Specific-word Frequency Research Articles

MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF UKRAINE AND UKRAINIANS: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH MEDIA SOURCES

This article presents a corpus-based analysis of media representations of Ukraine and Ukrainians in popular American and British media sources. The study aims to examine language usage, framing techniques, and the frequency of specific words and phrases to shed light on the construction and dissemination of narratives. Two media sub corpora, the British media sub corpus and the American media sub corpus, were compiled using the #Lancsbox interface and search tools like Google. The corpora consisted of 100 articles each, covering the period from late 2013 to April 2022.
 The analysis revealed several key findings. First, these findings underscore the media's significant role in shaping public perception and understanding of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Secondly, they highlight the importance of accurate language usage, framing techniques, and cultural sensitivity in media representations. Third, the study’s conclusions have practical implications for promoting more accurate and respectful media portrayals of Ukraine and Ukrainians.
 Further research avenues include exploring a broader range of media sources, investigating the influence of geopolitical factors on media representations, and examining the impact of media discourse on public attitudes and perceptions.

The language of peer review reports on articles published in the BMJ, 2014\u20132017: an observational study

To analyse the words and expressions used in peer reviews of manuscripts that were later published as original research in the BMJ. Secondary aims were to estimate the differences in net sentiment between peer review reports on manuscripts subject to one or more rounds of peer review and and review reports on initially rejected manuscripts that were accepted after appeal. This observational study included all peer review reports published in the BMJ from September 2014 until the end of 2017. The study analysed the frequency of specific words in peer review reports for accepted manuscripts, identifying the most commonly occurring positive and negative words and their context, as well as the most common expressions. It also quantified differences in net sentiment in peer review reports between manuscripts accepted after appeal and manuscript accepted without appeal. The dataset consisting of 1716 peer review reports contained 908,932 word tokens. Among the most frequent positive words were “well”, “important”, “clear”, “while the negative words included “risk”, “bias”, and “confounding”. The areas where the reviewer makes the most positive and negative comments included: “well-written paper”, “well-written manuscript”, “this is an important topic”, “answers an important question”, “high risk of bias” and “selection bias”. The sentiment analysis revealed that manuscripts accepted after appeal had lower scores on review reports for joy and positive sentiment, in addition to having higher scores for negative words expressing sadness, fear, disgust and anger compared with manuscripts that were not initially rejected. Peer review comments were mainly related to methodology rather than the actual results. Peer review reports on initially rejected manuscripts were more negative and more often included expressions related to a high risk of bias.

Revisiting the dual-nature account of homophony: Evidence from picture naming in aphasia

Revisiting the dual-nature account of homophony: Evidence from picture naming in aphasia

Competition in lexical processing of Italian noun/verb homographs

ABSTRACTThe study investigates the lexical representation of Italian noun/verb homographs, introducing a factor which has been analysed in production studies: the specific-word frequency (SWF). The SWF parameter allows to understand whether the grammatical class information is specified within the lexical knowledge or it is selected during post-lexical stages. We ran six lexical decision tasks employing the priming paradigm and a grammatical decision task to investigate the lexical representation of noun/verb homographs. In addition, we sought to determine the role played by the frequency of representations and the temporal activation of the grammatical class information. Our findings support the claim that these forms have independent representations for each syntactic role they can play. We interpreted these findings in the light of what we call the “Nominal Dominance” effect, which affects the lexical access of noun/verb homographs. We also discuss the relation between nominal dominance and lexical frequency.

Mixed-indicators model for identifying emerging research areas

This study presents a mixed model that combines different indicators to describe and predict key structural and dynamic features of emerging research areas. Three indicators are combined: sudden increases in the frequency of specific words; the number and speed by which new authors are attracted to an emerging research area, and changes in the interdisciplinarity of cited references. The mixed model is applied to four emerging research areas: RNAi, Nano, h-Index, and Impact Factor research using papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (1982---2009) and in Scientometrics (1978---2009). Results are compared in terms of strengths and temporal dynamics. Results show that the indicators are indicative of emerging areas and they exhibit interesting temporal correlations: new authors enter the area first, then the interdisciplinarity of paper references increases, then word bursts occur. All workflows are reported in a manner that supports replication and extension by others.

The specific-word frequency effect in speech production: Evidence from Spanish and French

The role of word frequency in lexical access during the production of homophones remains unresolved. In the current study, we address whether specific-word (the frequency of occurrence of the word "nun") or homophone frequency (the summed frequency of words with the pronunciation /nLambdan/) determines the production latencies of homophones. In Experiments 1a, 2a, and 3a, participants named pictures of high-frequency (e.g., "banco"-a bank: financial institution) and low-frequency (e.g., "banco"-park bench) Spanish (Experiments 1a and 2a) or French (Experiment 3a) homophones and control pictures of nonhomophone words matched in frequency with each of the two uses of the homophones. The naming latencies for low-frequency homophones were longer than those for high-frequency homophones. Furthermore, the naming latencies for homophones were indistinguishable from those for nonhomophone controls matched in specific-word frequency. In Experiments 1b, 2b, and 3b, the participants performed either object decision or picture-word matching tasks with the stimuli used in the corresponding Experiments 1a, 2a, and 3a. There were no reliable differences between high- and low-frequency homophones. The findings support the hypothesis that specific-word and not homophone frequency determines lexical access in speech production.

Effects of homophony on reading aloud: Implications for models of speech production

In this paper we investigate whether homophones have shared (e.g., Dell, 1990; Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999) or independent (e.g., Caramazza, Costa, Miozzo, & Bi, 2001) phonological representations. We carried out a homophone reading aloud task with low frequency irregular homophones and matched low frequency irregular non-homophonic controls. The ‘Shared Representation’ view predicted a homophone advantage: homophones should be read faster than their matched controls because the low frequency homophone inherits the frequency of its high frequency partner. The ‘Independent Representation’ view predicted neither an advantage nor a disadvantage: performance should be governed by the homophone's specific-word frequency. Results showed that low frequency homophones were read aloud slower than non-homophonic controls. Results were confirmed with an independent database of reading latencies (Balota, Cortese, Hutchison, Neely, Nelson, Simpson, & Treiman, 2002). Additionally, attempts to simulate the homophone disadvantage effect using current computational models of reading aloud were all unsuccessful. The homophone disadvantage effect constitutes, therefore, a new challenge for all computational reading models to date.

The Representation of Homophones: Evidence From the Distractor-Frequency Effect.

Current models of word production offer different accounts of the representation of homophones in the lexicon. The investigation of how the homophone status of a word affects lexical access can be used to test theories of lexical processing. In this study, homophones appeared as word distractors superimposed on pictures that participants named orally. The authors varied distractor frequency, a variable that has been shown to modulate the interference that distractors produce on picture naming. The results of 3 experiments converged in showing that words interfered in proportion to their individual frequency in the language, even if they have high-frequency homophone mates. This effect of specific-word frequency is compatible with models that assume (a) distinct lexical representations for the individual homophones and (b) that access to such representations is modulated by frequency. The authors discuss the extent to which current models of word production satisfy these constraints.

The specific-word frequency effect: Implications for the representation of homophones in speech production.

In a series of experiments, the authors investigated whether naming latencies for homophones (e.g., /nlambdan/) are a function of specific-word frequency (i.e., the frequency of nun) or a function of cumulative-homophone frequency (i.e., the sum of the frequencies of nun and none). Specific-word but not cumulative-homophone frequency affected picture-naming latencies. This result was obtained in 2 languages (English and Chinese). An analogous finding was obtained in a translation task, where bilingual speakers produced the English names of visually presented Spanish words. Control experiments ruled out that these results are an artifact of orthographic or articulatory factors, or of visual recognition. The results argue against the hypothesis that homophones share a common word-form representation, and support instead a model in which homophones have fully independent representations.

The specific-word frequency effect: Implications for the representation of homophones in speech production.

The specific-word frequency effect: Implications for the representation of homophones in speech production.