Transcript Document 7341436

The corpus and society
Michaela Mahlberg
Corpus Linguistics Summer Institute
30 June - 3 July 2008
A corpus theoretical framework
(cf. Mahlberg 2005)
1) Language is a social phenomenon.
2) Meaning and form are associated.
3) A corpus linguistic description of language
prioritises lexis.
2
yesterday: characterising meanings of words
word out of
textual context
KWIC
word in
a specific text
... Have you read any good books lately?" he said.
Oh, for God's sake.
I racked my brain frantically to think when I last read a proper
book. The trouble with working in publishing is that reading in
your spare time is a bit like being a dustman and snuffling
through the pig bin in the evening. I'm halfway through Men
Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which Jude lent me,
but I didn't think Mark Darcy, though clearly odd, was ready to
accept himself as a Martian quite yet. Then I had a
brainwave.
"Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi," I said triumphantly. Hah! I
haven't exactly read it as such, but feel I have as Sharon has
been ranting about it so much. Anyway, completely safe
option as no way diamond-pattern-jumpered goody-goody
would have read five-hundred-page feminist treatise.
... Have you read any good books lately?" he said.
Oh, for God's sake.
I racked my brain frantically to think when I last read a proper
book. The trouble with working in publishing is that reading in
your spare time is a bit like being a dustman and snuffling
through the pig bin in the evening. I'm halfway through Men
Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which Jude lent me,
but I didn't think Mark Darcy, though clearly odd, was ready to
accept himself as a Martian quite yet. Then I had a
brainwave.
"Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi," I said triumphantly. Hah! I
haven't exactly read it as such, but feel I have as Sharon has
been ranting about it so much. Anyway, completely safe
option as no way diamond-pattern-jumpered goody-goody
would have read five-hundred-page feminist treatise.
... Have you read any good books lately?" he said.
Oh, for God's sake.
I racked my brain frantically to think when I last read a proper
book. The trouble with working in publishing is that reading in
your spare time is a bit like being a dustman and snuffling
through the pig bin in the evening. I'm halfway through Men
Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which Jude lent me,
but I didn't think Mark Darcy, though clearly odd, was ready to
accept himself as a Martian quite yet. Then I had a
brainwave.
"Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi," I said triumphantly. Hah! I
haven't exactly read it as such, but feel I have as Sharon has
been ranting about it so much. Anyway, completely safe
option as no way diamond-pattern-jumpered goody-goody
would have read five-hundred-page feminist treatise.
... Have you read any good books lately?" he said.
Oh, for God's sake.
I racked my brain frantically to think when I last read a proper
book. The trouble with working in publishing is that reading in
your spare time is a bit like being a dustman and snuffling
through the pig bin in the evening. I'm halfway through Men
Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which Jude lent me,
but I didn't think Mark Darcy, though clearly odd, was ready to
accept himself as a Martian quite yet. Then I had a
brainwave.
"Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi," I said triumphantly. Hah! I
haven't exactly read it as such, but feel I have as Sharon has
been ranting about it so much. Anyway, completely safe
option as no way diamond-pattern-jumpered goody-goody
would have read five-hundred-page feminist treatise.
... Have you read any good books lately?" he said.
Oh, for God's sake.
I racked my brain frantically to think when I last read a proper
book. The trouble with working in publishing is that reading in
your spare time is a bit like being a dustman and snuffling
through the pig bin in the evening. I'm halfway through Men
Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which Jude lent me,
but I didn't think Mark Darcy, though clearly odd, was ready to
accept himself as a Martian quite yet. Then I had a
brainwave.
"Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi," I said triumphantly. Hah! I
haven't exactly read it as such, but feel I have as Sharon has
been ranting about it so much. Anyway, completely safe
option as no way diamond-pattern-jumpered goody-goody
would have read five-hundred-page feminist treatise.
Collocation well-known concept





"Collocation is the occurrence of two words
within a short space of each other in a text.”
(Sinclair 1991: 170)
becomes visible in a concordance
can be calculated
characterises the meanings of words
may not be easy to introspect
9
Collocation and meaning
Example: blind
•
•
•
•
•
blind baby, man, people, students
blind-date, blind date, Blind Date
blind alley
turn a blind eye
blind fury, ignorance, lust
10
Implications of collocational findings
for language descriptions
 dictionaries (Cobuild)
 descriptive unit ‘lexical item’ (Sinclair 1996)
 Pattern Grammar (Hunston & Francis 2000)
 Lexical priming (Hoey 2005)
11
12
Corpus and society
Texts in corpora as evidence of social practice.
• cultural key words sustainable development
• textual key words
move
• computer key words Examples from Textual
priming project
13
Cultural key words: Sustainable
development
• greenwash, ‘conveniently meaningless’ (Alexander 2002)
• ‘[d]evelopment that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs’ (Brundtland 1987: 43)
• Agenda 21, Rio 1992
• World Summit, 26 August to 4 September 2002 in
Johannesburg
• “With our carton manufacturer we are committed to
sustainable development and wherever possible use
materials from renewable resources”
14
Corpus and method
• SDC
Guardian 2002
368 occurrences of SD
211 articles
approximately 150,000 words
• functional groups and ad hoc categories
15
Group
G1 Conferences
G2 Organizations
G3 Education
G4 Approaches
G5 SD requires
G6 Working towards SD
G7 Leading in SD
G8 The need for SD
G9 Talking about SD
G10 SD means
G11 And SD
Other
Total
Examples
61
22
13
58
24
74
10
12
21
33
35
5
368
16
G1 Conferences and the world summit
the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
the Earth summit on sustainable development in
Johannesburg
the Johannesburg summit on sustainable development
17
G2 Organizations
Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD)
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development
the Western Partnership for Sustainable Development
the International Institute for Sustainable Development
the UK Sustainable Development Commission and
18
1
subject to a "sustainable development" test
2
subject to a sustainable development review,
3
up with a sustainable development framework,
4
, and sustainable development projects
5
annual sustainable development report
6
to introduce sustainable development criteria
7
the agenda for sustainable development - not
8
plan for sustainable development, with
9 declared policy on sustainable development, it was
10 a new approach to sustainable development. Natural
11
principles of sustainable development. But
12 to the EU's own sustainable development strategy.
13
http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk ) in
G4 Approaches to SD
19
1 duty to promote sustainable
2
to promote sustainable
3
, promoting sustainable
4
commitment to sustainable
5 set off towards sustainable
6
work towards sustainable
7
aim of "sustainable
8
to achieve sustainable
9
progress on sustainable
10
to support sustainable
development
development and
development and
development.
development. But
development of
development",
development. In
development.
development.
G6 Working towards SD
20
The text as a unit: SD in newspaper articles
Section
Articles
Hits
(and hits per
1000 words)
Average
number of
hits per
article
Highest
number of
occurrences
in 1 article
Months
covered
Leading Articles
6
6 (1.7)
1
1
4
Home News
37
69 (2.8)
1.9
6
8
Overseas News
28
33 (2.2)
1.2
3
10
Business
21
33 (2.3)
1.6
4
8
Lett Editor
11
12 (6.3)
1.1
2
5
Features
37
73 (2.3)
2
19
9
Feat: Education
21
41 (3.1)
2
9
11
Feat: Media
2
2 (0.9)
1
1
2
Feat: Society
35
83 (3.2)
2.4
8
11
Feat: Weekend
6
7 (0.7)
1.2
2
5
Feat: Travel
4
5 (1.4)
1.3
2
4
Obituaries
Total
3
4 (1.7)
1.3
2
3
211
368 (2.5)
1.7
19
12
21
“News features tend to contain more comment,
analysis, colour, background, and a greater
diversity of sources than news stories and
explore a larger number of number of issues in
greater depth. It is the external length that
accounts for many of the distinguishing
elements of features.”
(Keeble 2006:219)
22
Link between meaning and section: Education
MSc in Sustainable Development
education for sustainable development
23
G9 Talking about SD
1 in the debate about sustainable
2
debates around sustainable
3
a message about sustainable
4
a speech about sustainable
5
To talk about sustainable
6
issues around sustainable
development.
development were
development to
development in
development in
development have
24
SD means
(1) Sustainable development means managing growth in the
world's economies during the next century in a way that avoids
disaster for the environment, and reduces the intolerable gaps
between the haves and the have-nots.
25
SD means
(2) The idea is to improve social, environment and economic
advancement all in one go, under the catch-all phrase of
sustainable development.
(3) Sadruggin Aga Khan, the former UN Commissioner for Refugees,
was unhappy about the prospects for the natural world, and dismissed
the phrase “sustainable development”. He said it had been adopted as a
convenient mantra, but it was a delusion.
(8) As the world prepares for next month's world summit on social
development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, the Rio rhetoric is back on the
airwaves. Northern governments are treating us to painful cover
versions of the old sustainable development classics, and marketing
them with more hype than that surrounding the launch of
Will Young.
26
SD and evaluation
• negative semantic prosody of ‘SD means’
G7 Leading in SD:
The US is a world leader in sustainable development..
Britain leading the world in sustainable development..
.. seen as the Crystal Palace of sustainable development…
27
obituaries
(1a) Anil Agarwal, who has died aged 54 of cancer, was one of the world's
most important environmentalists, campaigning from a developing country
- India - at a time when many of the international debates around
sustainable development were dominated by the west.
(1b) … he was one of the first campaigners to talk about what became known
as sustainable development.
(2) Under his leadership, the trust spearheaded the setting up of LSx, the
London Sustainability Exchange, promoting sustainable development and
dedicated to improving the environment of London.
(3) Barraclough became head of UNRISD, specialising
in “sustainable development”.
28
textual key words: move
29
move 3-word clusters
in a move
a move that
the move is
such a move
a move which
the move follows
30
move 3-word clusters
in a move
a move that
the move is
such a move
a move which
the move follows
31
Guardian 2002
move follow*
Texts
Tokens
average
hits
text length (per 1000
articles)
Leading articles
Home
586
14470
280791
6328337
479
437
0
28 (1.9)
Overseas news
Business
Sport
3684
7330
11281
1790795
2878352
5470297
486
393
485
6 (2)
23 (3.1)
3 (0.3)
Obituaries
Features
Letters
total
975
758941
31359 18786358
4189
499456
73874 36793327
778
599
119
498
0
8 (0.3)
0
68 (0.9)
32
(The) move follows/followed
 news values
(1) authorities
a call by the Palestinian parliament earlier in the day
a decision by US authorities to bring criminal charges
a report by the justice ministry which singled out Britain
a warning by Andy Gilchrist, leader of the Fire Brigades
Union
comments in the Guardian by the CNN founder, Ted Turner,
33
(2) legal and institutional issues
a case involving a clergyman in Stoke who…
a fingertip forensic search of the alley between
a series of mass trespasses, notably in the Peak District,
an investigation into the fatal accident in November, 1999
an unreported 10-week pre-trial hearing at Liverpool crown
court
34
(3) facts and figures
industry figures this month which revealed 61% of the
10.2m
the introduction of Abbey branches into 18 Costa Coffee
shops
last year's charity commission guidance on "programmerelated investment
information that the 1st Class Post Paid Impression
service is 20%
a thorough review that had taken into account investment
market
35
(4) negative evaluation
a furious round of contacts between the TUC, the firemen's
leaders,
a spate of embarrassments for ministers as a result of the
data act
an outcry prompted by insurer Prudential's decision to use
policyholders
last year's acrimonious court room battle between MLIM,
formerly
growing questions about the safety of rail maintenance in
the light of
36
(the) move follows/
followed
37
(the) move follows/
followed
38
Orbital structure (White 1997)
Nucleus
Specification 1
Specification 2
Specification 3
......
39
Abbey National sets up shop in Homebase
Abbey National is attempting to buck the trend among high- street
banks of closing branches by opening outlets in Homebase DIY stores.
S1 The move follows the introduction of Abbey branches into 18 Costa
Coffee shops and several Safeway stores and ....
S2 Andrew Pople, managing director of Abbey's retail bank, said the
project with Homebase would begin with a pilot store in Liverpool on
Good Friday - a time when ...
S3 While the first pilot store will not have facilities for business
banking, Mr Pople said this would
S4 Abbey is one of the banks looking to take on the "big four" who
have been accused by the government of ripping off small businesses.
...
S5 ....
40
Table 2: Business, Home, and Overseas News: 57
Nucleus
Not nucleus n/a
44
(of which 20
paragraph initial
AND paragraph 2)
9
4
41
Mallon feud to end as police chief rival retires
One of the most bitter feuds within Britain's police is
finally to end, with the decision of Cleveland's chief
constable, Barry Shaw, to retire. </P><P>The move
follows years of duelling with Ray "Robocop" Mallon,
whose progress from disgraced detective to elected mayor
of Middlesbrough has placed Mr Shaw in an
embarrassing position. ....
42
Ministers consider restrictions on data access rights
The government has slipped out proposals to curb
citizens' rights to obtain access to files kept on them,
including credit card information, under the Data
Protection Act. </P><P>The move follows a spate of
embarrassments for ministers as a result of the data act;
including the Tory peer, Lord Ashcroft, obtaining
embarrassing documents on him from the Foreign Office,
and Liberal Democrat MPs being able to prove that
ministers hid information from parliament.
43
Local textual functions and criteria that
characterise (the) move follows/followed
• distribution across sections of newspaper (cf. SD)
• average texts length of these sections (cf. SD)
• position at beginning of paragraph
• paragraph 2 preferred paragraph
• reference to (part of) nucleus, textual organisation of
information
• emphasizing news values (cf. SD, but..)
44
Computer key words
e.g. with WordSmith (Scott 2008)
comparing frequencies in corpus A and
corpus B
45
Textual functions of lexical items

Textual priming project
AHRC Project, Michael Hoey
Michaela Mahlberg
Matthew Brook O’Donnell
Mike Scott
46
Textual Priming Project: Aims
•
•
•
to investigate how many (and what types of) lexical
items are primed to appear in text-initial or
paragraph-initial position
to identify lexico-grammatical patterns and see how
these patterns can be functionally interpreted in the
textual contexts.
to relate these lexical and corpus-driven facts to
current textual descriptions of (hard) news stories
that might provide explanations for the positive
primings of relevant lexis.
47
The nucleus pattern
(work from Mahlberg & O’Donnell
forthcoming)
Words



TISC
NTISC
Total
3,122,037
49,922,632
53,044,669
TISC = Text initial sentence corpus
NTISC = Non-text initial sentence corpus
headlines are excluded
48
Key words



1905 positive TISC vs NTISC key words
key means here: statistical tendency to
be found in first sentence of Guardian
Home News article
examples: yesterday, after, according,
emerged, jailed, police, accused,
woman, death, controversial
49
example: fresh
Occurrences
TISC
NTISC
923
3984
Per million words 295.6
79.8
Per 1000
sentences
6.2
8.1
from difference in frequency we cannot yet draw
conclusion about differences in functional behaviour
50
fresh row/controversy
(all three words key in TISC vs NTISC)
Downing Street ran into a fresh row over "cronyism" yesterday
when the multimillionaire New Labour economist Gavyn
Davies was appointed vice-chairman of the BBC.
The ‘nucleus pattern’ (cf. Mahlberg & O’Donnell forthcoming)
rday at the centre of a fresh education row after dismissing national te
e Tory leadership contest faced a fresh row over dirty tricks yesterday when the
overnment was last night facing a fresh row about the future of selective gramma
environment minister, is facing a fresh row over a London incinerator's toxic as
Tony Blair yesterday ignited a fresh row over the issue of privatisation as h
al-Qusaibi, became embroiled in a fresh row last night for defending Palestinian
h Museum has become involved in a fresh row with the Greeks and a leading Britis
ry, Robin Cook was embroiled in a fresh row over arms sales yesterday after givi
Labour was engulfed in a fresh row last night after a panel headed by t
The government was embroiled in a fresh row with the BBC yesterday after a Forei
ty of bullying, is embroiled in a fresh row with the beleaguered professional bo
Downing Street ran into a fresh row over "cronyism" yesterday when the m
ancellor, has been plunged into a fresh row over cronyism after it emerged that
ry Irvine, will be plunged into a fresh row over cronyism this month as damning
was yesterday at the centre of a fresh row over its admissions, when the mother
n Prescott was at the centre of a fresh row with the Tories last night over whet
was yesterday at the centre of a fresh row over plans for a shake-up in the way
was last night at the centre of a fresh row over rigging the party's national ex
el Sharon, threatens to provoke a fresh row with the Palestinians today by warni
ts released today have provoked a fresh row about the credibility of the "gold s
Tony Blair yesterday sparked a fresh row over "cronyism" when he appointed Da
rof schools, yesterday sparked a fresh row about the teaching of morality by bl
KENNETH CLARKE triggered a fresh row over racism within the Tory party ye
government last night triggered a fresh row about selective education when it si
Introduction and evaluation
Distribution of row and controversy across 43 articles with fresh
row in sentence 1 (Numbers refer to articles)
row in sentence 1 only: 15
controversy 0
row in sentence 1 + : 28
row in HL 20
row not in HL 8
row in body
5
row
7
row and controversy in
body
controversy in body
Only in HL
2
row and controversy
(controversy in HL 0)
1
2
11
Distribution of row and controversy across 40 articles with fresh
controversy in sentence 1 (numbers refer to articles)
controversy in sentence 1 only: 34
row 12
row in HL 7
row in body
row not in HL 5
1
controversy in sentence 1 + : 6
controversy in HL 0
controversy not in HL 6
controversy
3
controversy and row
(row in HL 1)
3
0
Row over u-turn on arms sales to Sahara war zone
The foreign secretary, Robin Cook was embroiled in a fresh row
over arms sales yesterday after giving the go-ahead for a pounds
3.5m contract to supply artillery spare parts to a north African war
zone.
(insert source)
McConnell in cash row
Jack McConnell, Scotland's first minister in waiting, has become
embroiled in a fresh controversy over claims that he asked MPs
for cash to keep his lover in her job as a press officer for the party.
Cohesive devices linking to nucleus
(1)
The row emerged a day after …
(2) Disability rights organisations waded into the
row, claiming that …
(3)
The row hits close to home because …
‘another’ - contextualisation
(1) Earlier, the chief inspector had triggered a row by
…
(2) He also stoked controversy over his handling of …
(3) Said is no stranger to controversy: he …
(4) In a bitter row which echoed the controversy over
Laura Spence …
Fury at pounds 100,000 bill for Prescott's official apartment
(1) THE DEPUTY Prime Minister, John Prescott, was facing fresh controversy yesterday
when it was revealed that his official residence in central London was refurbished for
pounds 100,000. (2) The bill includes pounds 13,000 for a carpet, thought to be a
luxurious handwoven Balmoral Wilton at a cost of pounds 38 a square metre. (3) The
controversy over the cost of modernising Prescott's apartment in Admiralty House has
echoes of the row that engulfed Derry Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, who was criticised
after it was revealed that his office had spent pounds 59,000 on wallpaper for his
official residence in the House of Lords. (4) Prescott's bill brings to pounds 1.8 million the
amount cabinet ministers have spent on improvements to their official accommodation
since Labour came to power. (5) Critics estimated that the amount of new carpet in
Prescott's apartment was enough to cover 'an average-sized municipal swimming pool'.
(6) 'That's an awful lot of carpet,' said the Conservative's environment spokesman, Archie
Norman. (7) 'It's just typical of somebody who is making the most of the trappings of
office.’ (8) The refurbishment bill is the latest in a long line of rows about Prescott's
lifestyle. (9) The deputy prime minister was nicknamed 'Two Jags' after it was revealed
that he had use of two such cars and he has also been teased about his five-bedroom house
in his Hull constituency, which is known locally as Prescott Towers.
(10) But a government spokesman defended the refurbishment, saying […]
Expectations about what makes news:
BBC and Foreign Office clash over euro screening
The government was embroiled in a fresh row with the BBC
yesterday after a Foreign Office official was ejected from a special
screening of a television documentary which takes a hard-hitting
look at Britain's stance on the euro.
[…]
“We value our editorial independence and have to protect that
principle in the same way that newspapers do”.
[…]
Conclusions
• language as a social phenomenon and the basis of
corpus work
• cultural key words (cultural and textual context most
visible)
• textual key words (functions in texts, text has purpose,
link between function of word and text not so obvious)
• computer key words help study of both types of key
words
• value system of society in texts, news values