English Corpus Research Articles

The impact of Star Wars on the English language: Star Wars-derived words and constructions in present-day English corpora

Abstract Since George Lucas’s film A New Hope was first screened in 1977, the Star Wars saga has become a pop-culture phenomenon incorporating films, videogames, books, merchandise, and a quasi-religious philosophy, but linguistic research on Star Wars is scarce and has mainly focused on language use in the films. There is as yet no investigation of the impact of Star Wars on the English language, and the present study fills this gap using corpus-linguistic methods to investigate the extent to which characteristic words and constructions from the Star Wars universe have become established in English. Five Star Wars-derived items included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), namely Jedi, Padawan, lightsabre (with spelling variants), Yoda, and the characteristic construction to the dark side were analysed regarding their frequency of occurrence in four corpora of present-day English (COCA, COHA, BNC, BNC Spoken 2014) and coded regarding their level of independence from the original films. The results show that over one-third of the uses of the investigated Star Wars-derived items are innovative (like the BNC example Other imbibers have gone over to the dark side of beer, rejecting the pasteurised lager produced by the breweries) and thus well integrated into the English language.

The Nominative Field of HAPPINESS Concept in the Middle English and Modern English Periods

Introduction. The article presents the result of the diachronical research of HAPPINESS concept nominative field. The research was conducted on the basis of English explanatory dictionaries and texts of corpus databases, using the methods of corpus linguistics. The relevance of the research is due to the insufficient development of the theoretical foundations for studying the evolution of nominations and components of the concept under study, and the development of corpus linguistics as one of the most relevant ways of studying concepts.Methodology and sources. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is formed by cognitive linguistics studies by N.N. Boldyrev, Y.S. Stepanov, E.S. Kubryakova, E.A. Nielsen, Z.D. Popova, I.A. Sternin; conceptology studies, in particular, emotional concepts, and emotiology studies by N.A. Krasavsky, V.I. Shakhovsky and O.E. Filimonova. The empirical material of the study is based on the texts of English corpus databases, as well as articles of English explanatory and etymological dictionaries.Results and discussion. Based on the method of constructing the nominative field described by Popova and Sternin and using the material of English explanatory dictionaries for the Middle and Modern English, the core of HAPPINESS concept is revealed. Based on the texts of English corpus databases, using corpus linguistics methods, as well as the collocation search model compiled by the author, the concept’s nominative field’s peripheral components are identified. Based on the analysis, the proposed changes in the composition of the nominative field of the concept in diachrony are revealed.Conclusion. In conclusion, the results of the analysis of the nominative field of HAPPINESS concept are presented, and the provisions on the nature of the development of the concept in diachrony are put forward.

Comparing the Depiction of Love in English and Indonesian Proverbs: An Analysis Using Cognitive Semantics and the Contrastive Method

This study delves into the intricate realm of human emotions, specifically exploring the concept of love as depicted in proverbs from two culturally distinct languages: English and Indonesian. This study utilized a cognitive semantics analysis and the contrastive method to unravel the underlying conceptualizations of love in these linguistic expressions. Proverbs served as windows into a society's collective wisdom and cultural values, often reflecting fundamental human experiences. By analyzing an extensive corpus of English and Indonesian proverbs related to love, we aimed to investigate the cognitive structures that underpin these linguistic expressions. Through this exploration, we also aimed to bridge linguistic and cultural gaps, shedding light on how love is conceptualized differently and similarly across these languages. Applying a cognitive semantics analysis, we dissected the metaphorical expressions and conceptual metaphors that govern love-related proverbs in both languages. Scrutinizing these linguistic metaphors uncovered the nuances of love as perceived by English and Indonesian speakers. The contrastive method allowed us to identify patterns of similarity and divergence in the cognitive love models, offering a deeper understanding of cross-cultural variations. Admittedly, the findings show that (1) both English and Indonesian proverbs utilize a diverse range of metaphorical expressions to convey the complex concept of love; In English proverbs, love is often metaphorically associated with the warmth of a fire, the journey of life, and the destination of that journey and Indonesian proverbs lean heavily on metaphors that are related to nature and natural elements, (2) the metaphorical expressions and source domains used to describe love in English and Indonesian proverbs signify culture's significant role in shaping the conceptualization of love in language, and (3) English proverbs focus more on love's transient and fleeting elements. In contrast, Indonesian proverbs highlight the more profound nature of love that extends beyond immediate gratification. By understanding how love is conceptualized in different languages, we can enrich our linguistic knowledge and gain valuable insights into how humans experience and express this universal emotion. Our study strives to foster cross-cultural appreciation and enhance intercultural communication by unraveling the intricate tapestry of love as depicted in English and Indonesian proverbs.

Applying Optimisation Theory in English Language Teaching in Practice

Abstract This paper firstly researches the optimization of the teaching process and teaching language according to the English teaching objectives and teaching contents and summarizes the optimization strategy of university English teachers’ language so as to improve the efficiency of English teaching. Secondly, on the basis of applying the optimization theory, the formal description of English utterances and word splitting is carried out, followed by obtaining the features of English utterances through the selection function and further constructing the English utterance alignment model by using the particle swarm optimization algorithm. Then, we study the application of English utterance alignment in English teaching, which is mainly embodied in the construction of the English teaching corpus, word frequency list, and core word lexicon, followed by the analysis of the practical application in English teaching. The results show that in terms of algorithm performance, the correct rate of utterance alignment based on the particle swarm optimization algorithm is 0.82, and the correct rate of utterance alignment is also improved to a great extent. On speaking teaching, self-efficacy showed a significant correlation with cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, communicative strategies, compensatory strategies, and memory strategies, and their corresponding coefficient values were 0.652, 0.716, 0.741, 0.732, 0.718, and 0.748, which indicated that the better self-efficacy was, the higher the scores of speaking memory strategies were.

Corpora, Locally Sourced: An Approach to Addressing the Specific Needs of ESL Writing Programs

AbstractThis paper discusses the development and implementation of a locally‐sourced corpus to address the specific needs of an ESL writing program. The paper begins with a description of the motivation and development of the Corpus of Ohio Learner and Teacher English (COLTE), a large in‐house corpus consisting of assessed ESL student writing and teacher feedback from first‐year writing courses. The paper illustrates research conducted within the local context using the COLTE and discusses how the program's corpus‐based approach influenced curricular revisions and instructional practice. It addresses the evaluation of these efforts, challenges encountered, and considerations for building and using corpora at the program level. The paper concludes by arguing that stakeholders within programs can work collaboratively to build and use locally‐sourced corpora grounded in their specific setting to explore local practices and address the English language learning and teaching needs of their own particular context.

Linguistic and pragmatic ways of committing oneself

Abstract In this study I focus on the complementation patterns of commissive shell nouns in Ghanaian English (GhE). Commissive shell nouns are a type of illocutionary shell noun, i.e. a noun that encapsulates a content that is usually expressed in a complement or even separate clause or sentence thereby ascribing it an illocutionary force. I use the usage-based approach to the study of language and investigate the behavioral profile of these nouns in GhE. I apply descriptive statistics to data that have been collected from the Corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE). The study provides evidence for the characterization of GhE usage norms, and thus contributes to the scholarly knowledge on this variety of English. It also sheds light on the contribution that the meaning-related and ultimately cognitive perspective can offer in describing the complementation patterns of illocutionary nouns in Postcolonial Englishes (PCEs).

A corpus-based study of metadiscourse features in Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting.

Metadiscourse markers have been observed to be frequently employed by simultaneous interpreters as interpreting strategies in the process of interpretation. However, the realm of inquiry into this phenomenon remains relatively underexplored. This study aims to rectify this gap by conducting a systematic analysis of metadiscourse features in the context of Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting. The analytical framework for this study is rooted in Hyland's interpersonal model of metadiscourse. By comparing the frequency and distribution of various metadiscourse markers in the source language (Chinese), target language (English), and original English speeches in simultaneous interpreting events, the research seeks to offer a quantitative description, qualitative analysis, and explanation of the causes of these metadiscourse features. To facilitate this analysis, the authors have compiled a Chinese-English Simultaneous Interpreting Parallel Corpus and a Comparable Original English Corpus based on ten international economic conferences, totaling 161,068 tokens. The findings reveal significant differences in interlingual and intralingual comparisons. Professional interpreters demonstrate a strong awareness of metadiscourse by employing various "metadiscourse interpreting strategies," including explicitation/simplification, emphasis/weakening, and visibility/invisibility. Moreover, interpreted English displays distinct metadiscourse features including explicitation of textual logic, objective modal tendency, and audience orientation, as compared to the original English speeches. The observed differences in the study can be attributed to a range of factors, including contextual factors, source language features, and the cognitive psychology of the interpreter. This study provides an in-depth analysis of metadiscourse characteristics in Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting, contributing to fine-grained inquiries into our understanding of the linguistic features of interpreted texts within the context of corpus-based interpreting studies.

Analyzing the Albanian Translations of Ernest Hemingway’s "The Old Man and the Sea" Ismail Kadare and Vedat Kokona: A Comparative Study

Translation, or more precisely translation studies, constitutes a very important topic nowadays and on which different theories continue to be thrown depending on the way of treatment and the importance given to the special aspects related to the translation process. Despite ongoing discussions, importance is attached to the fact that the translation should create an effect on the readers of the translated text as close as possible to that of the readers of the source text. This study aims to provide a detailed analysis based on the two versions translated into Albanian of the work The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, namely by Ismail Kadare in 1963 and by Vedat Kokona in 1997. The methodology of this study analyzes the features and characteristics of the aspects especially the two translated versions of the original work, emphasizing the similarities as well as the changes that the translation methodology has undergone over the years. By comparing the two different periods, this study brings to light the possible transformations that take place in the translation process, as well as in this way determine the course that the translation took until a few years ago. This study allows us to observe if those features continue to be part of the translation process even today. This research consists of two linguistic corpora, one in English and one in Albanian, which makes possible the realization of this work. Due to the nature of this work, the corpus in English is the work in the original language "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway, as well as the Albanian language corpus, which constitutes the two versions of the translation of the work in the original language as well as scientific literature rich and contemporary in the service of elaborating this paper.
 
 Received: 11 September 2023 / Accepted: 20 October 2023 / Published: 5 November 2023

Translation Equivalents in Nigerian English and Ghanaian English

This research is an analysis of the translation equivalents in Nigerian and Ghanaian Englishes. Translation equivalents refer to manifestations of mother tongues interferences in which lexical items are substituted literally from other local languages to English language. This study discusses the data from ICE Nigeria and Ghana respectively that reflect mother tongue interferences. All the data were purposively drawn from International Corpus of English (ICE) Nigeria and (ICE) Ghana components. A total of thirty-nine expressions constitute the data for analysis in this study. An eclectic framework of language interference, transfer and language variation and change is used for analysis. The analyses are in three levels: sociolinguistic, semantic and corpus based. This study identifies some distinctive NE and GhE lexical items from ICE Nigeria and Ghana with their meanings. Examples include “raise voice and no light” (NE) and “feel the rain and kill time” (GhE). The translation equivalents in NE are majorly as a result of the influence of the Nigerian indigenous languages: Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa languages, among others. That of GhE is greatly influenced by the Akan, Ewe and Ga languages. The study reveals that translation equivalents in both varieties of English are quite related.

Named Entity Recognition in Electronic Health Records: A Methodological Review.

A substantial portion of the data contained in Electronic Health Records (EHR) is unstructured, often appearing as free text. This format restricts its potential utility in clinical decision-making. Named entity recognition (NER) methods address the challenge of extracting pertinent information from unstructured text. The aim of this study was to outline the current NER methods and trace their evolution from 2011 to 2022. We conducted a methodological literature review of NER methods, with a focus on distinguishing the classification models, the types of tagging systems, and the languages employed in various corpora. Several methods have been documented for automatically extracting relevant information from EHRs using natural language processing techniques such as NER and relation extraction (RE). These methods can automatically extract concepts, events, attributes, and other data, as well as the relationships between them. Most NER studies conducted thus far have utilized corpora in English or Chinese. Additionally, the bidirectional encoder representation from transformers using the BIO tagging system architecture is the most frequently reported classification scheme. We discovered a limited number of papers on the implementation of NER or RE tasks in EHRs within a specific clinical domain. EHRs play a pivotal role in gathering clinical information and could serve as the primary source for automated clinical decision support systems. However, the creation of new corpora from EHRs in specific clinical domains is essential to facilitate the swift development of NER and RE models applied to EHRs for use in clinical practice.

Bidirectional LSTMs with Byte Pair Encoding in NMT for CLIR using English and Telugu Parallel Corpus

The Neural Machine Translation (NMT) is very crucial for Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval (CLIR). NMT is effective in translating English language queries to the Telugu Language. In this paper, we are translating English queries to Telugu. The NMT will utilize a parallel corpus for translations. Telugu is a resource-poor language, it is very difficult to supply large amounts of parallel corpus to NMT. So the NMT will have a problem called Out Of Vocabulary (OOV). To overcome this problem Byte Pair Encoding (BPE) is used along with Long Short Term Memory (LSTM), which segments the rare words into sub-words and tries to translate the rare words. It still faces problems like Named Entity Recognition (NER). Some problems of NER can be solved by utilizing bidirectional LSTMs in sequence-to-sequence models. The bidirectional LSTMs (BiLSTMs) will be helpful in training systems in both directions for recognizing the named entities. The accuracy parameters and a BLEU score show the translation quality of NMT with bidirectional LSTMs has slightly more accuracy than regular LSTMs which is considerable.

A comparative analysis of morphosyntactic features of Nigerian English and Ghanaian English

This study analyses aspects of lexis and morpho-syntax of Nigerian English and Ghanaian English. It also compares the data from the International Corpus of English (ICE), Nigeria and Ghana components respectively, that are used in the same or similar way in the two varieties. A total of fifty-three lexical items are analysed in this study. All the data were drawn from ICE Nigeria and Ghana respectively. Corpus linguistics was used as a method of data analysis. The AntConc software was used to authenticate the data that are present in both corpora. This study adopts an eclectic approach of Structural Semantics, alongside the theory of Contrastive Analysis (CA), using Bamiro’s tools of lexico-semantic variation for the categorization of the data. The study also uses ideas from Jowitt for this morphosyntactic analysis. The study found out among other things that, some irregular plurals are made regular in NE and GhE (+,-) for example, “…look for qualified staffs…”, “…top officials and other staffs who…” respectively. Also, uncountable nouns are frequently made countable and used in the plural: “advice, agenda, jewelry, offspring, property, machinery” in both varieties (+,-): “…we’ll uphold your advices…” and “…selfish agendas…”. This work has identified some NE and GhE morphosyntactic features/usages from ICE Nigeria and Ghana which have not been mentioned in existing works in NE and GhE. The study has further provided raw materials for researchers interested in the study of these two varieties and also West African English and is of immense importance to the development of NE and GhE lexicon. The study concludes that NE and GhE are separate varieties and have quite a number of distinctive features in common. These two varieties are not errors or deviations.

Analysis of English Translation of Corpus Based on Blockchain

Blockchain technology can create a shared platform for English translation and reserve a large number of practical corpus resources, thus improving the quality of machine translation. This paper first introduces the research status of foreign language corpus and blockchain English translation in China. Then it introduces the basic principles of BPNN and particle swarm optimization and constructs the PSO-BP model. Experiments show that the prediction accuracy of BPNN optimized by particle swarm optimization algorithm is greatly improved, the convergence speed is faster, and it will not fall into the local optimal trap. Finally, this paper proposes the implementation path of blockchain in corpus translation application: (1) build “blockchain+ AI” English translation corpus and (2) improve the machine English translation software of the “blockchain+ AI” English translation training platform.

The use and perception of question tags in Trinidadian English

Abstract This study presents an analysis of the use and perception of variant question tags and the seven invariant forms eh, ent, nah, OK, not so, right, and you know in Trinidadian English. The analysis of use is based on four dialogue text types from the Trinidad and Tobago component of the International Corpus of English and takes a variationist approach. The analysis of the perception is based on a survey that combines a multiple-choice test, where participants were presented with different dialogue scenarios and had to select the form they found most appropriate, and an indirect language attitude test, in which participants rated the use of the eight question tags on attitudinal scales and added open comments. The usage and perception profiles of the eight forms largely overlap but there are marked differences for individual forms.

“To boldly go where no man has gone before”: how iconic is the Star Trek split infinitive?

Abstract “To boldly go where no man has gone before”, popularized by the science fiction series Star Trek, has provided an iconic example for the use of split infinitives. From its introduction, the series may have paved the way for the broader use of split infinitives in contemporary, informal English in spite of prescriptive grammars shunning the structure. The current qualitative and quantitative study is based on the general diachronic Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) and a specific telecinematic corpus (TV Corpus). It aims to trace genre influence in the use of split infinitives in sci-fi and television discourses. It asks whether the use of split infinitives in informal genres can be correlated with its prominent use in the Star Trek series. The current study finds that both raw and relative frequencies increase in the wake of Star Trek, as well as the probability of choice. Yet the clearest influence from Star Trek stems from the spread of the iconic to boldly go phrase.

From tweets to trends: analyzing sociolinguistic variation and change using the Twitter Corpus of English in Hong Kong (TCOEHK)

ABSTRACT This article presents the Twitter Corpus of English in Hong Kong (TCOEHK): a 123-million-word corpus derived from sampling tweets across the 18 districts and three geographical (macro-)regions of Hong Kong from 2010 to 2022. It introduces the corpus and demonstrates its utility by examining four linguistic variables found in English in Hong Kong (EngHK) and the dominant variety Hong Kong English (HKE): tense marking, ‘-ize/-ise’ suffix use, adverb syntactic position, and copula (non-)use. It explores their relationship with intralinguistic, stylistic (e.g. formality), and extralinguistic factors (e.g. region, year, affect). The findings show that the distribution of variants in all four variables (e.g. rates of -ize use) is similar to the patterns identified in prior HKE work. In addition to confirming previous research, the results also reveal how intralinguistic, stylistic, and extralinguistic factors can each influence the distribution of variants differently depending on the variable studied, highlighting the complex and ever-changing nature of EngHK. The availability of social metadata and the large size of the TCOEHK make it viable for examining (socio)linguistic variation and changes in contemporary (Twitter-style) EngHK, as well as potential regional and social sub-varieties/styles within EngHK. It promises to advance research on variation and change in EngHK.

Exploring the effects of target-language extramural activities on students’ written production

Frequent engagement in English extramural activities (i.e., activities that take place outside the classroom) has been found to have a positive impact on EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. In the present study, we aim to extend our knowledge of the possible impact of extramural activities into the realm of second-language writing. Specifically, we investigate the relationship among a number of English extramural activities and two aspects of writing development: lexical diversity and noun phrase complexity. The data are drawn from the Swedish Learner English Corpus (SLEC) which includes texts produced by Swedish secondary school students. The corpus also includes information on how many hours per week students (i) engage in conversations in English, (ii) communicate in English while playing computer/video games, (iii) read in English, (iv) spend time on social media with English content, (v) and watch TV shows or movies in English. The results show that reading in English leads to higher frequency of adjectival modification, whereas conversing in English and watching TV programs positively impact lexical diversity. The results of the study have implications for discussions about the role of L2 classroom instruction vis-à-vis learners’ extramural activities.

Unpacking the Art of Customer Complaint Handling in Spanish and British Telecom Emails: A Cross-Cultural Webcare Study With a Human Touch

In spite of the rise of new media in a B2C context, companies still prefer to handle complaints privately. As such, many complaints are handled via email resulting in a professional communication genre of its own. In this study we performed a cross-cultural genre analysis to understand the specific discourse structure of the moves within response mails to complaints, on the one hand, and the importance of the communicative function of Conversational Human Voice within this genre, on the other. With this aim, we collected authentic organizational email replies to complaints from telecom companies active in the UK and Spain (36 and 44 emails respectively). The results indicate that the British and Spanish data sets show a similar discourse structure in terms of move frequency. The submoves that are prototypical for all data sets are Greeting, Explanation, Conclusion, and the closing submoves Sign-off and Signature. The data sets differ mainly in their frequency for the interpersonal submoves Empathy, Gratitude, and Apology, which are more prevalent in the English corpus, and the more business-oriented moves, such as Contact reason, Marketing, and Future contact, which are mainly present in the Spanish corpus. This suggests that organizational email replies to complaints are a rather conventionalized genre, with some linguacultures putting more effort in company-customer interactions by using more interpersonal submoves. Regarding the cross-cultural analysis of the expression of Conversational Human Voice we observed an influence of the respective linguacultures in the sense that the Spanish data are less personal and less invitational than the English mails, although they present more empathetic intensifiers. Furthermore, both data sets show only a limited extent of informal language. We evaluate these findings in the light of previous work.

Corpus philology: Using the Dictionary of Old English to get bigger data for Old English spelling variation

Abstract This article presents a methodology for obtaining large datasets for the spelling of individual phonological segments in Old English texts, based on searching the Dictionary of Old English Corpus for the attested spellings listed in the Dictionary of Old English A-H. It exemplifies this ‘corpus philology’ through a study of 216,526 spellings for words beginning with h followed by a vowel, using a variety of techniques to evaluate the methodology’s precision and recall, which are calculated as very high for <h->initial spellings (precision 100% precision, recall 92.1%) and moderate, but still usable, for <h->less spellings (precision 85.5%, recall 58.3%). Data for fourteen other segments related to the behaviour of h- in Old English is presented in the Supplementary Materials that complement the paper online. This dataset of 379,484 spellings from 2,605 Old English texts is shown to seriously problematize the findings of traditional philology, the conclusions of which are in contrast based on only a handful of spellings from a few texts, and to have the potential to radically enhance our understanding of the literary and linguistic histories of English.

Design of online English vocabulary corpus based on embedded system and multi-objective optimization

Design of online English vocabulary corpus based on embedded system and multi-objective optimization