A Corpus-Based Study of the Effects of Collocation, Phraseology
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A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF COLLOCATION, PHRASEOLOGY, GRAMMATICAL PATTERNING, AND REGISTER ON SEMANTIC PROSODY by TIMOTHY PETER MAIN A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham December 2017 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis investigates four factors that can significantly affect the positive-negative semantic prosody of two high-frequency verbs, CAUSE and HAPPEN. It begins by exploring the problematic notion that semantic prosody is collocational. Statistical measures of collocational significance, including the appropriate span within which evaluative collocates are observed, the nature of the collocates themselves, and their relationship to the node are all examined in detail. The study continues by examining several semi-preconstructed phrases associated with HAPPEN. First, corpus data show that such phrases often activate evaluative modes other than semantic prosody; then, the potentially problematic selection of the canonical form of a phrase is discussed; finally, it is shown that in some cases collocates ostensibly evincing semantic prosody occur in profiles because of their occurrence in frequent phrases, and as such do not constitute strong evidence of semantic prosody. Finally, register-specific examination of grammatical patterning of CAUSE shows that both register and patterning can affect semantic prosody. This study shows that although positive-negative semantic prosody is an important aspect of meaning, it is potentially problematic, and any claims that a word or phrase has a positive or negative semantic prosody may require taking these factors into consideration. i Dedication This thesis is dedicated to So-hyun and Lizzy for their endless patience and support. “if you do not love me I shall not be loved if I do not love you I shall not love” ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my lead supervisor, Dr. Crayton Walker, for his patience, support, and impeccable guidance throughout the years spent preparing this thesis. Crayton’s enthusiasm and dedication to bringing out the best in the work have made all the difference. iii CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 Background and General Aim of the Thesis ............................................................... 1 Semantic Prosody ........................................................................................................... 1 Criticisms of Semantic Prosody .................................................................................. 10 1.3.1 Criticism one: diachronic processes are not observable in synchronic corpora..... 11 1.3.2 Criticism two: semantic prosody is the same as connotation ................................. 14 Specific Objectives of the Thesis ................................................................................. 17 Organisation of the Thesis .......................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2: COLLOCATION ........................................................................................ 20 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 20 The Lexical Item .......................................................................................................... 21 Span ............................................................................................................................... 23 2.3.1 Optimum span size ................................................................................................. 24 2.3.2 Span and semantic prosody .................................................................................... 27 Defining Collocation in the Literature ....................................................................... 28 2.4.1 Textual collocation: the co-occurrence model ....................................................... 28 2.4.2 Psychological/associative collocation .................................................................... 29 2.4.3 Statistical collocation ............................................................................................. 30 2.4.4 Difficulties with the statistical model of collocation ............................................. 32 2.4.5 Total FaC values as indicators of strength of semantic prosody ............................ 38 Semantic Prosody as a Collocational Phenomenon .................................................. 40 The Continuum of Evaluation .................................................................................... 44 2.6.1 Collocates’ association with the node .................................................................... 47 2.6.2 Phrasal collocates ................................................................................................... 49 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 50 CHAPTER 3: PHRASEOLOGY AND GRAMMATICAL PATTERNING ................. 54 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 54 Sinclair’s Open-choice and Idiom Principles ............................................................ 55 Defining Phraseology ................................................................................................... 57 iv Granger and Paquot: Two Approaches to Phraseology ........................................... 60 The Frequency Approach to Phraseology ................................................................. 62 3.5.1 N-grams, lexical bundles, and chains ..................................................................... 62 3.5.2 Semantic sequences and multiword units (MWUs) ............................................... 64 3.5.3 Collocational frameworks ...................................................................................... 68 Canonical Form ............................................................................................................ 70 Grammatical Patterning ............................................................................................. 75 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 80 CHAPTER 4: GENRE AND REGISTER ......................................................................... 83 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 83 Defining Register and Genre ...................................................................................... 83 Linguistic Factors Affected by Register and Genre ................................................. 92 Semantic Prosody and the Effects of Register and Genre: Contrasting Claims .... 97 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 101 CHAPTER 5: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................... 104 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 104 Items Investigated ...................................................................................................... 104 5.2.1 Lemmas, word forms, and phrases selected for the study ................................... 104 Corpora Used in This Study ..................................................................................... 111 5.3.1 Bank of English .................................................................................................... 111 5.3.2 The English Web 2013 corpus ............................................................................. 113 Methods of Data Retrieval and Analysis ................................................................. 114 5.4.1 Lists of collocates ................................................................................................. 114 5.4.2 Pictures and positional frequency tables .............................................................. 116 5.4.3 Concordances: sample sizes and line lengths....................................................... 117 5.4.4 A note on CAUSE tagged as a verb in the BoE ...................................................... 120 Stages in the Research ............................................................................................... 122 5.5.1 Stage one: quantitative collocational analyses ..................................................... 122 5.5.2 Stage two: qualitative examination of concordances for comparison .................. 126 Summary ....................................................................................................................