Corpus Linguistics Software Research Articles

Metaphoric Conceptualizations of Georgian Cultural and National Identities in Oliver Wardrop’s The Kingdom of Georgia

The aspiration of Georgia to be part of the Western Culture has always been an irrevocable vector. Nevertheless, it is of immense importance to discursively scrutinize how Europeans perceive this aspiration. Metaphors possess an inherent capacity to represent cultural values of a society and communicate established or competing worldviews. From this perspective, the choice of metaphors, which is cognitively reinforced, conceptualizes culture-specific and national-emotive attitudes that are ascribed to certain communities. The aim of the present paper is to explore conceptual metaphors that contribute to the representation of Georgian cultural and national identities in the eye of a beholder - Sir Oliver Wardrop, who was a British Diplomat and the United Kingdom’s first Chief Commissioner of Transcaucasia in Georgia in 1919-1920 manifesting his take on Georgian cultural and national characteristic features in his work The Kingdom of Georgia (1888). Corpus linguistic software tool AntConc® is used for generating concordance lists for a qualitative discourse analysis of a verbal milieu of the target lingual units – Georgia and Georgian. The research reveals that Georgian cultural and national identities manifested in the discursive realm through the observer’s lenses, which could be referred to as Georgian cultural and national eye-dentities, possess signaling and meaning sides. The latter reinforces the idea that identities function as discursive signs in the narrative of a beholder. What is more, a meaning side of cultural and national identities expressed via the conceptual metaphors acknowledge the emergence of a reshaped Georgian identity that prepared a foundation for establishing Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921).

Using Ideological Conflict to Create Carcinogen Risk in Arabic Scientific Discourse: A Corpus-Based Study

Many Arabic scientific debates are devoted to disputes on cancer and its causes. Scientists tend to inform people about the danger of consuming and being exposed to carcinogens. The paper aims to explore the proximization strategy that Arab scientists rely on to construct carcinogen risk to promote people’s preventive actions against carcinogens. The paper intends to answer the main question: how does the Arabic scientific discourse employ ideological conflict to construct carcinogen risk? It is hoped that the paper can provide insights into the linguistic construction of concepts through the ideological conflict between two different poles in the Arabic scientific discourse. It provides insights for Arab scientists by promoting their awareness of the potential of Arabic for presenting a fully intellectual reflection of scientific knowledge. It focuses on the construction of carcinogen risk that generates tension between the values held by people and the opposing values ascribed to carcinogens. This aim is achieved by employing Cap’s (2013) cognitive pragmatic theory of proximization. The theory comprises three proximization strategies: spatial, temporal and axiological. The axiological proximization strategy is applied to a corpus of Arabic scientific discourse. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used in the analysis to produce more objective results. Anthony’s AntConc (2019) corpus linguistics software is used for conducting mathematical calculations through corpus linguistics. The paper has arrived at some conclusions that show how axiological proximization is employed to construct carcinogen risk which encourages people to take preventive actions.

How is Brexit Linguistically Conceptualized? The Brexit is a journey metaphor scenario in David Cameron’s, Theresa May’s and Boris Johnson’s Speeches

From David Cameron, through Theresa May, to Boris Johnson, what Brexit means has evolved, linguistically speaking, but also conceptually speaking. It is mostly through discourse that this quite unfathomable concept came into being and slowly became a more stable notion in the British and European contexts. Thanks to corpus linguistics software tools together with cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis, this article seeks to follow the findings of a previous study on the perception of Brexit by Tories through an analysis of 92 speeches delivered by Tory Prime Ministers David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson. Following a quantitative and qualitative approach, the paper aims to analyze the Brexit is a journey metaphor scenario, and more particularly the direction of the movement and the evaluation of the metaphor scenarios resorted to by the three Conservative Prime Ministers.

Choice of words, expressions of mind: Understanding the marginality of translation in Singapore’s public services

ABSTRACT The value of translation is underestimated in Singapore, resulting in the marginalization of translators and interpreters. This study adopts a stylistic approach to investigating the marginality of translation in the public services with a view to identifying issues that could have hindered the professionalization of translation and interpreting in Singapore. The data of this study is public discourse drawn from government websites pertaining to translation. The article first examines the employment practices of government agencies. The subsequent stylistic analysis, aided by corpus linguistic software, focuses on deviant linguistic features in vocabulary, syntax, figures of speech, context and cohesion. Theories of point of view, framing and cooperative principles in conversations are integrated into the critical interpretation of policymakers’ word choices to understand their attitudes. The study reveals that linguistic repertoires in the public domain embrace abstractionism to reduce the salience of translation, perceived as the fringes of bilingualism.

Constructing Carcinogen Risk in Scientific Discourse Through Ideological Conflict: A Cognitive Pragmatic Analysis

With the increasing rates of cancer worldwide, a great deal of scientific discourse is devoted to arguments and statements about cancer and its causes. Scientists from different fields try to seize any available chance to warn people of the risk of consuming and exposing to carcinogens that have, unfortunately, become essential parts of modern life. The present paper attempts to investigate the proximization strategy through which scientists construct carcinogen risk to enhance people’s preventive actions against these carcinogens. The paper targets the construction which depends on producing the conflict between the values of the people themselves and the contrasting values assigned to carcinogens. To achieve this aim, Cap’s (2013) cognitive pragmatic theory of proximization is employed for analysis. The theory is a component of three proximization strategies: spatial, temporal and axiological. Of these three proximization strategies, axiological proximization strategy is applied to a corpus from scientific discourse. To arrive at more objective results, the analysis procedure is both qualitative and quantitative. Mathematical calculations are performed through corpus linguistics using Anthony’s AntConc (2019) corpus linguistics software. Eventually, the paper has arrive at certain conclusions that reveal the way actors (producers of scientific discourse) utilize axiological proximization strategy to portray carcinogen risk as a means for promoting people to take preventive measures.

Establishing a COVID-19 lemmatized word list for journalists and ESP learners

The aim of this research is two-fold; first, to explore the most frequent COVID-19 inspired words in medical news reporting contexts, and second, to classify them into different categories. This paper adopts a corpus-based approach to build a lemmatized academic word list (AWL) inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Factiva was used to retrieve the pandemic-related articles published in News Rx from January 1 - October 31, 2020. A total number of 18,249,093-word corpus was compiled. The corpus linguistic software program Wordsmith (WS-6) (Scott, 2012) was used to generate a word list based on the complied corpus. Subsequent to compiling, lemmatizing, and analyzing the AWL, six categories were identified, namely, acronyms and abbreviation, diseases, COVID-19, biology, medicine, and scientific disciplines, all of which are of essential use for media workers, ESP learners of journalism, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health sciences. Building such a discipline-specific glossary will be of special pedagogical value for health journalists, textbook writers and curriculum designers, instructors, and ESP learners in the health sciences field. One of the major contributions of this research is establishing lemmas of a large set of AWL. This set can be utilized by news media workers, health communication specialists, and ESP learners. Lemmatization will ensure rapid dissemination of the word list and its integration in the linguistic system through derivation and other word-formation processes.

How is Brexit Linguistically-Constructed ? A Corpus Linguistic Analysis of Speeches by David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson

Brexit as such existed linguistically before existing politically, as it has been the subject of various controversies and heated debates. From David Cameron, through Theresa May, to Boris Johnson, the conceptualization of Brexit certainly evolved. Thanks to corpus linguistics software tools together with cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis, this article seeks to study the perception of Brexit by Tories through an analysis of 45 speeches delivered by Tory Prime Ministers David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Following a quantitative approach, lexical frequencies as well as positive and negative keywords used by each Prime Minister are analysed and compared thanks to the use of linguistic tools, such as AntConc® and #LancsBox®. The paper concludes on a more qualitative approach by highlighting the semantic / notional domains the three Prime Ministers most frequently resort to, so as to show that Brexit is not constructed identically, at least linguistically-speaking, by the three Conservative Prime Ministers.

US-China trade negotiation discourses in the press

AbstractThis article studies trade negotiation discourses during the US-China tariff truce, aiming at investigating the difference of ideologies of the U.S. and China journalists towards trade negotiation. Through integration of theories and methods of corpus linguistics and critical discourse studies and the use of the corpus linguistic software, the study finds that U.S. reports to some extent make itself appear as a victim of the trade, and hope to end unfair trade practices and reduce the chronic trade deficit, while China press focuses more on the harm of raising tariffs not just to each other but the global economy, through communication and dialogue rather than unilateral measures to peacefully resolve trade tensions. Perceived differences in culture have an important influence in the theoretical formation of the differences. The article concludes that the discourse patterns of the coverage imply a rising China and a new level of equilibrium in international politics.

A Corpus-Driven Study of Terms Used to Refer to Articles and Methods in Research Abstracts in the Fields of Economics, Education, English Literature, Nursing, and Political Science

The present study attempts to identify the most frequent terms that are used in research abstracts relating to research articles designations, research methods, and research goals and quantify them in various disciplines, namely, economics, education, English literature, nursing, and political science to see whether there is a unique pattern characterizing terms peculiar to each of the five disciplines under investigation. It also explains why specific terms are overused/ underused by researchers. The current study follows a corpus-driven approach. For this purpose, we compiled a corpus of 2500 research abstracts from online refereed journals in the fields mentioned above. The corpus linguistic software program, AntConc (3.5.8), was used to analyze the collected data. The analysis revealed that some terms are more frequently used in some areas than others. For example, the term 'study' was the most common word to designate academic research. The most frequent term to refer to population and subject-related terms was 'sample/s,' while the least frequent was 'interviewee/s.' The words used to designate tools or instruments varied, with 'test' being the most frequent and 'checklist/s' the least. This study is of significant benefit for researchers in various disciplines. It acquaints them with terms used to designate articles in their respective fields, in addition to terms used most frequently to refer to sample- related terms and finally to words used for setting goals such as objectives, aims, and goals. This, in turn, can help researchers and graduate students embarking on writing their theses to opt for the most relevant terms peculiar to their disciplines. Unlike most studies that focused on developing academic word lists (AWL), this study set off with terms previously established and used in research bodies and research abstracts to unveil their popularity and the extent to which they are used in various discipline abstracts.
 
 Received: 20 January 2021 / Accepted: 30 March 2021 / Published: 10 May 2021

A corpus-driven analysis of phrase frames in research articles on business management

With emerging developments in the use of computer and corpus-linguistic software to analyse language features and linguistic patterns, competent language users frequently rely on a stock of semi-automatic, prefabricated word chunks, rather than constantly creating new combinations of individual words. This has illuminated ways to improve academic writing among novice writers and students. Researchers have begun compiling academic expressions by deriving pedagogically useful lists of phraseological expressions, such as collocations (e.g. dark night), lexical bundles (e.g. the importance of) and phrase frames (e.g. the * of). These studies have widely advocated the use of a wide-angle approach in compiling academic phraseological expressions by focusing on language forms common in all disciplines. In the current corpus-driven study, we expand this line of research by arguing that discipline-specific academic phraseological expressions should be explored further by focusing on phrase frames that have so far received little attention from scholars. Findings from the study will help novice writers and students by providing them a repository of phrase frames that are pedagogically useful.

A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis on Cyber Stigmatization -----A Case of Microblogging Discourse on BMW Car Crash

Cyber stigmatization has become an increasingly common phenomenon on social media, which usually involves the topics of culture, gender, race, illness and disease. Individuals or collective identities who are stigmatized usually feel different and devalued by others. The present study is conducted from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis, assisted by corpus linguistics software, which attempts to reveal the discourse power behind cyber stigmatization by discussing netizens’ emotions and ideologies in the microblogging discourse on BMW Car Crash in Nanjing. With the quantitative and qualitative analysis of 4857 comment collected on Weibo platform under the assistant of AntConc and KHcoder, the findings suggest that: (1) The discussion of network events usually goes through a topic-shift process, and an expansion of discussion area; (2) Many grass-roots netizens get a relatively strong discourse power when expressing opinions on network. They tend to stigmatize a certain social group by stereotypical ideas; (3) Different social status and limited power in real life make netizens generate a strong desire for equality. It is recommended that government should strictly use legal right and resource to guide netizens to analyze problems rationally, so as to reduce the biased and malicious phenomena of “labelling” and “stigmatization”.

Частотность и применение некоторых терминообразующих суффиксов монгольского языка

The article calculates the meanings and frequency use of some Mongolian term-forming suffixes by the aid of TextStat program. The present paper deals with meanings, functions, frequency and application of some Mongolian term-forming suffixes, such as -тан4 , -нцар2, -гана4, -лзай3, -ж, ‑жин, -ч, -чин, -ийнхан2. The study examines terms to denote plants, animals, minerals and geological objects related to natural sciences in the Russian-Mongolian Terminological Dictionary (editions of 1964, 1970, and 1979) containing 120,000 terms. The study includes two main sections. Firstly, it summarizes works by scientists to have studied the meanings of the suffixes mentioned above, and examines which of the meanings are more frequently used to create terms. Among the scientists who have investigated the Mongolian suffix -тан, T. A. Bertagaev described its meaning as follows: 1. ‘massive’, e.g., цэргийн эрхтэн ʽmilitary authorities, militaristsʼ; 2. ‘singular / plural’, e.g., цагаантан ʽwhite guardsman, white guardsmen; 3. ‘singularity’, e.g., сэхээтэн ʽintellectualʼ. In term formation, -тан4 is commonly used to create terms denoting plant and animal species. For example, in animal names — битүү тууртан ʽodd-toed ungulatesʼ (1); in plant names — Луулийн язгууртан ʽChenopodiaceaeʼ; in names of microorganisms — багц шилбүүртэн ʽlofotrihiʼ (1); in bird names — жигүүртэн ʽbirdsʼ, etc. The suffix -нцар is primarily used to form terms with meaning ‘diminutive’, e. g., үндсэнцэр ʽsmall rootʼ, навчинцар ‘leaflets’ (7); and meanings of similarity, e.g., манинцар ‘hermaphroditism’ (3), болронцор чулуу ‘quartzite’ (2), and the meaning ‘piece of a big thing’, e. g., элэгний хэлтэнцэр ‘hepatic lobule’ (2), etc. Thus, those are suffixes used for semantic extension of the vocabulary. The study also reveals that the suffix -гана4 contains 5 different meanings when it comes to term formation: a) the suffix is mostly added to a noun to create one characterized by specific terminology of the subject. For example, улаагана ‘red currant’ (3), хонхорт харгана ‘cingil silver’ (3), алтгана ‘golden karagana’; b) it is used to create terms denoting shape and form. For example, өргөст бударгана (өргөст хамхуул) ‘Salsola pestifera Nels’ (2); c) it is added to onomatopoetic words imitating animal sounds, such as tsuur tsuur, hed hed to create corresponding terms. For example, цүүргэнэ ‘locust’ (3), хэдгэнэ ‘wasp’ (3), etc. d) it is used to create term with the meaning of similarity. For example, сүүгэнэ ‘Euphorbia’ (1), салаагана ‘chorispora’ (2), гичгэнэ ‘Potentilla bifurca’ (1), e) it is added to roots of loan words to create new plant and fish names. For example, тавилгана — (tavolga + гана) (1), Суладай, нагана — Нагана (Suladai, Nagana — Nagana) (1), etc. The second section of the paper mainly focuses on the frequency of the suffixes -тан4, -нцар2, -гана4, -лзай3, -ж, -жин, -ч, -чин, -ийнхан2 in the Russian-Mongolian Terminological Dictionary analyzed using the TextStat corpus linguistic software. The study concludes the suffix -тан4 to be traced 292 times in the structure of single and compound terms; -нцар — 218; -гана — 68; -ч, -чин — 53; -ж, -жин — 45; -ийнхан — 11.

Investigating Copyright Terminology and Collocations in Polish, English, Japanese and German

Abstract The article deals with the comparison of key terminology in the field of copyright in the Polish, English, Japanese and German languages. The research material consists of copyright acts binding in Poland, Great Britain, the United States of America, Japan and Germany. The terminology has been compared in order to reveal similarities and differences in the meaning. Firstly, statutory terms from the Polish, English (British and American), German and Japanese acts will be presented and discussed. Also, a list of functional equivalents (Polish, English, German and Japanese) will be presented. The task was to search for functional equivalents, and if there is partial equivalence or no equivalence, an equivalent was provided according to techniques of providing equivalents for non-equivalent terms (c.f. Kłos, Matulewska, Nowak-Korcz 2007). They were made in such a way that equivalents will correspond with the reality of the laws in the above mentioned languages. The terms have been extracted with the usage of AntConc (corpus linguistics software). The method of analysis of comparable texts has been applied as well as the one based on three categories of equivalence by Šarčević (1997): “near equivalence”, “partial equivalence” and “non-equivalence”. Special attention has been paid to system-bound terminology existing in those five legal systems. To sum up, it should be borne in mind that the copyright law has been unified almost world-wide. As a result many countries have adopted similar or almost identical principles in this respect. Therefore, there is a significant convergence of meanings of analysed copyright terms with only slight differences resulting from deeply ingrained local and national legal traditions.

Signalling intertextuality in business emails

This study looks at the contribution of intertextuality to a text's coherence by examining the ways in which writers make use of recurrent words and phrases to signal instances of intertextuality in business emails. The data are a corpus of discourse flows comprised of two sets of interconnected emails read or written by two Hong Kong-based professionals. Key words and phrases in the corpus are identified using corpus linguistics software and then studied in context to determine whether they signal instances of intertextuality and, if so, whether they are predominantly used to signal prior or predicted texts. It is found that key words and phrases are associated with intertextuality and its directionality. The findings are also discussed in terms of how the power relations pertaining between the writer and reader influence the choice of language used and their wider implications for learning and teaching ESP.

Credentialing Structures, Pedagogies, Practices, and Curriculum Goals

Objective:To examine the discursive strategies deployed by community colleges to sustain legitimacy in an evolving and contradictory institutional environment.Method:Using corpus linguistics software, I compared 1,009 mission statements from 2012-2013 with a reference corpus of 427 mission statements from 2004.Results:Keywords analysis, collocation analysis, and concordance analysis suggest that mission statements have changed along four discourse trajectories: credentialing structures, pedagogies, practices, and curriculum goals.Contributions:These findings situate the community college as a point of entry into understanding the relations among institutional legitimacy and a changing cultural, political, and economic milieu.

American and foreign terrorists: an analysis of divergent portrayals in US newspaper coverage

American news coverage of terrorist activity consistently portrays the attacker as abnormal, but the mechanics of this othering process are entirely dependent on the nationality of the attacker in question. Coverage of domestic terrorism stresses the attacker’s personal instability and contrasts the perpetrator with his or her victims, painting the terrorist as an anomaly in American society. Foreign attackers, with whom journalists more frequently apply the terrorist label, are othered in US news media through heavy emphasis on their association with distant groups and conflicts. To explore how framing techniques differ throughout coverage of domestic and foreign terrorists, two separate corpora of articles from popular American newspapers were systematically compiled. One corpus contained articles about American attackers, while the other contained articles about foreign terrorists. The corpora were processed using both corpus linguistics software and a comparative analysis of texts. Exploring the American media’s framing choices illuminates how popular biases and perceptions of terrorist violence came to be; framing theory asserts that communicating entities inevitably shape the story they relay, influencing the reactions of those who experience the event second-hand. Not only does news coverage use distinct framing patterns for American and foreign perpetrators, but those patterns foster a populace that conceptualises American and foreign terrorists differently.

Using corpus linguistic software in the extraction of news frames: towards a dynamic process of frame analysis in journalistic texts

The article seeks to demonstrate the contribution that corpus linguistic software can make in news frame analysis and how it can help address some of the methodological challenges in the extraction of news frames. With the employment of corpus linguistic software WordSmith, the study conducts an inductive frame analysis of the UK press coverage of the Greek financial crisis, in which it combines principles of qualitative and quantitative analytical approaches. The findings demonstrate that, by integrating a statistical measuring mechanism in a qualitative analytical approach, corpus linguistic techniques can offer a systematic connection of stylistic and ideological features of news content and a more reliable identification of the loci for frames. Such techniques can also allow a better approximation of the unconscious level of frame construction. This can lead to a more efficient identification of frames that exhibit deeper cultural values and are more likely to shape the receivers’ interpretations.

From information-sharing to vacation rental choices – the case of Albufeira, Portugal

Purpose – This study aims to examine, via social exchange theory and social representations, how online vacation rentals (OVR) connect tourists and owners. It also aims to understand the dynamics and representations between owners and tourists in Albufeira, one of the most popular counties in the south of Portugal, supported on the theories of representation and social exchange. More specifically this research is structured on the following question: how the consequents – engagement and personalization – are materialized in the testimonies and descriptions posted on the vacation rentals platform. Design/methodology/approach – The initial assumption for this exploratory study is that OVR bring both material and intangible advantages for the individual consumer and for the community of homeowners. Drawing from netnography, using textual analysis, including the use of a corpus linguistics software program (WordSmith v.6), the authors aim to capture the multidimensional meanings presented by the tourists' online reviews of their travelling experience and home rental. Findings – The findings suggest that sharing the same nationality can facilitate engagement and influence the decision-making process (selection of property). Furthermore, findings point to a sense of place construed through affordances of place, home and a functional sense of place. Personalization of services is perceived by tourists as a positive outcome, this being the result of a positive evaluation that properties have received. Originality/value – The innovative design of this research, combining textual analysis and netnography of data reviews, and the analysis of this new form of tourism are the main contributions of this paper.

Bey or bouy

This paper is the first study of the orthographic patterns of speakers of Bahamian Creole English (BCE) when attempting to write their language in online environments. For the study, a corpus of 2.5 million words was retrieved from the online forum site <www.bahamasissues.com>. Corpus-linguistic software packages were used to determine keywords, concordances, and token frequencies. The study finds that there exists evidence of a non-codified common core of spellings in BCE, a pattern that has not up to now been described in an academic publication. The piece has implications for future lexicographic and orthographic studies of BCE.

Learning English in the periphery: A view from Myanmar (Burma)

Although researchers have called for the investigation of local vernacular learning and teaching practices in various ELT (English language teaching) contexts, studies conducted in the Periphery are fewer in number. This study attempts to understand English learning experiences of a group of students from the Periphery, who were studying English at a private seminary for Christian Karens in Myanmar. It adopts an ethnographic approach, observing students’ behaviour in the classroom environment and capturing their learning experiences as they participate in the various English classes. Students were invited to regularly record their feelings and reactions in Burmese during their English lessons. Interviews were also conducted in Burmese with selected students. The data analysis employed corpus linguistic software to capture frequent wordings and co-occurrence of particular patterns in students’ comments about the English class. These reflect the view of knowledge and learning of English into which Burmese students might have been socialized. The students’ comments suggest a positive, beneficial and consequential view of English language learning as opposed to the utilitarian view widespread in many discussions of ELT. The findings invite rethinking of many ideas about ELT, especially with regard to a peripheral context.