AMERICAN NATIONALLY MARKED VOCABULARY IN THE ENGLISH NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE TEXTS: CLUSTER ANALYSIS

Abstract

The paper presents the study of American nationally marked vocabulary that is used in English journalistic texts, particularly in newspapers and magazines. The study is based on one hundred nationally marked American English vocabulary items that were divided into four groups using cluster analysis. This method helps group the objects under study into clusters based on their similarity. The classification of the nationally marked vocabulary was based on two parameters, namely the prevailing type of nationally marked vocabulary (public and political, geographic or ethnographic) and the type of texts where these vocabulary items are most frequently used (academic, fiction, magazine, newspaper, spoken). The article provides a detailed description of the second and fourth clusters of nationally marked vocabulary since these are the clusters with the highest percentage of vocabulary that is used in journalistic texts. In particular, most vocabulary items from the second cluster are mainly used in the newspaper texts, while vocabulary from the fourth cluster predominates in the magazine materials. Nationally marked vocabulary from the second cluster is also found in the academic discourse, whereas the fourth cluster contains vocabulary that is also used in fiction, newspaper, and academic texts. In addition, it was found that public and political nationally marked vocabulary is most often used in the newspaper texts; and the prevailing type of nationally marked vocabulary in the magazine texts is ethnographic vocabulary. Geographic nationally marked vocabulary is least frequently used in journalistic texts, accounting for the lowest percentage in newspaper and magazine texts.