Corpus-based analysis of the collocational profiles of the terms denoting the mentally challenged

Liana Markelova

doi:10.13092/lo.81.3647

Abstract

The present study aims to trace the evolution of public attitude towards the mentally challenged by means of the corpus-based analysis. The raw data comes from the two of the BYU corpora: Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) and Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). The former is comprised of 1.8 million web pages from 20 English-speaking countries (Davies/Fuchs 2015: 1) and provides an opportunity to research at a cross-cultural level, whereas the latter, containing 400 million words from more than 100,000 texts ranging from the 1810s to the 2000s (Davies 2012: 121), allows to carry on a diachronic research on the issue. To identify the difference in attitudes the collocational profiles of the terms denoting the mentally challenged were created. Having analysed them in terms of their semantic prosody one might conclude that there are certain semantic shifts that occurred due to the modern usage preferences and gradual change in public perception of everything strange, unusual and unique.

Highlights

Public attitude towards different groups of the mentally challenged has always been a controversial issue
Since the principle of the corpus analysis holds that invented examples cannot be treated as primary data (Hanks 2013: 10), the Brigham Young University (BYU) corpora were used for that purpose
The corpus analysis made it possible to create the collocational profiles of the most frequently used lexical items denoting the mentally challenged people or, in cases when there is no term for them, mental disorders

Summary

Introduction

Public attitude towards different groups of the mentally challenged has always been a controversial issue. The corpus analysis made it possible to create the collocational profiles of the most frequently used lexical items denoting the mentally challenged people or, in cases when there is no term for them, mental disorders. The third and the most important part of this study Corpus-based analysis of the mentally challenged will turn to the corpus-based analysis of the collocational profiles of the lexical items denoting the mentally challenged people This will involve looking into the way semantic prosody of these items differs synchronically and diachronically. Both in GloWbE and in COHA there are a number of other techniques allowing for a more thorough analysis, such as, for instance, chart option which helps to visualize the overall frequency, or KWIC which gives more context for a keyword

Theoretical background

Corpus-based analysis of the mentally challenged

Findings

Conclusion