Epistemic verb complementation in research articles: A corpus-based approach to the verb suggest in two disciplines

Abstract As an emerging form of cultural exchange, Chinese female-lead internet literature (CFIL, female-oriented label) is in the process of rapid global dissemination, yet its reception in the English-speaking world has received less scholarly attention than male-lead works (male-oriented label). This study examines the reception of CFIL on WebNovel, the first official platform for the English translation and licensed distribution of Chinese internet literature. Drawing on metadata from the platform’s most influential titles and a stratified corpus of reader reviews, it employs sentiment, keyword, and collocation analyses to identify evaluative dimensions. The findings show strong engagement in urban romance and fantasy genres, with positive responses highlighting coherent plots, independent heroines, and readable translations supported by frequent updates. Negative responses stress repetitive storylines, stereotyped female portrayals, and frustration with the pay-to-unlock model. The analysis suggests that WebNovel displays certain heterotopian features, offering a digital space where narratives of female empowerment circulate across languages and cultures, while remaining entangled with commercial formulas and occasional traces of gender ideology. Although CFIL resonates internationally through resilient heroines and accessible translations, its wider recognition is limited by thematic homogeneity and platform commercialization. To achieve sustainable growth and greater literary recognition, CFIL needs more diversified themes, refined narrative strategies, and professionalized translation practices. Methodologically, the study shows that corpus-based analysis of user reviews provides reproducible insights while supporting interpretive close reading. By situating translated CFIL within the context of digital literature, the article highlights its significance as both a medium of cross-cultural exchange and a site of gendered cultural production.

Abstract This study investigates the effect of structural priming on dative alternation in Italian-to-Dutch translation. We analyse variation between the double object construction (DOC) and the prepositional object construction (POC) to determine whether the dative structure in the Italian source text influences the Dutch target text, while controlling for key language-internal factors. The methodology is corpus-based and applies a generalized linear mixed-effects model to a richly annotated dataset of translated sentence pairs ( N = 719). Results show that the Italian construction significantly predicts the Dutch target construction, along with several conditioning variables: animacy of the recipient, length difference between theme and recipient, definiteness of the recipient, and the specific verb involved. These findings align with previous corpus-based studies on structural priming in translation ( De Sutter et al ., 2021 , 2023 ), contribute to the Shared Representation Model ( Schaeffer and Carl, 2013 ), and support the relevance of corpus-based approaches in structural priming research in translation.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the linguistic expression of motivational orientations and affective responses in the context of online English language learning, integrating the L2 motivational self-system (L2MSS) and the technology acceptance model (TAM) into a unified framework. A mixed-methods design with a corpus-based approach involved a set of 500,000 words generated from 2,400 texts written by learners on Coursera, Edmodo, and Moodle between 2022 and 2024. A stratified purposive sampling plan ensured demographic diversification across 18 countries and proficiency levels (CEFR A2-C1). Sentiment analysis (VADER, TextBlob) was employed to analyze the data, while topic modeling (LDA) utilized chi-square tests and spearman correlations to analyze the data. The data was also analyzed using qualitative coding in NVivo. Findings indicate that positive sentiment is more than the rest and there is a considerable difference across platforms. Ideal L2MSS was the most common and closely related to positive affect, whereas ought-to L2MSS was concentrated in exam-related settings and was associated with neutral or negative feelings. The results contribute to the discussion of learner autonomy and extrinsic motivation, substantiating the methodological usefulness and limitations of sentiment analysis in second language acquisition (SLA) research.

Exploring the potential of multiple CORE meanings in learning L2 verb-noun collocations: A corpus-based discovery learning approach

Introduction. The Veps language, as a language with a relatively recent written tradition, requires special attention in terms of the analysis of its grammatical structure. This study forms part of a broader investigation of Veps as the language of an indigenous minority people, conducted with the aim of its revitalisation. The need to examine and further elaborate the rules governing the use of non-finite verbal forms in Veps is conditioned by the insufficient degree of research not only on non-finite forms themselves, but also on the syntactic system of the Veps language as a whole. The aim of the present study is to analyse the functioning of the Veps II and III infinitive forms on the basis of data from the Open Corpus of Veps and Karelian Languages (VepKar). Materials and Methods. The article analyses instances of the use and functioning of the second and third infinitives in Vepsian dialectal texts drawn from the Open Corpus of the Vepsian and Karelian Languages. The comparative and descriptive methods employed in the study made it possible to identify and present patterns and differences in infinitive usage across dialects. The corpus-based approach was used to establish statistics on the frequency of these forms within sentences, while grammatical and syntactic analysis enabled the identification of regularities in the syntactic functioning of infinitives. Results and Discussion. The study identifies dialectal features in the use of case forms of infinitives, as well as their semantic functions and frequency of occurrence. In Veps, two forms of the second infinitive are distinguished – the inessive and the instructive – and four forms of the third infinitive – the illative, inessive, abessive, and elative – whose semantic meanings correspond to case functions. The inessive form of the second infinitive is the most productive across all Veps dialects compared to the instructive form and exhibits dialect-specific semantic differentiation: in Eastern and Southern Veps dialects, the final function is predominant, whereas in Northern and Central dialects the temporal function prevails. The illative form of the third infinitive demonstrates the highest productivity in all dialects. The low productivity of the remaining case forms is evidenced by their infrequent occurrence in the Corpus texts. Overall, the productivity of the forms under consideration shows only minor variation across dialects. Conclusion. The obtained results contribute to a deeper understanding of the morphological system of the Veps language and broaden insights into the variability of infinitival constructions in its dialectal varieties. The study is significant for further research on the syntactic systems of Finno-Ugric languages and their dialectology.

This paper investigates the diachronic development of the sequence assim que (lit. ‘such that’) in the history of Portuguese, with a comparative perspective on the parallel construction así que in Spanish. A corpus-based approach was employed, analyzing approximately 1800 tokens from the Corpus do Português: Historical Genres, spanning eight centuries of written European Portuguese. The results show that assim que remained highly analyzable until the end of the Old Portuguese period, with the adverb assim often followed by a complement or result clause. The grammaticalization of assim que appears to have evolved partly independently from standalone assim. While Portuguese and Spanish share many uses of the construction, modern European Portuguese has diverged, with assim que losing its status as a discourse marker. This change is best explained by the frequent use of cleft constructions (e.g., foi assim que), which reanalyzed que as a subordinating connector, undoing the earlier single-unit interpretation. These findings suggest that even deeply entrenched grammaticalization processes may undergo retraction when the semantic analyzability of component elements allows it.

Nuanced differences of quasi-synonymous verbs tend to be hard to identify, because dictionary definitions are naturally non-contextual; this obscures the complex power dynamics and attitudinal nuances essential for near-native competence, particularly when navigating the rigid registers of professional and institutional discourse. This study investigates the functional and sociolinguistic distinctions between these two verbs within the authoritative discourse of the French Ministry of Education. Utilizing a specialized corpus extracted from the French Web Corpus 2023 (frTenTen23), the research employs a multi-layered analytical framework combining lemmatization, collocation extraction, and semantic tagging (USAS) to map the semantic prosody of each term. The findings reveal that these verbs function as administrative antonyms rather than synonyms. “Mettre à disposition” is characterized by a “rhetoric of enablement,” and “fournir” is governed by a “rhetoric of compliance.” The study argues that these lexical choices construct distinct administrative realities: one of support and one of judgment. Drawing on these findings, the paper proposes an Institutional Corpus-Based Pedagogy (ICBP) model. This framework offers a systematic approach for educators to transition learners from simple lexical definition to sociolinguistic precision, using data-driven and corpus-based learning to decode the hidden curriculum of institutional French.

This study explores the use of modal verbs in Pakistani and American English through a corpus-based analysis of data drawn from the Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) corpus. The study examines five modal verbs—must, should, may, might, and would—through a comparative analysis of their semantic, pragmatic, and collocational patterns in the two English varieties. Based on the frequency counts, concordance lines and collocational analysis, the study demonstrates that Pakistani English is more likely to be used in formal registers whereas American English is more conversational. There are also differences in collocational patterns that bear the cultural and practical impacts in both varieties. The findings provide an empirical evidence of regional variation in modal verb usage, contributing to the fields of World Englishes and Corpus Linguistics. Moreover, the study provides pedagogical implications in teaching English language based on the findings of the research, emphasizing the role of contextual and regional sensitivity in teaching and learning modal verbs. The study emphasizes the significance of corpus-based approaches in investigating authentic language use across different varieties of English.

This paper argues that integrating corpus-based approach into language education and classrooms through direct and indirect applications can enhance the learners' linguistic competence. By using data-driven learning tools and other methods and apply them effectively. Additionally, it also highlights the various benefits in incorporating corpus-based into the classrooms and bridging the gap between theoretical and practical applications.

Abstract Stance is deep-rooted in law, where legal values can never stand in a vacuum. Despite a growing body of literature on stance in legal genres, cross-genre examinations conducted from a corpus-based perspective still leave room for improvement. This study conducts a cross-genre examination of how legal professionals express stance across three legal genres, i.e. legislation, judgments, and legal academic articles. By adopting a corpus-based approach, evidence-based insights are provided into the general profile of stance expressions in legal settings, as well as the distribution of stance features across the three legal genres. Additionally, this study delineates a continuum of stance in law, which illustrates the variation in stance expressions by categorizing them as objective or subjective, certain or uncertain, direct or indirect, and explicit or implicit. The findings suggest that stance may serve as a discourse anchor to help frame legal rules, construct legal facts, and convey legal values.

Abstract In institutional settings, terminology management is essential to ensure efficient communication. Traditionally, this task has been carried out manually or through the use of corpus analysis tools. However, recent advances in generative artificial intelligence have opened new avenues for automating terminographic tasks. In this context, the use of generative models is proposed for the extraction of specialised terminology in academic institutions. Specifically, this study compares two approaches to terminology extraction. On the one hand, a corpus-based approach using the Sketch Engine tool and, on the other hand, an approach based on generative artificial intelligence. To this end, UniPDTerms was implemented — a chatbot designed with ChatGPT-4o specialised in institutional terminology of the University of Padua (Italy) and fed with an ad hoc corpus. The evaluation of both systems was performed using a reference list and analysing precision, recall, F-score and MRR metrics for each model. The results indicate that Sketch Engine and UniPDTerms performed at a comparable level under identical evaluation conditions. Although the two systems use different extraction mechanisms, their outputs produce similar results: Sketch Engine extracts relevant term candidates using frequency-based corpus analysis, whereas UniPDTerms draws on contextual and semantic relations. These results highlight the potential of incorporating generative artificial intelligence into terminographic workflows, offering new possibilities for improving efficiency and supporting end-users in terminology management.

This study examines the types and functions of reporting verbs (RVs) in L2 undergraduate academic writing and elucidates first language (L1) academic proficiency's impact on verb choice. The data were collected from literature review sections of English and Czech-medium master's theses authored by economics students whose first language is Czech. The study combined corpus-based and contrastive approaches. RVs were classified based on their discourse functions, and tense and voice grammatical categories were identified. Findings indicate that a weaker academic proficiency in the native language may lead to a reduced capacity to utilize rhetorical devices and express one's stance effectively in L2 English learner writing. Limited academic proficiency in L2 English-medium theses was suggested by a restricted vocabulary of RVs and inconsistent use of grammatical patterns. Both L2 English and L1 Czech-medium theses displayed a notable tendency to use non-committal verbs, avoiding making strong textual judgments.

The construction of national identities in post-colonial nations is significantly influenced by political discourse, as political leaders use language to shape and reinforce a sense of collective identity. In this context, Ghana provides a compelling case for examining how grammatical cohesive devices in Independence Day Speeches contribute to national identity formation. This study employs a corpus-based approach, focusing on Ghana’s Independence Day speeches delivered by various presidents from 2010 to 2024, to capture trends across successive administrations. Drawing on Social Identity theory and Theory of Cohesion, this study examines how references to Ghana’s political past, present, and future contribute to the formation of a unified national identity. The findings indicate that demonstratives are the most dominant grammatical cohesive devices employed by Ghanaian presidents. These demonstratives mostly describe events, people and actions pertinent to the national narrative. One noteworthy finding is the use of the additive conjunction ‘and’, which serves a dual function: it links ideas linguistically while also creating contrast within discourse. This dual role enhances the effectiveness of the speeches. These findings highlight the crucial role of cohesive devices in reinforcing a shared national identity and fostering solidarity among the populace.

The article examines the functioning of Kichwa lexical elements in Spanish-language media discourse of Ecuador based on data from the national corpus CORPHA (2019–2024). The study is relevant due to the increasing role of indigenous languages in shaping national identity and the growing interest in language contact phenomena in multicultural societies. The Ecuadorian media space represents a dynamic environment where Kichwa-origin lexemes – pachamama, minga, runa, ayllu, and sumak kawsay – act as cultural symbols and markers of collective memory. The aim of the research is to analyze the frequency, genre distribution, and semantic connotations of these lexemes, as well as to identify the main tendencies of their adaptation within Spanish-language discourse. The empirical basis of the study is the national corpus CORPHA, which contains materials from print media, online publications, and cultural-educational texts. The research methodology combines corpus search techniques, quantitative and contextual-semantic analysis, and genre classification. The findings reveal that Kichwa lexemes are increasingly integrated into contemporary communication, maintaining predominantly positive or neutral evaluative connotations. Pachamama functions as a sacral and ecological symbol, minga as a metaphor of social cooperation, runa as an identity marker, ayllu as a representation of family and community ties, and sumak kawsay as an ideological construct of sustainable development. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the application of a corpus-based approach to the semantic dynamics of indigenous elements in modern Ecuadorian Spanish discourse. The practical value of the research consists in its potential use in courses on sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, and corpus analysis.

Abstract This paper sets out a bilingual (English and French) corpus-based approach to quantify divergence in terminology between legal discourse and news articles, triangulating a series of complementary indicators of frequency difference, predominant terms and absent terms. This methodology is then applied to purpose-built corpora consisting of EU legal discourse and newspaper articles on the subject of migration in English and French, illustrating the relevance of an approach to measuring shifts in terminological distance. The results of such a study can provide insights into the level of comprehensibility of legal discourse, which is fundamental to ensuring access to justice. This context makes it vitally important to develop such a methodology, which empirically measures whether the terminology used in EU legal discourse is continuing to diverge from language used in non-specialist settings.

Introduction. Considering that the increasing competition for admission to master's programs, often driven by the motivation to enhance professional competencies, is accompanied by a rise in the average age of students, there is a need to take into account the influence of these factors on the effectiveness of their learning process. The aim of the study was to identify the interaction between the academic performance of master's students and factors such as their age and academic motivation, as well as to assess the effectiveness of the corpus-based approach in engineering education. The methodology and research methods included defining the parameters of the experiment; adapting the Attitude and Motivation Test Battery for the context of the study; conducting initial (IT) and final testing (FT) in both the control group (CG), which utilized traditional teaching methods, and the experimental group (EG), where instruction was based on a corpus-based approach; teaching the ESP course over a year; data processing and statistical analysis. The results of the study indicated that, based on the collected data, there was no statistically significant effect of age group on academic performance in either CG or EG. The effect of motivation for learning, measured through an introductory questionnaire, was limited and had minimal impact on IT results for both groups. However, FT demonstrated that two subscale groups – “motivational intensity” and “desire to learn a foreign language” – were the most reliable predictors of academic performance. The effectiveness of training master's students using a corpus based approach was confirmed. KEYWORDS motivation, age, academic performance, corpus-based approach Scientific novelty. The investigation into the influence of motivational and age factors on the academic performance of a highly heterogeneous category of learners – master's students – within the context of transitioning to a learner-centered educational process contributes to developing more effective teaching approaches. The practical significance of the research lies in applying the obtained data to develop new curricula, educational, and methodological materials for training master's students, aimed at both enhancing knowledge in their professional field and considering factors that influence academic performance

This study investigated the use of metadiscourse markers—key rhetorical devices that structure academic writing and facilitate writer–reader interaction—in research articles. While previous research has acknowledged disciplinary variation in metadiscourse use, this study specifically examined how L2 writers employ these linguistic resources in the discussion sections of research articles across the soft and hard sciences. Using a corpus-based approach, the analysis explored the frequency, functional roles, and disciplinary appropriateness of metadiscourse markers. The corpus consisted of 100 discussion sections from reputable journals indexed in Scopus and ScienceDirect, representing both disciplinary groups. Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal metadiscourse framework and AntConc software were used to analyze both interactive markers (e.g., transitions) and interactional markers (e.g., hedges, boosters) through quantitative (normalized frequencies) and qualitative (concordance) methods. The results indicated a significant statistical difference in metadiscourse density, with soft sciences showing higher usage (M = 117.2 per 1,000 words) than hard sciences (M = 86.5). Soft sciences favored interpersonal markers, particularly boosters (e.g., we argue), whereas hard sciences relied more on interactive transitions and hedges (e.g., may suggest). Findings also revealed strong adherence to disciplinary conventions, with subtle L1-related and cultural influences. The study proposes a genre-based instructional approach tailored to disciplinary needs and recommends future research on sub-disciplinary variation and longitudinal development of L2 writers’ metadiscourse use.

This article explores the discourse construction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as represented within Chinese and US mainstream media. The study uses a corpus-based discourse-historical approach to compare the nomination and predicative strategies employed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict discourse. In doing so, we used a self-built corpus of Chinese media reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a corpus of US media reports. The findings of the study indicate that Chinese and US media prioritize distinct primary social actors. Chinese media often portray Israel as the “out-group” and Palestine as the “in-group,” emphasizing China's dedication to peace, justice, and the pursuit of a comprehensive, equitable, and nonviolent resolution to the Palestinian issue. In contrast, US media present a more nuanced portrayal of Israel and Palestine as both “in-group” and “out-group” entities; however, they accord greater prominence to Israel's “in-group” image and Palestine's “out-group” image, thereby mirroring the United States’ explicit pro-Israel position and its diplomatic commitments to counterterrorism and the promotion of international humanitarian principles. The study makes a substantial contribution by elucidating the linguistic variations in the discourse construction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within Chinese and US mainstream media.

ABSTRACT Diachronic patterns of lexical diversity and density in research article (RA) abstracts have garnered increasing scholarly attention in recent years, with findings generally pointing to an upward trend in the two metrics across various journals. However, despite the examination of a broad spectrum of disciplines, translation studies (TS) has remained underexplored in this line of research. Furthermore, most of extant studies fell short of in-depth explanations for observed trends but only provide rough analyses. This study investigates the diachronic trends in lexical diversity and density of RA abstracts published over the past 35 years in 12 prestigious TS journals, and further inquires into the driving forces behind the trends. The results reveal a pronounced upward trajectory in both lexical metrics across the examined period. The trend can be attributed to the rising frequency of nouns and adjectives, which is fundamentally driven by disciplinary development including theoretical evolution, diversification of research objects as well as prevalence of empirical methodologies.