scholarly journals Rivalry or alliance?: the relationship between hyperbole and literal language

2013 ◽  
pp. 285
Author(s):  
Laura Cano Mora
Keyword(s):  
Figurative Language ◽  
Common Pattern ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Literal Expression ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Figurative Expressions

This paper focuses on the relationship between neighbouring literal and figurative expressions, a much under-researched area in figurative language theories. Traditionally it has been assumed that language is used figuratively when a literal expression would be inadequate, thus supporting the view that figurative and literal language replace or substitute each other. In order to question this view and to explore this relationship, a group of hyperbolic adverbs extracted from the British National Corpus and used in naturally-occurring speech was examined. The results show that hyperbole and literal comments seem to extend and complement, rather than replace, each other. This complementation is often achieved through paraphrase or clarification of a preceding remark, whether literal or exaggerated. The analysis also seems to suggest that if speakers need to add some information the most common pattern is a hyperbole followed, rather than preceded, by a literal expression.El presente artículo se centra en el estudio de la relación entre expresiones literales y figuradas adyacentes, cuestión rara vez investigada en las teorías del lenguaje figurado. Tradicionalmente se ha creído que los hablantes utilizamos las figuras cuando el lenguaje literal resulta inadecuado, reafirmando así la idea de que el lenguaje literal y figurado se sustituyen el uno al otro. Con el fin de cuestionar esta visión y explorar dicha relación examinamos un grupo de adverbios hiperbólicos usados en conversaciones reales extraídas del British National Corpus. Los resultados indican que la hipérbole y el uso literal del lenguaje parecen complementarse en lugar de reemplazarse. Con frecuencia dicha complementariedad se consigue a través de la paráfrasis o clarificación de un comentario previo, ya sea literal o exagerado. El análisis a su vez parece sugerir que cuando el hablante siente la necesidad de añadir información el patrón más común es una hipérbole seguida, en lugar de precedida, de una expresión literal.

scholarly journals Inclusion, Contrast and Polysemy in Dictionaries: The Relationship between Theory, Language Use and Lexicographic Practice

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-340
Author(s):  
Anu Koskela
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
National Corpus

This paper explores the lexicographic representation of a type of polysemy that arises when the meaning of one lexical item can either include or contrast with the meaning of another, as in the case of dog/bitch, shoe/boot, finger/thumb and animal/bird. A survey of how such pairs are represented in monolingual English dictionaries showed that dictionaries mostly represent as explicitly polysemous those lexical items whose broader and narrower readings are more distinctive and clearly separable in definitional terms. They commonly only represented the broader readings for terms that are in fact frequently used in the narrower reading, as shown by data from the British National Corpus.  

scholarly journals Degrees of Propositionality in Construals of Time Quantities

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 341-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikołaj Deckert ◽  
Piotr Pęzik
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Matching ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
Temporal Expressions ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

The paper investigates the possible conceptual bases of differences between seemingly synonymous and easily definable temporal expressions. Looking at the usage patterns of nominal temporal phrases in reference corpora of English and Polish we attempt to relate these subtleties to the different granularity of the cognitive scales on which construals of time quantities in general are based. More specifically, we focus on a subset of nominal temporal expressions which adhere to the “number + time unit” pattern, matching what Haspelmath (1997: 26) describes as “culture-bound artificial time units”. Using the British National Corpus (BNC) and the National Corpus of Polish (NCP), we first analyse both the variation and the regularity found in naturally-occurring samples of Polish and English. Finally, we compare the patterns of use emerging from the two corpora and arrive at cross-linguistic generalisations about the conceptualisation of time quantities.

scholarly journals Adverbs In Expressions of Disagreement: a Corpus Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-175
Author(s):  
Rika Mutiara
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Language Functions ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
National Corpus

This study examined the occurrences of expressions of disagreement in the textbook and corpora namely Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and British National Corpus (BNC). Besides, this study scrutinized the concordance lines in which disagreement occur to obtain other language functions that were usually used together in expressions of disagreement. It also studied the used of adverbs in expressions of disagreement. They were categorized based on semantic categories develop by Biber, et al. (1999). Some expressions of disagreement given in the textbook were not found in BNC. The findings from the corpora showed that the speakers tend to give opinions and reasons in stating disagreement. They, moreover, showed direct respect to the interlocutors in order to manage the relationship. These language functions were not found in the expressions of disagreement in the textbook. The adverbs that belonged to the categories of degree and stance were more salient than any other categories. The adverbs intensified the level of disagreement and represent speakers’ certainty. Furthermore, the adverbs indicate speakers’ attitude toward the issues of disagreement. It seemed that adverbs played a role in stating disagreement. However, no expressions of disagreement in the textbook contained adverbs.---Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengecek kemunculan ungkapan yang digunakan untuk menyatakan tidak setuju di buku teks dan korpus. Korpus tersebut adalah Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) dan British National Corpus (BNC). Selain itu, penelitian ini mengkaji ungkapan lain yang biasanya muncul ketika menyatakan tidak setuju dengan menganalisa baris konkordansi. Lebih dalam lagi, penelitian ini menganalisa adverbial yang muncul dalam ungkapan menyatakan tidak setuju. Adverbia dikategorikan berdasarkan klasifikasi yang dikembangkan oleh Biber, dkk (1999). Beberapa ungkapan yang muncul di buku teks tidak ditemukan di BNC. Penutur cenderung memberikan pendapat dan alasan  ketika menyatakan tidak setuju. Mereka juga menunjukan sikap hormat kepada lawan bicaranya untuk menjaga hubungan. Hali seperti ini tidak ditemui di ungkapan menyatakan tidak setuju yang terdapat di buku teks. Adverbia yang berfungsi untuk menunjukan kadar dan kepastian dalam ungkapan tidak setuju merupakan fitur penting. Selain itu, adverbia yang merefleksikan sikap penutur juga menjadi fitur yang menonjol dalam menyatakan tidak setuju. Hal ini menunjukan bahwa adverbia memiliki peranan tersendiri ketika penutur menyatakan tidak setuju. Namun, semua ungkapan menyatakan tidak setuju di buku teks tidak memuat adverbia.DOI : 10.15408/bat.v24i1.7017

“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.

A Corpora-Based Analysis of Rely on and Depend on

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-21
Author(s):  
Namkil Kang
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Information State ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

The ultimate goal of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of rely on and depend on in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus. The COCA clearly shows that the expression rely on government is the most preferred by Americans, followed by rely on people, and rely on data. The COCA further indicates that the expression depend on slate is the most preferred by Americans, followed by depend on government, and depend on people. The BNC shows, on the other hand, that the expression rely on others is the most preferred by the British, followed by rely on people, and rely on friends. The BNC further indicates that depend on factors and depend on others are the most preferred by the British, followed by depend on age, and depend on food. Finally, in the COCA, the nouns government, luck, welfare, people, information, state, fossil, water, family, oil, food, and things are linked to both rely on and depend on, but many nouns are not still linked to both of them. On the other hand, in the BNC, only the nouns state, chance, government, and others are linked to both rely on and depend on, but many nouns are not still linked to both rely on and depend on. It can thus be inferred from this that rely on is slightly different from depend on in its use.

scholarly journals The Usage of CAUSE in Three Branches of Science

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Bei Yang ◽  
Bin Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Pure Science ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Semantic Prosody ◽  
National Corpus

<p>Semantic prosody is a concept that has been subject to considerable criticism and debate. One big concern is to what extent semantic prosody is domain or register-related. Previous studies reach the agreement that CAUSE has an overwhelmingly negative meaning in general English. Its semantic prosody remains controversial in academic writing, however, because of the size and register of the corpus used in different studies. In order to minimize the role that corpus choice has to play in determining the research findings, this paper uses sub-corpora from the British National Corpus to investigate the usage of CAUSE in different types of scientific writing. The results show that the occurrence of CAUSE is the highest in social science, less frequent in applied science, and the lowest in natural and pure science. Its semantic prosody is overwhelmingly negative in social science and applied science, and mainly neutral in natural and pure science. It seems that the verb CAUSE lacks its normal negative semantic prosody in contexts that do not refer to human beings. The implications of the findings for language learning are also discussed.</p>

Social Differentiation in the Use of English Vocabulary

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rayson ◽  
Geoffrey N. Leech ◽  
Mary Hodges
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Geographical Region ◽  
Social Differentiation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Transcription System ◽  
Group A ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

In this article, we undertake selective quantitative analyses of the demographi-cally-sampled spoken English component of the British National Corpus (for brevity, referred to here as the ''Conversational Corpus"). This is a subcorpus of c. 4.5 million words, in which speakers and respondents (see I below) are identified by such factors as gender, age, social group, and geographical region. Using a corpus analysis tool developed at Lancaster, we undertake a comparison of the vocabulary of speakers, highlighting those differences which are marked by a very high X2 value of difference between different sectors of the corpus according to gender, age, and social group. A fourth variable, that of geographical region of the United Kingdom, is not investigated in this article, although it remains a promising subject for future research. (As background we also briefly examine differences between spoken and written material in the British National Corpus [BNC].) This study is illustrative of the potentiality of the Conversational Corpus for future corpus-based research on social differentiation in the use of language. There are evident limitations, including (a) the reliance on vocabulary frequency lists and (b) the simplicity of the transcription system employed for the spoken part of the BNC The conclusion of the article considers future advances in the research paradigm illustrated here.

Creating and using Web corpora

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Thelwall
Keyword(s):  
Search Engine ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Crawler ◽  
Commercial Search Engine ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
The Web ◽  
National Corpus

The Web has recently been used as a corpus for linguistic investigations, often with the help of a commercial search engine. We discuss some potential problems with collecting data from commercial search engine and with using the Web as a corpus. We outline an alternative strategy for data collection, using a personal Web crawler. As a case study, the university Web sites of three nations (Australia, New Zealand and the UK) were crawled. The most frequent words were broadly consistent with non-Web written English, but with some academic-related words amongst the top 50 most frequent. It was also evident that the university Web sites contained a significant amount of non-English text, and academic Web English seems to be more future-oriented than British National Corpus written English.

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