quotes as Markers of “Questionable” Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study (Garí Soler et al., LREC 2026)
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@inproceedings{gari-soler-etal-2026-scare,
    title = "Scare Quotes as Markers of ``Questionable'' Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study",
    author = "Gar{\'i} Soler, Aina  and
      Zevallos Huaco, Juan Carlos  and
      Labeau, Matthieu  and
      Clavel, Chlo{\'e}",
    editor = "Piperidis, Stelios  and
      Bel, N{\'u}ria  and
      van den Heuvel, Henk  and
      Ide, Nancy  and
      Krek, Simon  and
      Toral, Antonio",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference",
    month = may,
    year = "2026",
    address = "Palma de Mallorca, Spain",
    publisher = "ELRA Language Resource Association",
    url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.927/",
    doi = "10.63317/4g6qf5k2z4pw",
    pages = "11834--11851",
    abstract = "Scare quotes are a subtle yet powerful device: they can mark irony, distance, or disagreement about word meaning or lexical choices. We present a large-scale manual annotation of quoted word usages focused on the scare versus non-scare quote distinction as well as on their role in managing (mis)alignment in conversation. Our analysis reveals that scare quotes can mark problematic word usages, and they are often used to contest or criticize other speakers' word choices. However, non-scare, meta-linguistic usages of quotes are also often involved in explicit efforts toward lexico-semantic alignment."
}

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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Scare Quotes as Markers of “Questionable” Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study
%A Garí Soler, Aina
%A Zevallos Huaco, Juan Carlos
%A Labeau, Matthieu
%A Clavel, Chloé
%Y Piperidis, Stelios
%Y Bel, Núria
%Y van den Heuvel, Henk
%Y Ide, Nancy
%Y Krek, Simon
%Y Toral, Antonio
%S Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference
%D 2026
%8 May
%I ELRA Language Resource Association
%C Palma de Mallorca, Spain
%F gari-soler-etal-2026-scare
%X Scare quotes are a subtle yet powerful device: they can mark irony, distance, or disagreement about word meaning or lexical choices. We present a large-scale manual annotation of quoted word usages focused on the scare versus non-scare quote distinction as well as on their role in managing (mis)alignment in conversation. Our analysis reveals that scare quotes can mark problematic word usages, and they are often used to contest or criticize other speakers’ word choices. However, non-scare, meta-linguistic usages of quotes are also often involved in explicit efforts toward lexico-semantic alignment.
%R 10.63317/4g6qf5k2z4pw
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.927/
%U https://doi.org/10.63317/4g6qf5k2z4pw
%P 11834-11851

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Markdown (Informal)

[Scare Quotes as Markers of "Questionable" Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study](https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.927/) (Garí Soler et al., LREC 2026)

Scare Quotes as Markers of “Questionable” Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study (Garí Soler et al., LREC 2026)

ACL

Aina Garí Soler, Juan Carlos Zevallos Huaco, Matthieu Labeau, and Chloé Clavel. 2026. Scare Quotes as Markers of "Questionable" Word Usages and Misalignment in Conversation: An Annotation Study. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, pages 11834–11851, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. ELRA Language Resource Association.