Frequent Collocates Research Articles

Is this War?

Abstract Media discourse around particular subjects comes to shape people’s understanding of that topic. In particular, the words used to describe situations of violence and conflict may colour public perceptions. This paper identifies the main words used to describe the Russia-Ukraine conflict by three international media outlets, Al Jazeera, Euronews and CGTN, from February to May 2022. Following the methodology of corpus-assisted discourse studies, it analyses the nouns used and their most frequent collocates, showing how these reveal the different ways the war was represented in these three media. The results are discussed in the light of differing theories concerning Chinese and Western stances to the conflict, illustrating media roles in the shaping and reproduction of dominant discourses.

Lancsbox software options for the prospective investigation of the multilingual corpus for European studies

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the lexeme European in two language variations (British and American English) based on the built-in corpora represented by newspapers, fiction, etc. that are licensed by LancsBox software (AmE06 and BE06 respectively). The investigation describes the algorithms of implementing linguistic research as part of the project taught during the course “Multilingual Corpus and its Resources for European Studies (KNLU)” (Erasmus+ Program). The LancsBox user-friendly software, that works with major operating systems, has proved to be a powerful manager for compiling and using the existing corpora. It enables to visualize the textual data based on the following software package tools: KWIC, GraphColl, Words, Ngrams, Wizard, etc. essential for the study of a specific linguistic unit. The statistical analysis of both corpora under analysis has revealed that the word European belongs to the lexemes that are seldom employed in the language. The comparison of the two variations has shown that the word occurs in similar top-ten frequent collocates, however, the GraphColl tool visualization has indicated the major differences between two сorpora. Thus, in British English Corpus N+N structures are more commonly employed and are more vibrant than in American English Corpus. The t-test has proved a statistically significant difference between the corpora with regard to the linguistic variable European. These data may testify to cultural differences between the users of two language variations taking into account that both сorpora represent the same time frame.

Emotion concept disgust and its German counterparts: Equivalence determination based on language corpora data

Our two-stage methodology was tested in order to determine the most accurate equivalent for Anglo-Saxon emotion concept (EC) disgust among German ekel, abneigung, abneigung and abscheu. At the first stage, the authors identified the closest in terms of content equivalents to disgust on the basis of the comparison of the German ECs names definitions in explanatory and bilingual dictionaries. It was established that equivalence with disgust, albeit incomplete, is shown only by the nouns Ekel and Abscheu, which are so semantically close to each other that they can be used interchangeably in some contexts. At the second stage, on the basis of a comparative analysis of the most frequent collocates of the concept names disgust, ekel and abscheu in representative corpora of the English and German languages, (a) the relevant content of these concepts was established and (b) a comparison of their semantic structures was made according to the criteria of arousal and valence. A comparison of the semantic structures of disgust, ekel and abscheu revealed that both German concepts show numerous overlaps with disgust. At the same time, abscheu is semantically more similar to disgust than ekel. This indicates that the transfer of disgust to the German language community by means of ekel and abscheu can be quite adequate, since both of these concepts evoke associations in representatives of German-speaking culture similar to those that arise in Anglo-Saxons in connection with disgust.

Investigating Lexical Concept and Semantic Representation of Covid-19 in Coronavirus Corpus: A Corpus-Based Study

This article discusses the lexical and semantic representation through the collocation that appeared in the Coronavirus Corpus. This research investigates the frequent collocates that appeared together with the node word Corona and find out how those collocates construct the meaning through the linguistic system and conceptual system as they are involved in lexical representation. This research offers a new insight into teaching language using Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models (Evans, 2009). The data collected are from the Coronavirus corpus by using the corpus-based method. The strength of the keywords and collocate is measured by using Mutual Information (MI). The MI was set in 5; therefore, three lexemes resulted, i.e., cases, patients, and outbreak. The data were analyzed using the lexical concept and cognitive model proposed by Evans (2009). The research results, in general, reveal that the information is coming from the “authorized institution” and “government’s representative”; it needs “the official approval or agreement” before publishing to the media, and in the passive form, it describes the foregrounded information and agentless informational assertion. Therefore, the information should be accurate and firm. However, another lexical concept reveals that the information is terrorizing and terrifying; the educated and trained person should also conduct the treatment.

Corpus-based cognitive semantics: Extended units of meaning and their implications for Translation Studies

Traditional lexical semantics focuses on the meaning of individual lexemes. Firth (1957) brought our attention to collocations and the fact that meaning is not isolated in the lexeme. In 1996 Sinclair argued for the existence of extended units of meaning which, as the expression indicates, go beyond the lexeme. In recent years Stubbs (2001b), and other corpus linguists have convincingly shown that meaning is a phraseological phenomenon to a high degree. Corpus searches allow us to study lexemes in their immediate context, study their most frequent collocates and thus help us reveal their semantic preferences (Sinclair 1987, 1996) and semantic prosodies (evaluation) (Louw 1993). Some of the findings confirm intuitions, whereas some make us aware of connotations which we have never before consciously known the existence of. In this article, I shall argue for the application of corpus-based cognitive semantics as a tool for researchers within translation studies (TS) who are particularly interested in revealing evaluative aspects of the units of meaning of source texts and their translations. What may formerly have been described as something intangible like an ‘atmosphere’, now becomes tangible because of the patterns emerging from large numbers of examples. I shall provide empirical examples in various langua ges of such evaluative patterns which are of course not automatically generated but come about as the result of computer-generated concordance lines and thorough manual analysis.

The influence of Prior Knowledge on Learning Scientific Terminology: A Corpus-based Cognitive Linguistic Study of acceleration in Arabic and English

The current paper expands on previous work done on the influence of learners’ language and pre-existing knowledge on understanding physics terminology by exploring the concept of ACCELERATION in Arabic and English. The study attempts to answer two questions: (1) what are the similarities and differences between the polysemy of Arabic تسارع (tasāruʿ) (acceleration) and the polysemy of English acceleration, and (2) to what extent do prototypes and factors motivating the conceptualization of تسارع (tasāruʿ) and the conceptualization of acceleration converge or diverge? To this end, Arabic and English dictionaries and corpora, the ArabiCorpus (Arabic Corpus Search Tool) and the British National Corpus (BNC), were employed. The dictionaries were surveyed to explore the various meanings of تسارع (tasāruʿ) and acceleration, while the ArabiCorpus and the BNC were employed to investigate the senses and to identify the most frequent collocates and so the prototypes of these terms. The meaning extension of the terms is examined on the basis of the cognitive mechanisms which appear in the corpora. Theoretically, the paper is informed by the prototype theory (Rosch, 1973; 1975), image schemas (Johnson, 1987), and conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003). The results show that تسارع (tasāruʿ) (acceleration) and acceleration generally overlap in terms of polysemy, prototype, and images schemas as well as conceptual metaphor that organize the conceptualization of these terms. It was also found that both Arab and English speakers mix ACCELERATION up with SPEED and so misunderstand them in a scientific setting. The present findings have several implications for science curriculum design, education, and research on universal and culture-specific properties of language.

The use of the Korean first person possessive pronoun nay vis-à-vis wuli

Abstract This paper takes a corpus-driven approach to the Korean first person possessive pronoun nay with reference to its plural counterpart wuli. The examination of the frequent noun collocates of the two pronouns in Sejong Corpus reveals the close connection between nay and inalienable entities as well as persons lower than the speaker. Meanwhile, wuli is strongly coupled with places or organizations alongside persons higher than the speaker. Pragmatic principles account for the difference between the kinship term collocates of the two pronouns, such as Horn’s (1984; 1989) R-principle or Levinson’s (2000) M-principle. The non-prototypical singular use of wuli triggers a pragmatic effect of expressing, for example, affection. The frequent collocation of nay with foreign/loan nouns is a reflection of the tendency that people more interested in social mobility (younger generation and women) are more ready to employ nay rather than the singular wuli and to accept foreign/loan words. The meaning of nay emerging from its interaction with noun collocates is that it is closely connected with being inalienable, private, or unshared. Meanwhile, the singular meaning of wuli is pragmatically derived, which is construed as being grouped, deferent, or general.

The Motivations for the Semantic Change in the Category Green in Arabic: A Synchronic and Diachronic Corpus-Based Analysis

The present article analyses the semantic structure of the colour term (green) in Arabic to establish whether it has undergone a change in terms of meanings and prototypes and to identify the motivating factors for its semantic change. The current study compares and contrasts the polysemy of (green) in premodern texts and modern texts. To explore the meanings of the word and to identify its most frequent collocates and thus most prototypical meanings, the study employs the ArabiCorpus (Arabic Corpus Search Tool). The data collected on the term are analysed in accordance with Rosch’s [1] [2] prototype theory, and Lakoff and Johnson’s [3] conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor. The results show that scores highly in its average occurrence in both premodern texts and modern texts and maintains its favourable meaning despite the variance in its prototypical meanings across the selected subcorpora. Its semantic expansion is motivated by conceptual metonymy, conceptual metaphor and loan translation respectively.

A Corpus-based Study of Bubble Metaphor in the American Real Estate Market

The study aims to find whether the concept of metaphorical “BUBBLE” can assist us in understanding thephenomena of US housing bubble appearing from 2001 to 2007. With the node of “housing bubble”, the researcherssearch the collocates of it and dig into the context of highly frequent collocates. The study finds: 1)the collocates of“housing bubble”, mainly categorized in “v+N”, “n/adj+N” and “N+v”, reflect the 5 stages of housing bubbledevelopment and the context explains the cause and effect of housing bubble in every stage; 2)the maincorrespondences of BUBBLE metaphor have been concluded in the real estate market; 3)the combination of bubblemetaphor and orientation metaphor can explain the demand and supply curve of real estate. As a result, it can assistbusiness English teachers in teaching the supply and demand curve of the housing bubble.

Joselito and Calentito: diminutive enigmas

Two exceptional diminutives exist that have received little attention in the relevant literature. Joselito is unusual because it takes the suffix - lito , which may come from the /l/ in Jose Luis since the two are the most frequent collocates. The early appearance of Joselito , along with the fact that most of the other words that take - lito were later borrowings into Spanish, suggests that Joselito was the first diminutive of its kind. It then served as an analog for the diminutives of subsequent borrowings that ended in stressed vowels (e.g. cafelito , bebelito ). The diminutive variant - tito (e.g. cafetito , sofatito ) is also discussed. Calentito stands out because it does not retain the diphthong of its base, caliente , as most diminutives do. Historically, diminutives did not have diphthongs prior to the 15th century when they adopted them. In the early 20th century grammarians both prescribed and dispreferred monophthongal diminutives, but in usage most monophthongal forms were eliminated with calentito emerging as the most common exception. However, contemporary corpus data attest the sporadic existence of other diminutives without diphthongs such as merendita and celito .

Analysing aggression of social actors in political protests: combining corpus and cognitive approaches to discourse analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the newspaper representations of the aggressive behaviour of social actors in political protests and explore the benefits of integrating corpus linguistics and cognitive approaches to a critical discourse analysis in analysing press reports.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses methods from corpus linguistics and theoretical constructs from cognitive linguistics to examine patterns of representation around Occupy Central, a recent political protest in Hong Kong, in two corpora of English-language newspaper articles published in China Daily and the South China Morning Post (SCMP).FindingsAn analysis of the ten most frequent collocates of the word police showed that the China Daily corpus articles typically index the presentation of police as vulnerable yet professional in their handling of violent protesters, whereas in SCMP, police officers are often presented as aggressors. The analysis subsequently considered three discursive strategies, namely structural configuration, framing and identification that are mediated through conceptualisations that representations in text evoke.Research limitations/implicationsIn the proposed integrated approach, quantitative investigations of corpus examples could be focussed and contextualised in such a way that particular linguistic instantiations in discourse which are proved statistically salient can be further analysed in relation to conceptual phenomena which serve specific ideological purposes.Originality/valueHopefully, the study could serve as the first ever attempt to adopt an integrative analytical framework in the study of aggression and conflict in news discourse.

The academic writing of university english learners: a corpus-based study

This article discusses and analyzes the frequency and use of high - frequency verbs in argumentative essays written by Brazilian English learners of Federal University of Minas Gerais. We used Corpus Linguistic (CL) tools to analyze the grammar patterns found on data of texts produced by the learners enrolled in English for Academic Purposes subject (Inglês para Fins Acadêmicos- IFA). We listed the ten most frequent verbs and we decided to analyze the use of make and get and outline their fifteen most frequent collocates. The results showed that there are some difficulties on the appropriate use of these verbs, especially when it turns to collocations, as well as there is a tendency of patterns use interference of their native language.

On the Representation of Korea through the Collocates of Korea and Korean in COHA

This paper aims to explore the way the representation of Korea is constructed and further changed over time in the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). The methods include examining the top collocates of the words Korea and Korean in COHA. The analysis results show that Korea is strongly associated with a traumatic war for which the U.S. armies fought hard, as well as the division of the territory and an ideological conflict, whose identity is frequently constructed in the context of other Asian nations. The comparison of the frequent collocates of Korea/Korean with different appearances in the two time periods (1960s and 2000s) reveals the change of the representation of Korea. The image of Korea emerging from the first time period is of a country which just survived a tragic war and was trying to gain independence. In the second time period, however, much more attention is paid to North Korea, which is depicted to be a threat to the world, together with the so-called “axis-of-evil” states. In contrast, South Korea is perceived positively in terms of economy or education. The Korean peninsula proves to be a venue where the nations are grouped according to their relationships with the U.S.

ON ENGLISH IT FIELD BORROWINGS IN MODERN RUSSIAN

Language is a reflection of society, which is developing with alterations in political, economic, and social spheres. As a result, some words lose their importance and fade into obscurity, whereas others come into existence. Despite the fact that the occurrence of borrowings is a global phenomenon, some spheres are more prone to accept foreign words, the dynamic IT field among them. As the USA have been leaders in the technical sphere for many years, the majority of the words describing IT concepts are of the American origin. Having entered the receiving language, some loan words may alter the meaning in order to avoid lexical competition and survive. To establish whether any semantic changes occurred, borrowings and their native counterparts have to be analyzed according to dictionary definitions as well as their contexts. Thus the aim of the present research was to analyze the issues of synonymy as well as the usage and meaning differences of English borrowings (nouns) of the IT field in the Russian language and their native counterparts. In order to perform the analysis, quantitative as well as qualitative research methods were applied. The quantitative method, particularly a corpus-based research, was employed while checking frequency and collecting the most frequent collocates of the loan words. The analysis of raw frequencies in the Russian National Corpus revealed that 21 loan words are widespread, whereas 25 of them are occasional. The majority of the loan words were found to be semantically narrowed. The analysis revealed that not a single one is in lexical competition with native Russian lexemes, since all of them are results of lexical addition rather than replacement. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-2027.8.4

DISTRIBUTIONAL HYPOTHESIS: WORDS FOR ‘HUMAN BEING’ AND THEIR ESTONIAN COLLOCATES

1. Introduction The famous sentence by the British linguist John Rupert Firth, You shall know a word by the company it keeps! draws attention to the fact that the combination of words in phrases and sentences is never random or based on purely syntactic rules; instead, there are special relations between the words, while their way of co-occurrence reveals important information about those relations. The idea was found enlightening by Zellig Harris, also called the last American structuralist, who based his semantic classification on word distribution, arguing that words occurring in similar contexts have a similar meaning: If we consider words or morphemes A and B to be more different in meaning than A and C, then we will often find that the distributions of A and B are more different than the distributions of A and C (Harris 1954:156). The distribution of an item is understood as a sum of its whole context. This general definition by Harris leaves open what is meant by context and what exactly is the meaning supposed to be reflected by that context. In Harris's own publications, context may mean either phonetic or lexical context, or even the whole text. In terms of the present study, context is understood as left collocations, to be more precise, the three words positioned to the left of the node word. For comparison, some right collocations from an interval of similar length (3 words) have also been presented. Our analysis deals with the 10 most frequent Estonian words for 'human being' and their 30 most frequent collocates. The words are inimene 'human', mees 'man', naine 'woman', laps 'child', tudruk 'girl' , poiss 'boy' , tutar 'daughter', poeg 'son', ema 'mother', and isa 'father'. The aspect of frequency is especially relevant in the discovery of collocational relations. The least frequent of the above words was tutar with only 612 occurrences. Thus, the list of node words was closed at ten, as less frequent nodes would have meant too much random material among the 30 collocates planned to be presented for each node word. Intuitively, the above ten words should belong to the basic words for 'human being'. True, their psychological salience has not been investigated, but their linguistic salience is reflected in their position in the list of the 130 most frequent Estonian nouns (Kaalep and Muischnek 2002), which is a strong argument for their possible basic word status (for the definition of 'basic word' see Sutrop 2000, Sutrop 2011). As for meaning, Harris has not given a precise definition of that either. The present study is based on the idea that meaning consists of some smaller aspects or components (for componential analysis see Fodor and Katz 1963, Nida 1975). A component (for example, 'human being') binds all the relevant words into one semantic field. Thus, according to the distributional hypothesis, all words for 'human being' must naturally share a lot of context. However, relations within the semantic field are also of interest. Notably, the words for 'human being' are distinguished by such features as MALE, ADULT, KINSHIP/PARTNERSHIP, GENERATION OLDER THAN SELF and GENERATION YOUNGER THAN SELF. The research question is: Are the values given to those components, i.e. the semantic aspects of words, also manifested in the collocations of those words? Semantic relations bind word meanings into semantic networks. Ever since Saussure, word semantic relations have been divided into syntagmatic and paradigmatic ones. The former occur between words appearing simultaneously in the same syntagm. For example, in the phrase 'young man' the words 'young' and 'man' are related syntagmatically. Paradigmatic relations, however, occur between words that are mutually substitutable in the syntagm. In the above syntagm, for example, the word 'young' stands in a paradigmatic relationship with the words 'old', 'tall', etc. (Lyons 1977:240-241). Note that Saussure called the paradigmatic relation associative, arguing that this is a relationship between the words associated in memory (Saussure 2000:121). …

On inference theories and code theories: Corpus evidence for semantic schemas

This article illustrates a method of studying the evaluative connotations of words and phrases, by studying their most frequent collocates in large corpora. The semantic schemas which can be identified in this way are clusters of preferred lexis and syntax, which often have conventional pragmatic connotations. Examples of individual schemas are given. A broader research project is then proposed to study the connotations of words and phrases in a significant area of social meaning: the many category terms in English for talking about groups of people in terms of the human life cycle (e.g., infant, baby, child, adolescent, teenager, youth, adult, senior citizen). Such analyses contribute to the long-standing debate between ‘inference theories’ and ‘code theories’ of language comprehension, and suggest that more is conventionally encoded in language structure than has often been suggested in recent work. In addition, they explore a central issue of corpus semantics: the relation between stability and variation in textual units.