Variation between modal adverbs in British English

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-412
Author(s):  
Daisuke Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
British English ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Subjective Context ◽  
National Corpus

Abstract This study investigates the use and distribution of the synonymous adverbs maybe and perhaps in order to determine their functional similarities and differences. After extracting usage data from the British National Corpus (BNC), this study explores the following factors by analyzing the target adverbs in a larger context: (i) the kind of register, (ii) the kind of NP chosen as the subject in maybe/perhaps clauses, (iii) the kind of modal verb used in the same clause, and (iv) the position occupied by the target adverbs in a clause. The corpus analysis demonstrates that maybe is more prone to subjective use while perhaps is a more strongly grammaticalized item, and that the factors related to a highly subjective context contribute much to the variation between the adverbs. In addition, I suggest that both maybe and perhaps (in combination with modal verbs or in final position) can be used in an intersubjective context.

“That’s well good”: A Re-emergent Intensifier in Current British English

2020 ◽  
pp. 007542422097914
Author(s):  
Karin Aijmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
British English ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Time Gap ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Semantic Types ◽  
Over Time ◽  
National Corpus

Well has a long history and is found as an intensifier already in older English. It is argued that diachronically well has developed from its etymological meaning (‘in a good way’) on a cline of adverbialization to an intensifier and to a discourse marker. Well is replaced by other intensifiers in the fourteenth century but emerges in new uses in Present-Day English. The changes in frequency and use of the new intensifier are explored on the basis of a twenty-year time gap between the old British National Corpus (1994) and the new Spoken British National Corpus (2014). The results show that well increases in frequency over time and that it spreads to new semantic types of adjectives and participles, and is found above all in predicative structures with a copula. The emergence of a new well and its increase in frequency are also related to social factors such as the age, gender, and social class of the speakers, and the informal character of the conversation.

scholarly journals THE USE OF MODAL VERBS IN ENGLISH LEGAL TEXTS AND THEIR SERBIAN EQUIVALENTS

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 73-96
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Erić-Bukarica
Keyword(s):  
Target Language ◽  
Occurrence Rate ◽  
Frequency Of Occurrence ◽  
Source Text ◽  
English Version ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
Similarities And Differences

The aim of this paper is to examine and describe similarities and differences in the use and distribution of modal verbs by contrasting English and Serbian legal texts. The corpus consists of an English version of The Convention on the Rights of the Child and its official Serbian translation. We started from an assumption that modal verbs are more frequent in legal texts in English than in Serbian, where we expected to find examples of lexical items with modal meanings instead. In addition, we assumed that due to its specific use in legal texts of this kind, the English modal ‘shall’ will show the highest frequency of occurrence. A total of one hundred and twenty six (126) modal verbs and a semi-modal ‘need not’ were found in the source text. The results of the analysis support the initial presumption that ‘shall’ will stand out as the most frequent of all modal verbs (60% of all occurrences). Despite the high occurrence rate of the legalistic ‘shall’ in the source text, translation solutions in the target language only rarely take the form of the modal verb. Most often deontic notions of imperative directness and necessity in Serbian legislative writings are expressed by means of the present indicative. The analysis also indicates that translation solutions for the remaining English modal verbs most often take the form of a modal verb or a modal lexeme with a corresponding meaning in Serbian.

scholarly journals LOVE in English and Polish

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Brożyna Reczko
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Method ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Abstract Concept ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

LOVE in English and PolishThe paper presents a sample contrastive analysis of the linguistic picture of love in English and Polish. The material used in the survey is drawn from lexicographic data, including the British National Corpus and Narodowy Korpus Języka Polskiego [National Corpus of Polish]. The paper focuses on the similarities and differences in conceptualizing the abstract concept of love in the English and Polish languages. An analytical method, developed by Bartmiński and associates, serves as the theoretical basis for the reconstruction of the linguistic picture of the world. MIŁOŚĆ w języku angielskim i polskimNiniejszy artykuł to próba kontrastywnego porównania językowego obrazu świata MIŁOŚCI w języku angielskim i polskim. Materiał badawczy pochodzi głównie ze źródeł leksykograficznych: słowników oraz korpusów (Narodowego Korpusu Języka Polskiego oraz z korpusu języka angielskiego British National Corpus). Celem badania było poszukiwanie podobieństw i różnic w konceptualizacji MIŁOŚCI w tych dwóch językach. Metoda badawcza została zaczerpnięta z prac J. Bartmińskiego i dotyczy rekonstrukcji językowego obrazu świata różnych pojęć.

scholarly journals What may words say, or what may words not say. A corpus-based approach to linguistic action

2005 ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Monserrat Martínez Vázquez
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Approach ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Reliable Information ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Communicative Process ◽  
Linguistic Action ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
The Way

In this paper I present an empirical approach to the analysis of the way English speakers conceptualize the communicative process in English. Most linguistic expressions about language in English are surface manifestations of what Reddy termed the "conduit metaphor". Reddy's model implies several interrelated cognitive associations: words are conceived as containers in which speakers introduce their ideas and send them to listeners, who will take these ideas out of these containers. Central to this model is the metaphor words are containers. It has also been claimed that there are other ways of perspectivizing the language process apart from the notion of containment (Vanparys 1995). In fact, Reddy himself notes that there is approximately a 30% of metalanguage not based on the conduit metaphor. The pervasiveness of the container metaphor would reasonably be most directly tested in expressions with the lexeme word. In order to measure what falls inside and outside these containers I carry out a corpus analysis of the lexeme word excerpted from the British National Corpus (BNC). The systematic evidence obtained from a large but delimited corpus gives us more reliable information about the frequency and use of this metaphor than an intuition based analysis or an arbitrary search in multi-source corpora.

scholarly journals Detecting innovations in a parsed corpus of learner English

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerold Schneider ◽  
Gaëtanelle Gilquin
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Phrasal Verbs ◽  
Scale Method ◽  
T Score ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Qualitative Analyses ◽  
National Corpus

In research on L2 English, recent corpus-based studies indicate that some non-standard forms are shared by indigenized (ESL) and foreign (EFL) varieties of English, which challenges the idea of a clear dichotomy between innovation and error. We present a data-driven large-scale method to detect innovations, test it on verb + preposition structures (including phrasal verbs) and adjective + preposition structures, and describe similarities and differences between EFL and ESL. We use a dependency-parsed version of the International Corpus of Learner English to automatically extract potential innovations, defined as patterns of overuse compared to the British National Corpus as reference corpus. We measure overuse by means of collocation measures like O/E or T-score, and compare our results with similar results for ESL. In both quantitative and qualitative analyses, we detect similarities between the two varieties (e.g. discuss about) and dissimilarities (e.g. accuse for, only distinctive for EFL). We report more verb/adjective + preposition combinations than previous studies and discuss the roles of analogy and transfer.

scholarly journals A diachronic corpus-based study into the effects of age and gender on the usage patterns of verb-forming suffixation in spoken British English

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Laws ◽  
Chris Ryder ◽  
Sylvia Jaworska
Keyword(s):  
Age And Gender ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
British English ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Age Range ◽  
National Corpus

Abstract The aim of this paper is to ascertain the degree to which lexical diversity, density and creativity in everyday spoken British English have changed over a 20-year period, as a function of age and gender. Usage patterns of four verb-forming suffixes, -ate, -en, -ify and -ize, were compared in contemporary speech from the Spoken British National Corpus 2014 Sample (Spoken BNC2014S) with its 20-year old counterpart, the BNC1994’s demographically-sampled component (the Spoken BNC1994DS). Frequency comparisons revealed that verb suffixation is denser in the Spoken BNC2014S than in the Spoken BNC1994DS, with the exception of the -en suffix, the use of which has decreased, particularly among female and younger speakers in general. Male speakers and speakers in the 35–59 age range showed the greatest type diversity; there is evidence that this peak is occurring earlier in the more recent corpus. Contrary to expectations, female rather than male speakers produced the largest number of neologisms and rare forms.

scholarly journals Material Critique for Touchstone 3rd Edition: on corpus analysis and spoken grammar

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Entusiastik -
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

This paper analysed the use of corpus and spoken language features in the English Language Teaching (ELT) coursebook “Touchstone”. The corpus analysis was carried out by using the British National Corpus (BNC) which was chosen for its easy and free access. In doing the spoken language analysis, I refer to McCarthy and Carter’s (2015, p.5) argument which take the grammar of conversation as ‘the benchmark for a grammar of speaking’ by considering features such as ellipsis, heads and teailsm lexical bundles, and vagueness. The analysis indicated that the language used in this coursebook signified a certain level of authentic and natural language, although areas of improvement were also found.

scholarly journals Swearing in informal spoken English: 1990s–2010s

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robbie Love
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
British English ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Distribution ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

Abstract This paper investigates changes in swearing usage in informal speech using large-scale corpus data, comparing the occurrence and social distribution of swear words in two corpora of informal spoken British English: the demographically-sampled part of the Spoken British National Corpus 1994 (BNC1994) and the Spoken British National Corpus 2014 (BNC2014); the compilation of the latter has facilitated large-scale, diachronic analyses of authentic spoken data on a scale which has, until now, not been possible. A form and frequency analysis of a set of 16 ‘pure’ swear word lemma forms is presented. The findings reveal that swearing occurrence is significantly lower in the Spoken BNC2014 but still within a comparable range to previous studies. Furthermore, FUCK is found to overtake BLOODY as the most popular swear word lemma. Finally, the social distribution of swearing across gender and age groups generally supports the findings of previous research: males still swear more than females, and swearing still peaks in the twenties and declines thereafter. However, the distribution of swearing according to socio-economic status is found to be more complex than expected in the 2010s and requires further investigation. This paper also reflects on some of the methodological challenges associated with making comparisons between the two corpora.

scholarly journals A Corpus-based Study of the Use of Pause Fillers Among British English Speakers

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
pp. 09-16
Author(s):  
Dr. Hamad Abdullah H Aldawsari
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
British English ◽  
Gender Influence ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
And Gender ◽  
National Corpus

Many people use pause fillers such as um, erm, and er in order to signal to the other person that they have not finished speaking yet. This paper aims to investigate pause fillers and their relationship with the two sociolinguistic variables of age and gender. The data-driven analysis is based on the British National Corpus (BNC). The results show that the sociolinguistic variables of age and gender influence the use of pause fillers among British English speakers, which is proposed to be linked to the advancement of age and an improved fluency among female speakers.

‘How many taxis there needs to be?’ The sociolinguistic variation of need to in spoken British English

Corpora ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soili Nokkonen
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Sociolinguistic Variation ◽  
British English ◽  
Semantic Variation ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
National Corpus

This paper explores need to, a semi-modal of obligation and necessity, and its semantic variation in connection with the sociolinguistic variables of gender, age and social class in the spoken demographic part of the British National Corpus. The semantic/pragmatic uses of need to include internal, deontic, dynamic and epistemic domains based both on traditional concepts and cross-linguistic studies. The sociolinguistic analysis applies the generalisations by Labov, but pays attention to the interactional styles and the communicative needs of the various social groups as well. The results reveal that need to is undergoing change. It shows monotonic distribution among adults, but it is slightly more common among men than women, and, in terms of social class, the upper middle class takes the lead. The semantic variation corroborates these findings – older speakers stick to the more traditional domains – but also reflects the gendered life stages and discourse styles of the speaker groups.

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