Francesca Grasso

Background

About Francesca Grasso

Linguistics enthusiast currently working towards a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Turin. My doctoral project bridges ecolinguistics and ecocriticism theory and methods with NLP techniques. In my thesis, I develop different methodological frameworks for the automatic detection of language attitudes that are either harmful or beneficial to sustainability and ecological well-being. The analysis draws on various types of texts, from social media posts, news articles, to academic editorials, and also includes the identification of anthropocentric biases in language use – especially those embedded in Large Language Models (LLMs). My other research interests have encompassed Multilingual Knowledge Modelling – with a particular focus on Lexical Semantics and Verb Valency Frames – human–conversational agent interactions, and hate speech detection, specifically targeting body shaming. Worth mentioning: throughout my studies, I have developed strong expertise in Germanic Philology, especially at the intersection with theoretical and typological linguistics. I have focused on verb valency alternation (Valenzänderung) and diachronic verb valency change (Valenzwandel) in Gothic, Old High German, Old English – I have focused on Old Saxon as well.