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This paper reviews the emerging computer-aided text analysis (CATA) accounting literature through proposing a model of the corpus linguistic research production process, followed by analysis of the main text archival data sources in published papers in the Top Six accounting journals from 2010 to 2016. Reviewed papers appear in a 5 × 5 matrix that includes five categories of text data (i.e., SEC filings, conference call transcripts, earnings press releases, financial analyst reports, and other sources) and five categories of text measures (i.e., tone, readability, similarity, firm characteristics and environment, and other measures). A brief review of the CATA literature published in two AIS journals is followed by a summary of the tools and KS (knowledge and skills) observed in the reviewed research. Finally, we offer implications by discussing four issues related to CATA accounting research. We conclude that the emerging CATA accounting research offers unique opportunities for knowledgeable AIS scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes to marriage legislation across the globe have received much academic and public attention. However, the labels used to categorise different marital configurations are somewhat under researched. In this paper we analyse the premodification of marriage in a corpus of UK newspaper articles (2000–2018) to establish which labels are most commonly used in reference to same-sex marriage. These are gay marriage, same-sex marriage, homosexual marriage, and equal marriage. Drawing on the notion of category construction, we emphasise the fact that these labels are not neutral synonyms, as each encodes a particular understanding of same-sex marriage. Some labels even linguistically exclude certain groups, such as those who are bisexual or transgender. We use the tools of corpus-based discourse analysis to consider the nuanced differences between the category labels and consider whether the limitations of the labels are ever directly challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that there are (at least) two different translations of the English preposition for used to describe duration in Portuguese, namely durante and por, shows that duration is an interesting area in the tense and aspect panorama of this language, which deserves close study. In this paper, I present an empirical study based on four different corpora to investigate the matter, looking at the Portuguese varieties from Brazil and Portugal and different text genres (general and specialised newspapers, oral interviews, and fiction). The material spans circa two centuries. This paper identifies some specific uses and preferences of the two adverbials and confirms and challenges other claims in the linguistic literature. It shows that narrative fiction is definitely different from newspaper text due to its need to describe short duration and that planned duration can be expressed using both kinds of adverbials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings from a preliminary study of upper-level and high-scoring undergraduate literature essays from the Academic Writing at Auckland (AWA) corpus, the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus, and the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP). The study aimed to identify differences in students' academic writing style in these contexts. Just under 100 argumentative essays were analyzed (25 each from Britain and New Zealand and 47 from Michigan), using the Multidimensional Tagger (Nini, 2014), the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (Pennebaker et al., 2015), measures of readability and manual analyses including counts of references. The essays from MICUSP were found to be the most interactive and conversational, and the essays from AWA were found to be the most formal and 'academic'. The essays from BAWE fell somewhere in the middle on most measures. This paper reports on these differences and suggests their implications for students studying in "Inner Circle" institutions, and for the teaching and learning of EAP around the world. Plans for the next stage of the research are also outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important aspects of second language acquisition is vocabulary knowledge. Researchers, educators, and second language learners all agree that vocabulary acquisition is crucial. In our increasingly technologically advanced society, where rapid technological improvement and widespread access to high-speed internet have started to present unique and promising prospects for language teaching and learning, vocabulary growth is becoming a rising subject of interest in second language research. This study presents a review of computer corpora, concordancing, and their possible application to the acquisition of vocabulary in second languages. It also focuses on the application of computer corpora and concordancing in second language vocabulary teaching and learning after giving a brief overview of the concept of vocabulary knowledge and the function of datadriven learning (DDL) in language learning. To illustrate the variety of lexical information that several concordance lines can provide on the target word, the paper provides examples of KWIC (Keyword in Context) concordance lines and some vocabulary exercises centered on concordance. This paper may increase awareness among researchers, educators, and students regarding the possible contribution of computer corpora and concordances to the advancement of second language vocabulary knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study uses linguistic corpus tools in order to establish in what contexts the issue of migration in Europe was addressed in the Serbian press in the period 2007–2017. About 20,000 randomly chosen texts from the dailies Politika and Danas were subjected to topic modelling, collocational profiling, and also a contextual examination in the case of the paper editions. The interpretation of the data considered the effect of the medium’s ideological slant on the discourse structures used. It emerged that the selection of topics and the arrangement of texts in the liberal daily Danas corresponded to its pro-European profile. Politika, in turn, seemed to be gradually shifting towards the portrayal of Europe as being mired in crisis. In addition, the procedure used in the study enabled reflection on the usefulness of the results of topic modelling for media discourse analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the example of Estonian language planning, this research paper explores whether it is justified and necessary to give recommendations for the meanings of words. The focus is on the general language. Technical language is out of the scope of this research. First, a brief overview of the history of Estonian language planning and the development of Standard Estonian, as well as the current situation is provided. Then the paper focuses on recent research on the meanings of words in Estonian. The purpose was to revise the recommendations for the meanings of words by Estonian language planning. The research is based on the common approaches in Estonian linguistics today – the usage-based linguistics and corpus linguistics. The paper argues that recommendations by language planning for the meanings of words are not justified nor necessary in the general language, even if some explanations on the choice of words are relevant (e.g., for offensive words). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present paper is to discuss the English lexical borrowing oldschool used in Polish. The first part of the article is devoted to definitions of the word in various lexicographic sources; then, information on the frequency of its use is presented. The main part of the paper focuses on the discussion of the new contexts of the use of the lexeme in question, illustrated with numerous examples, taken from NKJP and MoncoPL corpora. The article shows that the word has significantly expanded its scope and should be perceived not only as a lexical borrowing from English, but as a semantic loan and a native semantic innovation as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper highlights the recent state of and development in the corpus linguistics (CL) field. Although several reviews have been conducted on CL, these reviews have focused on specific areas, such as education, or did not provide an overall clear overview of the future implications of the field (Baker et al., 2008; Biber & Reppen, 2020; Biber et al., 1998; G. N. Leech, 1991; Mcenery et al., 2019; McEnery & Hardie, 2012). The author begins this paper with providing an overview that can guide new researchers in this field as well as postgraduates who require a general historical and thematic map of CL. The general overview discusses the publications of scholars who have participated in this field as well as the central tools that have been applied in CL. For specific details regarding the development of the field, the author analysed 217 articles from the 3 highest-impact factor journals according to the Web of Science over the last four years (2019-2022). The findings reveal a rapid development of the field in terms of practical and methodological perspectives, specifically regarding the investigations of language uses in different contexts. Thus, this paper indicates a significantly strong correlation between CL and technological development, such as natural language processing (NLP), and how this approach could fill the research gap of utilising CL in other areas of linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, the OECD-PISA's Governing Board approved the addition of a set of global competence measures to its Programme of Student Assessment. In our paper, we explore whether and how there are discursive shifts between the two framing papers (2016/2018) and what the outcomes are for policy-shaping. To this end, we employ Network Text Analysis to map shifting semantic configurations. We show that (i) the concept of 'global competence' is radically redefined through the simplification and polarisation of the semantic universe surrounding it, (ii) that the concept 'global' becomes a shifting signifier which enables the establishment of an equivalence between the two studied documents, and that (iii) in this process, concepts such as 'culture' are now erased in the 2018 text. Our findings show the dramatic change of approach between the two documents reinforces a narrative that is familiar to the OECD around knowledge economy proxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguistics as a discipline only began to consider signed languages as legitimate, fully fledged linguistic systems from the 1960s onwards. However, comparative work on signed and spoken languages made so far has struggled to draw on similar methodologies. In this paper, we seek to fill in this gap by presenting a recently built set of multilingual corpora, allowing scholars to conduct comparative studies on French Belgian Sign Language (lsfb), and its ambient spoken language, Belgian French. This paper outlines the theoretical developments which have led to the creation of these corpora, highlighting two breakthroughs in the understanding of human communicative practices (i.e., the emergence of signed language linguistics and the development of comparative semiotics). We show that combining these recent theoretical insights with the new methodological tools holds potential for future research avenues that could broaden and improve our understanding of language use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a constructionist and corpus-based approach to Old English formulaic language through an analysis of the "maþelode system" of speech introductions. The analysis is performed on a section of the York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry, comprising the poems Beowulf, Battle of Brunanburh, and Exodus. The results show that most instances of the maþelode system belong to a well-attested construction continuum, structured by the widespread Old English (and ultimately Germanic) poetic devices of variation and kenning. This continuum ranges from more fixed repetitions that exclusively involve the verb maþelian to more schematic patterns that are also attested by other speech verbs, by verbs of giving, as well as by a number of further verbs of various semantic types. The particularly high frequency of this pattern with speech verbs and verbs of giving matches the prominent role, highlighted by previous studies, of both word-exchange and gift-exchange within Old English heroic ideology, and suggests that these formulaic patterns served the purpose to characterize the protagonists of speech or giving events as heroic and/or lordly figures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work is devoted to the syntax of specificational constructions with proper names within a typological perspective. The provided typology is based on the results obtained from the analysis of grammar descriptions and available corpus data for 94 languages. The paper discusses the morphosyntactic means that languages use to express specification, namely juxtaposition, attribution, and other less common strategies. It is shown that juxtapositional and attributive strategies are in competition in many of the sampled languages, so that certain expressions (for example, specificational constructions with the common noun 'city') prefer attributive-like coding, while others (especially constructions including personal names) show a clear tendency for juxtapositional coding cross-linguistically. Evidence from languages using an attributive strategy in specificational constructions shows that the common noun is generally the syntactic head of the construction. This conclusion contributes to the wide-scale discussion of the semantic grounds for headedness in specificational constructions. In addition, the paper shows that languages tend to place common nouns before personal proper names regardless of the word order used in specificational constructions with toponyms. This, as predicted, is correlated with the relative ordering of the head noun and its genitival dependent. The results of the present study also show that the constituent ordering in constructions with personal names implicationally depends on the order in constructions with toponyms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sought to delineate how English media frame Kazakhstan. We employed co-occurrence network and sentiment analysis across 130 newspaper pieces published in 2022 and 2023. The results showed that the news in the UK and Qatar often associated Kazakhstan with Russia and China, and also referred to it as a Muslim country, which until the events of January 2022 was considered a peaceful and quiet country. Among the prevailing terms, there were "Kazakhstan," "country," "Tokayev," "Russia," and "protest". Kazakhstan was represented as a country ruled by an influential leader (Tokayev), maintaining diplomatic relations with countries in Europe and Asia. Kazakhstan's image suffered due to the violent crackdown on protests during the January events and accusations of supporting Russia to circumvent sanctions, which the government denies. However, the January events awakened a wave of foreign media interest in Kazakhstan, which gradually subsided over time. The sentiment analysis unearthed that the peak of positive sentiment coincided with events such as scientific achievements, cultural successes and progressive changes, while the decline was characterized by coverage of problems within the country facing serious challenges, including worker safety issues, political suppression, economic instability and questions about the legitimacy of elections. Resultantly, a rather ambivalent portrayal emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a methodological framework that integrates poststructuralist Discourse Theory (DT), Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and Corpus Linguistics (CL). While previous research has discussed potential compatibility between combinations of these approaches, there have been few attempts to bring them all together into a cohesive research programme. Fostering dialogue between diverse methodological perspectives can facilitate multi-level analysis to capture the complex dynamics of sociopolitical issues. In this vein, the article presents the methodological tree, an analogy used to illustrate how these traditions may come together to complement one another. This foundation lays the groundwork for practical application in discursive analysis, with a flexible analytical structure proposed and examples provided to illustrate its implementation. It is hoped that the article can stimulate further discussion around how DT, CDS and CL can be brought together to harness their strengths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the analysis of a specialised American police discourse genre and is based on a corpus of 115 probable cause affidavits. A probable cause affidavit is a sworn statement written by American police officers to state that there is probable cause to believe the defendant has committed (or is committing) a criminal offence and that legal action is required. After briefly presenting the methodological framework for this study, the paper intends to show how the police use specific linguistic, discursive and rhetorical strategies to serve a specialised purpose, which is to present the existence of probable cause to the relevant legal authorities. The findings indicate that officers use various discursive devices to inform but also—and perhaps more importantly—to convince their audience by means of a chronological and structured narrative of events that follows a prototypical three-fold internal organisation (exposition, investigation, resolution) signalled by specific linguistic markers. Finally, the paper intends to go beyond the objective description of events in order to highlight the assertive nature of this discourse genre and the additional rhetorical strategies used by PCA writers. It studies the emphasis placed on the expertise of the author, as well as the police classification of the offence and the progressive elaboration of the burden of proof. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competing views on the in/compatibility of transgender status and lesbian identity is a source of conflict in the ongoing antagonism over transgender recognition. Many individuals with different transgender identities might lay claim to lesbian identity or lesbian discourse(s) more generally. However, this inclusion has been disputed in some circles insofar as it is seen to challenge or contradict characteristics of lesbianism. This paper explores how transgender discourses might challenge and (re)politicize lesbianism and lesbian identities. Given that social media platforms concentrate minority communities in one space and can serve to exacerbate antagonism over identities, I focus in this paper specifically on the Twitter context. This paper uses corpus-informed critical discourse studies to explore how cognitive models of lesbianism are articulated in transgender Twitter discourse/s. Findings indicate that transgender Twitter users (re)articulate sociohistorical narratives in lesbian discourse/s. At the same time, however, they also challenge and (re)politicize the essentialism of sex and gender in relation to lesbian identity and social practice. Hence, transgender Twitter discourse/s reflect potential explanations for contesting transinclusion in lesbianism, which may serve to reinforce transexclusionary claims for retaining lesbianism's uniqueness as a female space and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To gain an in-depth understanding of the development status and trend of research on learner corpora, the study, employing the Web of Science (WoB) as a data source, conducts a statistical analysis of research on learner corpora published in internationally renowned academic journals from 2007 to 2021, focusing on the respects of research trends, disciplines, journals, language, and content, and others. Results showed that the international research on learner corpora is characterized by an interdisciplinary tendency, diverse topics, single language, and uneven distribution. Based on these features, relevant suggestions are made for both learners and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the methodological issues involved in the selection of sources for a corpus-based study of the English metalanguage that was created to analyse and compare, appraise and classify, teach and learn the vernacular languages of Europe between 1500 and 1700 (MetaLing corpus). Source selection is in fact a critical aspect presenting multiple challenges, since, in a period predating the establishment of comparative philology and linguistics as academic disciplines, language-related discussions are to be found not just in grammar books and language manuals, but in works pertaining to different fields and presenting a large variety of aims. Building on previous research and combining lexicographical analysis and corpus linguistics, the aim of this paper is to explore the potential of (semi-)automated searches of online digital resources for the retrieval of underexplored or non-canonical texts. Integrating what may be conceptualised as bottom-up (lexis to subject) approaches, with top-down (subject to lexis) approaches, the results indicate that onomasiologicaloriented approaches have the potential to make terminological blind spots emerge, and that the combination of different onomasiological and semasiological oriented approaches interfacing with the same corpus helps overcome the limits of each individual approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pragmalingüística is the property of Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad de Cadiz and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There are three main types of number used in modern, industrialized societies. Cardinals count sets (e.g., people, objects) and quantify elements of conventional scales (e.g., money, distance), ordinals index positions in ordered sequences (e.g., years, pages), and nominals serve as unique identifiers (e.g., telephone numbers, player numbers). Many studies that have cited number frequencies in support of claims about numerical cognition and mathematical cognition hinge on the assumption that most numbers analyzed are cardinal. This paper is the first to investigate the relative frequencies of different number types, presenting a corpus analysis of morphologically unmarked numbers (not, e.g., "eighth" or "21st") in which we manually annotated 3,600 concordances in the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Overall, cardinals are dominant—both pure cardinals (sets) and measurements (scales)—except in the range 1,000–10,000, which is dominated by ordinal years, like 1996 and 2004. Ordinals occur less often overall, and nominals even less so. Only for cardinals do round numbers, associated with approximation, dominate overall and increase with magnitude. In comparison with other registers, academic writing contains a lower proportion of measurements as well as a higher proportion of ordinals and, to some extent, nominals. In writing, pure cardinals and measurements are usually represented as number words, but measurements—especially larger, unround ones—are more likely to be numerals. Ordinals and nominals are mostly represented as numerals. Altogether, this paper reveals how numbers are used in American English, establishing an initial baseline for any analyses of number frequencies and shedding new light on the cognitive and psychological study of number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the framework of postcolonial Englishes and their evolutions, Hong Kong English represents an extraordinary case in that the political independence of Hong Kong from the British in 1997 did not result—as in most other cases—in a self-governing political body, but a formal re-integration of Hong Kong into China. As the handover of Hong Kong also marks a drastic linguistic re-orientation, this short-term diachronic paper studies newspaper data from before and after the 1997 handover. With a view to the structural object of investigation, particle placement, the exploration of relevant predictors and their effects in Hong Kong English sheds light on whether and, if so, how the end of British colonial rule has left linguistic traces in particle-placement choices. Using a sample of 322 particle verbs extracted from the South China Morning Post Corpus (SCMPC) and employing random forests, the study reports that pre- and post-handover constructional choices of particle placement are largely compatible with one another. Said choices are mainly guided by principles related to cognition and eurhythmy that—at least in the period observed—appear unlikely to be affected fundamentally by language-external political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 1993 represents a momentous milestone in the not-so-long history of translation and interpreting studies (TIS). The foundational paper published by Mona Baker entitled 'Corpus linguistics and translation studies: Implications and applications' in 1993 has signalled a defining moment in the application of digital humanities (DH) approaches in TIS. Since then, corpus-based TIS, as a most visible manifestation of DH in TIS, has come into being and is now gradually entering into maturity. Compared with the previously largely anecdotal, impressionist, and prescriptivist accounts of translation and interpreting, the incorporation of DH tools (e.g. CL) has significantly enriched TIS with new perspectives. This makes it possible for researchers to explore the various aspects of translation and interpreting in a more objective and systematic way, drawing on real-world data. Now one-third of a century has passed since the publication of Baker's seminal paper, DH-inspired studies of translation and interpreting are in full swing. As we are reaching the 30-year mark of the influential publication, it is important for us to take stock of the previous achievements and look to the future both with pride and a cool head. In this article, we trace the developments of a DH approach to TIS and present the state of the art, before discussing some of the limitations and pitfalls and the road ahead going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little linguistic research on the structure of judicial opinions from a discourse analysis perspective. There are, however, many professional resources about writing judicial opinions. This paper contributes to genre theory and linguistics of languages for specific purposes by proposing a role for professional writing advice. We also construct a typology of macrostructures proposed by professionals and compare them to the move structure of authentic judicial opinions. Our results show that, in terms of large discourse units, professional resources and move analysis seem to converge. Professional resources, however, do not describe the variation that may be observed in authentic documents. In this way, corpora of professional advice may contribute to a deeper understanding of how a discourse community represents its own genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a field of research closely connected with second language acquisition, teaching and learning, learner corpus research (lcr) has garnered interest among language teachers and researchers in Hong Kong, where English is one of the two official languages (alongside Chinese) and also one of the chief mediums of instruction in education. In view of this unique situation, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of lcr within different teaching contexts in Hong Kong and identifies some major research trends and issues. Through this survey of the development of lcr in the region, we find that great advances have been made over the past three decades. Specifically, the object of analysis has shifted from cherry-picked, isolated textual features to operationalised parameters such as metadiscourse markers, lexical diversity, and syntactic complexity to study learners' language output. Despite the progress that has been achieved so far, there remain a number of important questions for lcr in the context of Hong Kong. In particular, some researchers tend to broadly apply the term 'learner corpus' even to the language output of expert-level L2 speakers. Yet, whether this group of speakers can be treated as L2 learners, and their language output as a learner corpus, remains contested. In addition, existing learner corpora are also limited in their scope by genre, with the majority being compiled from letters and essay writings. This paper concludes with suggestions on how these limitations can be addressed in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Estonian & Finno-Ugric Linguistics / Eesti ja Soome-ugri Keeleteaduse Ajakiri is the property of University of Tartu Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Hate speech has become a matter of international concern, permeating institutional and lay discussions alike. Yet, exactly what it means to refer to a linguistic act as 'hate speech' remains unclear. This paper examines the lay understanding of hate speech, focusing on (1) the relationship between hate speech and hate, and (2) the relationship between hate speech and offensive speech. As part of the second question, the paper considers how hate speech is defined as a legal matter in the UK Public Order Act 1986. The study adopts a corpus-based discourse analysis approach and examines 255 hate speech-related news articles and the general English Web 2020 corpus. Hate speech is a complex multifaceted phenomenon; while 'hate' is one of its core characteristics, it is not sufficient to assess a certain behaviour as hate speech. Threats, denigration of the targets based on a protected characteristic (age, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability), the potential to cause harm and the intent to stir up hatred are also essential in distinguishing hate speech and offense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Applied Linguistics / Taikomoji Kalbotyra is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article reports on a new Multi-dimensional model of graduate student coursework writing in two applied science disciplines from a corpus containing 1,108 texts and 2,008,316 words. The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed five dimensions: (1) Conceptual Information vs. Process-Focused Actions (2) Human/Subjective- vs. Entity/Objective- Focus, (3) Attitudinal Monoglossia vs. Precisely Measured Information, (4) Social vs. Physical Science Approaches, and (5) Speculative vs. Finalized Events. The dimensions are analyzed functionally in terms of both register and discipline. The results demonstrate that course papers exhibit distinct patterns of language use, often attributed to the varying purposes of the texts but also related to disciplinary ways of knowing. Findings have implications for disciplinary writing research and representativeness of student writing corpora while contributing to an exploration of register as a continuous construct. The research provides an enhanced understanding of academic coursework writing for stakeholders such as professors, graduate students, writing consultants. (150 words) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a two-part forensic linguistic analysis of an historic collection of abuse letters, sent to individuals in the public eye and individuals' private homes between 2007 and 2009. We employ the technique of structural topic modelling (stm) to identify distinctions in the core topics of the letters, gauging the value of this relatively under-used methodology in forensic linguistics. Four key topics were identified in the letters, 'Politics A' and 'B', 'Healthcare' and 'Immigration', and their coherence, correlation and shifts in topic were evaluated. Following the stm, a qualitative corpus linguistic analysis was undertaken, coding concordance lines according to topic, with the reliability between coders tested. This coding demonstrated that various connected statements within the same topic tend to gain or lose prevalence over time, and ultimately confirmed the consistency of content within the four topics identified through stm throughout the letter series. The discussion and conclusions to the paper reflect on the findings and also consider the utility of these methodologies for linguistics and forensic linguistics in particular. The study demonstrates real value in revisiting a forensic linguistic dataset such as this to test and develop methodologies for the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lexikos is the property of Bureau of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite ongoing efforts to compile both Andean khipus and their written colonial references, initiatives in this domain have emphasized the benefits of aggregation vis-à-vis preservation and diffusion, largely forgoing opportunities to analyze khipu data in aggregate. This article introduces multivariate statistical analysis to colonial khipu texts, enlisting the aid of a heretofore little-studied source: the Textos Andinos, a compilation of sixteenth-century Spanish transcriptions of Indigenous khipu "readings." The largest syntactically annotated corpus of khipu transcriptions to date is compiled. Textual interpretation informs an exegetical typology of "paper khipus"--a division of the texts into distinguishable categories. The initial typology is expanded using the outcome of its statistical evaluation. Pre- versus postconquest content and the incorporation of currency emerge as the primary distinguishing attributes of khipu transcriptions. The expanded typology in turn enables the assessment of previous hypotheses in the study of paper khipus, responding to criticisms of their generalizability; suggestions of a diminishment in khipu complexity following the Spanish conquest are revisited and corroborated to this effect. A corpus-based study of khipu transcriptions offers a promising inroad to negotiating the highly mediated conditions of their original creation while expanding the study of khipus in the early colonial Andes. The aggregative methodology is proposed to ethnohistorians as an additional strategy for complementing and enriching historical interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]