International Journal of Corpus Linguistics - Volume 30, Issue 1, 2025

Abstract

This paper presents a quantitative corpus analysis of three syntactically mobile contrast markers in different registers of French: contrastive adverbs, emphatic pronouns, and emphatic pronouns introduced by quant à “as for”. We show that the preferred syntactic position of the three markers is influenced by their form and discourse function, but that the degree of this influence varies across registers. In informal written and spoken French, form and discourse function have a greater impact on syntactic position than in formal written French, where the standard word order subject + verb + other clause elements is favored, and non-neutral (inter)subjective peripheries are avoided. Hence, our analysis provides evidence for the idea that informal written and spoken French are (becoming) more discourse-configurational.

Abstract

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by recurrent thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions) that are thought to help mitigate obsessions (APA, 2013). One issue that has gained attention in popular discourse is the use of OCD as an adjective (e.g. I’m so OCD), which is said to trivialize the disorder (NAMI, 2015). We collected a corpus of social media comments including the phrase degree adverb + OCD. The corpus was tagged with a semantic tagger (Rayson et al., 2004) to investigate the domains around the phrase. About a quarter of the 1,575 comments used the phrase to critique the popular usage of OCD as an adjective, suggesting that it is frequently negatively evaluated. The remaining genuine uses support the idea that the phrase is often used in non-medical contexts, including to express individual preferences for organization and cleanliness. We argue that this usage is negatively evaluated because it demedicalizes OCD and portrays it with a light-hearted tone.

Abstract

Grammatical complexity has traditionally been associated with the structural elaboration of texts, and, more recently, with the functionally-motivated use of syntactic patterns exhibiting internal variability along the written-to-spoken register continuum (Biber et al., 2022). Adopting a register-functional approach, the present corpus-based study investigates grammatical complexity in Anglophone film dialogue, focusing on the occurrence of finite and non-finite dependent clauses. Grammatical complexity in film language is assessed in relation to situational characteristics of onscreen dialogue and compared to previous findings on grammatical complexity in spontaneous conversation, with the overarching aim of contributing to corpus-based descriptions of language input relevant for second language acquisition. Results point to a functionally-driven distribution of clausal patterns, balancing narration, realism, emotionality, and economy of expression in the portrayed dialogue. They also show that while film language closely approximates the complexity of spontaneous spoken language, it exhibits distinctive features linked to register-specific communicative functions and medium-related constraints.

Abstract

Most existing research on adverb placement has focused exclusively on writing. This is unfortunate, given that the spoken mode offers limited opportunity for pre-planning and post-editing and may thus more readily reveal patterns of L1 transfer. Further, previous studies rarely consider the impact of the linguistic context surrounding the adverb. This study broadens our understanding of (i) the potential role of L1 transfer, and (ii) the extralinguistic and linguistic factors that influence adverb placement. We look at spoken English produced by students from seven L1 backgrounds: Dutch, English, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. The results show that the most influential factors in explaining differences in adverb placement were the presence or absence of auxiliaries and the type of adverb. We find only very limited evidence of L1 transfer, suggesting that upper-intermediate to advanced learners have largely mastered the positional preferences of adverbs in English, even in restrictive production contexts.

This article reviews English corpus linguistics: An introduction

This article reviews Mapping texts: Computational text analysis for the social sciences