International Journal of Corpus Linguistics - Volume 23, Issue 2, 2018

Abstract

This paper presents a study that sought to identify the dimensions of variation underlying a corpus of Internet texts, using Biber’s (1988) multi-dimensional (MD) analysis framework. The corpus was compiled following the method proposed by Biber (1993), according to which the size of each register subcorpus should be determined based on the linguistic variation across the texts. The corpus was tagged using the Biber Tagger and the features were counted and submitted to a factor analysis, which suggested three factors. The factors were interpreted as three dimensions of variation: involved, interactive discourse versus informational focus; expression of stance: interactional evidentiality; and expression of stance: interactional affect. The amount of register variation captured by the register distinctions on the dimensions ranged from 8.7% to 57.1%. Dimension 1 corroborate the oral/involved versus literate/informational distinction defined in previous MD studies of non-Internet registers, whereas Dimensions 2 and 3 highlight the important role played by stance in social media.

Abstract

O’Donnell et al. (2013) considered four measures of formulaicity and reported that they produced different results concerning the effects of expertise and first/second language status on formulaic sequence usage in academic writing. The current study explores several additional methodological issues using the same dataset from O’Donnell et al. (2013). We first motivate the need for criterial consistency and investigate whether frequency- and association-based measures yield different results when they are both obtained using corpus-internal criteria. The informativeness of the diversity dimension of formulaic sequence use is then gauged by comparing the results of phrase-frame type-token ratio against those of other measures. Finally, we profile formulaic sequence distribution across quartiles of different measures to assess the effect of variable measure thresholds. Our findings highlight the criticality of issues of criterial consistency, formulaic sequence diversity, and threshold variation in formulaic language research.

Abstract

This paper formulates and evaluates a series of multi-unit measures of directional association, building on the pairwise ΔP measure, that are able to quantify association in sequences of varying length and type of representation. Multi-unit measures face an additional segmentation problem: once the implicit length constraint of pairwise measures is abandoned, association measures must also identify the borders of meaningful sequences. This paper takes a vector-based approach to the segmentation problem by using 18 unique measures to describe different aspects of multi-unit association. An examination of these measures across eight languages shows that they are stable across languages and that each provides a unique rank of associated sequences. Taken together, these measures expand corpus-based approaches to association by generalizing across varying lengths and types of representation.

Abstract

The use of collocations plays an important role for the proficiency of ESL/EFL learners. Hence, educators and researchers have long tried to identify collocations typical of either academic or general English and the challenges involved in learning them. This paper proposes a comprehensive and type-balanced academic English collocation list (AECL). AECL is based on a large corpus of academic English and was created to cover the types of collocations that will be most useful to ESL/EFL learners. AECL is the result of an innovative research-based procedure that involves a five-step selection method. A comparison of the collocations on AECL with those found in well-known collocation dictionaries of general English and on three existing academic English collocation lists indicates that AECL indeed contains mainly academic rather than general English collocations. In addition, AECL is more comprehensive with regard to the types of collocations that are relevant to learners.

This article reviews Practical Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction to Corpus-based Language Analysis

This article reviews Regional Variation in Written American English