Lexical priming in humorous satirical newspaper headlines

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Skalicky
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
American English ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Lexical Priming ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge ◽  
Do So

Abstract Satire is a type of discourse commonly employed to mock or criticize a satirical target, typically resulting in humor. Current understandings of satire place strong emphasis on the role that background and pragmatic knowledge play during satire recognition. However, there may also be specific linguistic cues that signal a satirical intent. Researchers using corpus linguistic methods, specifically Lexical Priming, have demonstrated that other types of creative language use, such as irony, puns, and verbal jokes, purposefully deviate from expected language patterns (e.g. collocations). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether humorous satirical headlines also subvert typical linguistic patterns using the theory of Lexical Priming. In order to do so, a corpus of newspaper headlines taken from the satirical American newspaper The Onion are analyzed and compared to a generalized corpus of American English. Results of this analysis suggest satirical headlines exploit linguistic expectations through the use of low-frequency collocations and semantic preferences, but also contain higher discourse and genre level deviations that cannot be captured in the surface level linguistic features of the headlines.

scholarly journals How is information content distributed in RA introductions across disciplines? An entropy-based approach

2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83
Author(s):  
Wei Xiao ◽  
Jin Liu ◽  
Li Li
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Information Content ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Based Instruction ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Interest In Research

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in research article (RA thereafter) introductions. Most previous studies focused on the macro structures, rhetorical functions and linguistic realizations of RA introductions, but few intended to investigate the information content distribution from the perspective of information theory. The current study conducted an entropy-based study on the distributional patterns of information content in RA introductions and their variations across disciplines (humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences). Three indices, that is, one-, two-, and three-gram entropies, were used to analyze 120 RA introductions (40 introductions from each disciplinary area). The results reveal that, first, in RA introductions, the information content is unevenly distributed, with the information content of Move 1 being the highest, followed in sequence by Move 3 and Move 2; second, the three entropy indices may reflect different linguistic features of RA introductions; and, third, disciplinary variations of information content were found. In Move 1, the RA introductions of natural sciences are more informative than those of the other two disciplines, and in Move 3 the RA introductions of social sciences are more informative as well. This study has implications for genre-based instruction in the pedagogy of academic writing, as well as the broadening of the applications of quantitative corpus linguistic methods into less touched fields.

Hunting for a linguistic phantom

Terminology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-224
Author(s):  
Anne-Kathrin Schumann
Keyword(s):  
Transfer Of Knowledge ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Conceptual Information ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Multivariate Method ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
German Data ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Shed Light

The importance of semantic descriptions of concepts by means of defining statements is a commonplace tenet of scientific and practical approaches to terminology. While the current understanding of defining statements remains bound to classical concepts of defining, there is limited knowledge about the types of conceptual information that may ease the transfer of knowledge. Furthermore, there is little insight into how defining statements differ epistemologically from non-defining (generic) statements; on the linguistic side, the same can be said about linguistic differences between defining and generic statements. Last but not least, it remains unclear how practical terminology work can benefit from corpus-based research on the description of defining statements. This paper aims to shed light on some of these questions by describing a corpus-linguistic study of knowledge-rich contexts in German and Russian web corpora. Hypotheses about linguistic features of knowledge-rich contexts are derived in a theory-driven manner and researched by means of corpus-linguistic methods. Significant features are then investigated further for the German data, using a multivariate method.

scholarly journals Language use before and after Stonewall: A corpus-based study of gay men’s pre-Stonewall narratives

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heiko Motschenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Western World ◽  
Gay Liberation ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
The 19Th Century

This study presents a contrastive corpus linguistic analysis of language use before and after Stonewall. It uses theoretical insights on normativity from the field of language and sexuality to investigate how the shifting normativities associated with the Stonewall Riots (1969) – widely considered the central event of gay liberation in the Western world – have shaped our conceptualization of sexuality as it surfaces in language use. Drawing on two corpora of gay men’s pre-Stonewall narratives dating from two time periods (before and after Stonewall, called PRE and POST), the analysis combines quantitative (keyword analysis, collocation analysis) and qualitative (concordance analysis) corpus linguistic methods to examine discursive shifts as evident from narrators’ language use. The study identifies the terms homosexual and normal as central contrastive labels in PRE, and gay and straight as corresponding terms in POST. Other discursive shifts detected are from sexual desire/practices to identity (and vice versa), from an individualistic to a community-based conceptualization of sexuality, and from unquestioned heteronormativity and gender binarism to a weakening of such dominant discourses. The findings are discussed in relation to the desire-identity shift, which is traditionally assumed to have taken place at the end of the 19th century, and shed new light on Stonewall as a central event for the development of an identity-based conceptualization of sexuality as we know it today.

The Potential of Corpus-Informed L2 Pedagogy

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathon Reinhardt
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Teaching Materials ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Nature Of Teaching

AbstractCorpus linguistic methods have led to many revelations about the nature of language use and language learning which are otherwise untenable. To date, however, these findings have not had major impact on L2 (second and foreign language) teaching, except in a few areas like L2 for specialized purposes. This may be due to a number of reasons, including issues of theoretical commensurability and the nature of ‘teaching revolutions’. Still, corpus continues to influence SLA researchers, and pedagogical innovators continue to design, implement and evaluate corpus-informed L2 curricula. The future of corpus in L2 pedagogy depends on the extent to which this research and innovation can impact professional L2 instructor education and the design of commercial L2 teaching materials, as well as the continuing development of corpora and corpus-informed resources that are accessible, diverse, and adaptable.

scholarly journals Stereotype in Webkorpora: Strategien zur Suche in sehr großen Datenmengen

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Quasthoff ◽  
Erla Hallsteinsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Text Corpora ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
Image Identity ◽  
Linguistic Methods

Research on stereotypes (as well as on similar constructs such as prejudice, image, identity, etc.) goes back around a century. Most research on stereotypes belongs to the field of psychological, social and cultural studies, with a strong focus on cognitive and socio-cultural phenomena. Since Uta Quasthoff’s pioneering analysis in 1973, there have been several linguistic studies of stereotypes, i. e. on linguistic aspects of how stereotypes are realized in language use. Linguistic research on stereotypes uses methods from disciplines such as sociolinguistics, ethnography, discourse and conversation analysis. Discursive psychology and cognitive linguistics and single studies on stereotypes have used corpus-linguistic methods to explore stereotypes in language use. Nevertheless, we state that no large-scale empirical studies have yet investigated the linguistic realization of stereotypes by using empirical data from large text corpora. In this article, we explore the potential of corpus linguistic approaches in the research on the occurrences of stereotypes in written language. By using an analysis of co-occurrences, we aim to describe the relation between associative semantic stereotypes and co-occurrences in a corpus. Our hypothesis is that the linguistic construction of stereotypes as their realization in language use reproduces stereotypic representations of cognitive conceptualizations and meaning patterns, thus, stereotypic meanings should be detectable in statistical patterns in large corpora.

scholarly journals I will proclaim myself what I am: Corpus stylistics and the language of Shakespeare’s soliloquies

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 338-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The Body ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Strong Emotion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Corpus Stylistics ◽  
Linguistic Methods

This article reports on a corpus stylistic study of the language of soliloquies in Shakespeare’s plays. Literary corpus stylistics can use corpus linguistic methods to test claims made by literary critics and identify hitherto unnoticed features. Existing literary studies of soliloquies tend to define and classify them, to trace the history of the form or to offer literary appreciation; yet they pay surprisingly little attention to the language which characterises soliloquies. By creating a soliloquy corpus and a dialogue corpus from 37 Shakespeare plays, and comparing the former against the latter using WordSmith Tools, I identify key language forms in soliloquies. Using an analytical framework broadly based on Halliday’s ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions of language, I interpret my results and relate them, where possible, to literary critical interpretations. I also compare comedy, history and tragedy soliloquy corpora. My main findings show the following linguistic features to be characteristic of soliloquies in general: words relating to mental states and the body; pragmatic noise; linking adverbials and first-person pronouns. Characteristic forms in comedy, history and tragedy emphasise love, the monarch and the supernatural respectively. The empirical evidence presented here shows that Shakespeare regularly exploited certain language forms in soliloquies to represent expressions of doubt, resolve, introspection and strong emotion, among others. These forms not only add depth to characterisation, aid plot development and provide performance cues for actors, but may also conform to certain audience expectations.

An historical analysis of species references in American English

Corpora ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-349
Author(s):  
Craig Frayne
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
American English ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
Google Books

This study uses the two largest available American English language corpora, Google Books and the Corpus of Historical American English (coha), to investigate relations between ecology and language. The paper introduces ecolinguistics as a promising theme for corpus research. While some previous ecolinguistic research has used corpus approaches, there is a case to be made for quantitative methods that draw on larger datasets. Building on other corpus studies that have made connections between language use and environmental change, this paper investigates whether linguistic references to other species have changed in the past two centuries and, if so, how. The methodology consists of two main parts: an examination of the frequency of common names of species followed by aspect-level sentiment analysis of concordance lines. Results point to both opportunities and challenges associated with applying corpus methods to ecolinguistc research.

Quel corpus pour l’étude du dialecte niçois ?

2021 ◽  
Vol 137 (2) ◽  
pp. 344-361
Author(s):  
Philippe Del Giudice
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Descriptive Grammar ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Social Use ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Made In ◽  
Do So

Abstract A new project has just been launched to write a synchronic, descriptive grammar of Niçois, the Occitan dialect of Nice. In this article, I define the corpus of the research. To do so, I first review written production from the Middle Ages to the present. I then analyze the linguistic features of Niçois over time, in order to determine the precise starting point of the current language state. But because of reinforced normativism and the decreasing social use of Niçois among the educated population, written language after WWII became artificial and does not really correspond to recordings made in the field. The corpus will thus be composed of writings from the 1820’s to WWII and recordings from the last few decades.

Sensitivity to distributional properties of the orthography in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182199892
Author(s):  
Chiara Valeria Marinelli ◽  
Marika Iaia ◽  
Cristina Burani ◽  
Paola Angelelli
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Lexical Knowledge ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Lexical Priming ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Developing Readers ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Italian Children

The study examines statistical learning in the spelling of Italian children with dyslexia and typically developing readers by studying their sensitivity to probabilistic cues in phoneme-grapheme mappings. In the first experiment children spelled to dictation regular words and words with unpredictable spelling that contained either a high- or a low-frequency (i.e., typical or atypical) sound-spelling mappings. Children with dyslexia were found to rely on probabilistic cues in writing stimuli with unpredictable spelling to a greater extent than typically developing children. The difficulties of children with dyslexia on words with unpredictable spelling were limited to those containing atypical mappings. In the second experiment children spelled new stimuli, that is, pseudowords, containing phonological segments with unpredictable mappings. The interaction between lexical knowledge and reliance on probabilistic cues was examined through a lexical priming paradigm in which pseudowords were primed by words containing related typical or atypical sound-to-spelling mappings. In spelling pseudowords, children with dyslexia showed sensitivity to probabilistic cues in the phoneme-to-grapheme mapping but lexical priming effects were also found, although to a smaller extent than in typically developing readers. The results suggest that children with dyslexia have a limited orthographic lexicon but are able to extract regularities from the orthographic system and rely on probabilistic cues in spelling words and pseudowords.

Prescribing French: A corpus-linguistic approach to official terminology in French newspapers

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Gyula Zsombok
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Dynamic Approach ◽  
French Academy ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Approach ◽  
Lexical Fields ◽  
Do So

ABSTRACT In France, English is often perceived as a negative influence on the language in the eyes of purist institutions like the French Academy. Terminological commissions have been established to replace foreign expressions with French terminology that is regularly published in the Journal officiel de la République française. Although the Toubon Law of 1994 prescribes the use of this terminology in government publications, speakers are merely encouraged to do so. This article investigates the variation between English lexical borrowings and their prescribed equivalents in a large newspaper corpus containing articles from 2000 to 2017 in order to see whether formal written language complies with the purist recommendations. Time is treated with a new dynamic approach: the probability of using a prescribed term is estimated three years before and three years after official prescription. Fifty-four target terms are selected from the lexical fields of computer science, entertainment industry and telecommunication, including emblematic prescribed words such as courriel and mot-dièse. The analysis reveals that prescription is only effective when it follows already attested use. Furthermore, conservative newspapers show higher proportions of recommended terminology, especially as compared to newspapers specializing in technology.

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