ENG 626 CORPUS APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE STUDIES interpreting concordance lines Bambang Kaswanti Purwo

[Hunston, Ch. 3] the most basic way of processing corpus information ▪ find and interpret concordance lines » search for ۰ a single word-form (e.g. point) ۰ a lemma (e.g. CONDEMN) ۰ a series of words (e.g. on ADJECTIVE terms with) ۰ a concept that often co-occurs with (e.g. what would co-occurring with expressions of hypotheticality) » sort the lines so that the lines that are like each other in some way appear next to each other [Hunston p. 40] ▪ search for a word (left and right) critical ۰ often follows a form of the verb BE (be or is) ۰ sometimes follows a determiner (a, his, this) ۰ sometimes used in compounds (self-critical) ۰ sometimes follows a grading adverb (highly, more) LEFT

critical is ۰ sometimes followed by of, to, and in RIGHT ۰ a different meaning is associated with each preposition be critical of ‘negative opinion’ be critical to, be critical in ‘important’ meaning ۰ sometimes followed by a noun (critical clue, critical importance, critical juncture) ۰ syntactically can be used attributively or predicatively ۰ when used attributively, critical is likely to mean ‘important’ ۰ of and to the most frequent prepositions to go with ▪ search for a phrase or specific word-classes on ADJ terms with [Hunston, 41] the ADJ can be grouped according to meaning: ۰ familiar, friendly, intimate ‘a degree of closeness’ ۰ good, reasonable, bad ‘whether or not the two groups like each other’ ۰ equal ‘a similarity in status’

What is observable from concordance lines? types of observation ▪ observing the ‘central and typical’ ▪ observing meaning distinctions ▪ observing meaning and pattern ▪ observing detail central vs. typical: distinction between ▪ can and cannot be used in a particular language ▪ frequently possible and rarely occurs in practice corpora cannot ▪ offer “negative evidence” (what is impossible in a language) ▪ determine what is possible no demarcation between “correct” and “incorrect” e.g. I’m just sort of showing you perhaps some dishes which are more healthier than others a corpus offers info that a NS cannot replicate: an indication of ‘central and typical’ usage

TYPICAL to describe the most frequent meanings or collocates or phraseology of an individual word or phrase see ten randomly selected concordance lines for recipe for (p. 43) ▪ the typical meaning of recipe for: metaphoric, not literal (only line 10 is an exception to this) ▪ the nouns following for are slightly more frequently negative (damage 1, failure 4, slump 5, chaos 6, disaster 8) than they are positive (surprise 2, success 3 n 9) or neutral (government 7) ▪ when metaphoric, most frequently follows BE n a (lines 1, 3, 4, 6, 8) most exceptions to this (lines 2, 7, 9) are positive or neutral [although recipe for has a range of meanings, collocates, and grammatical co-texts] its typical use is in the sequence ‘something is a recipe for something bad’ a typical example would be line 1: not show all the ways that the phrase can be used, but it combines all the most frequent features

speakers of a language may have intuition about typicality, not always accord with evidence of frequency cf. “prototypical” (Barlow 1996, Shortall 1999): usage commonly felt to be typical but not necessarily most frequent English teaching course books tend to present usage which is prototypical but not typical in the sense of “most frequently occurring” e.g. on “comparatives” prototypical: The USSR is larger than China (Hsia et al. 1989:178) [a sample of 100 lines of larger from the Bank of English] ۰ only 17 included than ۰ in most lines larger is followed by a noun: a much larger plan, their larger but poorer northern neighbours [comparison is implicit]

[reflexive pronouns as herself] coursebook writers present these pronouns contrastively be proud of oneself vs. be proud of one’s child students were asked to produce: I saw myself in the mirror. He hit himself with the hammer. We dried ourselves with the towel. Barlow (1996) notes reflexives have phraseologies quite distinct from those associated with other pronouns ۰ the most frequently used verb is FIND found myself by the sea very different meaning from found him by the sea ۰ the other verbs to co-occur with reflexives most frequently are those indicating thoughts and speech: SEE, IMAGINE, VISUALISE, CONSIDER, ASK (Barlow 1996:9), rather than the verbs of physical action (he hit himself, etc.)

observing meaning distinction many words have meaning that are similar, yet not substitutable one for the other [of little help] dictionaries deal with the words separately, rather than comparatively  observing typical usages of near-synonyms can clarify differences in meaning Partington’s (1998:33-46) study: “semi-grammatical” words words which by themselves carry only a general meaning intensifying ADJs: sheer, pure, complete, utter, absolute (dictionaries tend to define these words in similar ways) ▪ sheer [+ nouns of degree or magnitude] sheer weight, sheer number ▪ in the pattern the sheer N of N: the sheer scale of the shelling ▪ the other ADJs do not collocate with these nouns

observing meaning and pattern the meaning of a word is closely associated with its co-text although ambiguity is possible, for the most part the meanings of words are distinguished by the patterns or phraseologies in which they typically occur initiative [n]: three distinct meanings [Hunston p. 46] 1. [a count noun] ‘something that someone (usually a government agency or other institution) starts to try to solve a problem’ 2. the initiative is used with verbs meaning ‘take’ or ‘lose’ take the initiative ‘start sth and so gain an advantage over a competitor’; lose the initiative ‘fail to start sth and so allow a competitor to gain an advantage’ 3. ‘the quality of being able to do things without being told’ only the possessive (e.g. their, his) as DET; mostly no DET  a matter of distinction between patterns n usage (not meaning and phraseology)

CONDEMN [v]: several different meanings [Hunston p. 47 ] 1. ‘criticise’: condemn something, condemn sth as sth’ 2. ‘pass sentence’: condemn sth to sth 3. ‘sentenced to death’ 4. ‘make something bad happen’: condemn sth to sth each meaning is associated with a particular pattern

observing detail [so far] concordances be used to give very general ideas about ۰ the ways that words behave and ۰ the meanings that can be associated with patterns [any work with concordances] tends to lead to more specific observations about the behavior of individual words ANSWER often followed by as to a clause beginning with a wh- word advice as to often follows a verb indicating ‘getting’, ‘giving’, ‘wanting’ or ‘offering’ (see Hunston, p. 51] ANSWER as to tends to follow the same kind of verb often follows a phrase indicating a clear answer not available a clear answer difficult a clear answer unexpected

coping with a lot of data: using phraseology [one of the problems with the increasing size of corpora] searches for frequent words yield too much data to be interpretable in the form of concordance lines [a corpus user can cope with looking at] about ▪ 100 lines for general patterns ▪ 30 lines for detailed patterns Sinclair (1999) selecting 30 random lines n noting the patterns in them then selecting a different 30, noting the new patterns then another 30 and so on  no longer yield anything new  “hypothesis testing”: a small selection of lines is used as a basis for a set of hypotheses about patterns other searches are used to test those hypotheses and form new ones

SUGGESTION and point suggestion [n] 20 random concordance lines for SUGGESTION sorted one to the right of the node-word [Hunston p. 52] ▪ the lines show SUGGESTION frequently followed by a finite clause (with that or not) as, to, for, and of 50 more lines are selected DEL the lines “SUGGESTION + a finite clause” “SUGGESTION as an ordinary noun” (my suggestions never got past his desk) ▪ the remaining lines confirm SUGGESTION frequently + of ▪ two lines SUGGESTION + for ▪ no lines SUGGESTION + as to ▪ a new pattern emerges “+ inf. clause (a suggestion to pipe seawater)

point: extremely frequent word in English Bank of English – 100,000 instances [Hunston p. 55] 20 random concordance lines for point the phraseology of point is highlighted in bold type ▪ what comes before point? a point, the point, no point, and so on ▪ what comes after point? point of, point in, and so on ▪ based on a word-class: possessive followed by point present participle followed by point ▪ point is found to indicate the name of a place (line 4) a way of scoring in a game (line 20) ▪ point is used with this or that [anaphoric] (line 9) [see Table 3.1]

using probes [so far] a search for a word or a phrase to gain more information about that word or phrase [it is possible] to use searches to find sets of words or expressions that cannot easily otherwise be called to mind  these searches are called “probes” e.g. how men and women are typically evaluated? the sequence something/nothing + ADJ + about/in + him/her to find lists of ADJs used to describe a male or a female person male: absurd, arresting, attractive, big, candid, dangerous, decent, disturbing, fantastic, funny, heroic, impatient, etc female: appealing, bad, dark, decadent, exotic, extraordinary, obsessive, professional, sacred, special, vulnerable, etc. Hunston pp

issues in assessing and interpreting concordance lines ▪ variation in the kind of search that is possible: using the word, lemma, or phrase as a target ▪ [with some searches] the need to edit the lines to separate the target phrase from others that the search has found ▪ the need to sort lines to make the patterning in them more visible ▪ [often] necessary to look at only part of each line in a set of concordance lines in order to identify patterning ▪ [conversely] the need to look at more co-text ▪ the need to tackle a large amount of data by looking at successive groups of a small number of lines, forming, and testing hypothesis ▪ the need to concentrate on evidence for “central n typical” ▪ the need to consider counter-examples