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The present research deals with the phenomenon of hedging language, mainly focusing on the context of spontaneous verbal interactions. The main aim of the study is to analyze the occurrence of hedges in English spoken discourse as captured in the Spoken British National Corpus 2014. The research process deals with the differences in the usage of approximators and shields existing among men and women across different age groups and levels of education. The research methodology involves creating six sub-corpora, measuring hedge dispersion, examining selected hedges to ascertain their hedging function within the context and calculating frequencies within each sub-corpus. The research outcomes point to the prevalence of shields in spoken discourse. Plausibility shields are commonly used while attribution shields show lower usage. Adaptors contribute to mitigating certainty in utterances, whereas rounders play a less prominent role. These findings emphasize the nuanced interplay between linguistic strategies and speaker characteristics in spoken communication and highlight the importance of cooperative principles in discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Males and females have the same rights as members of society but females are discriminated against in terms of job titles. Fairclough's three-dimensional model was used to identify, expose, and challenge the implicit ideologies behind the use of such job titles and pronouns used after these job titles. This research is a mixed method research that aims to analyze the use of male-representing, female-representing, and neutral job titles and the use of pronouns after the use of these job titles in the British National Corpus (BNC). 15 job titles were selected for the study. Only those job titles were selected for which female-representing and neutral job titles were available and that are more frequently used by the people. Sketch Engine was used to know the frequencies of these job titles. The frequencies of these job titles were compared to know what type of job titles are used more in the British National Corpus (BNC). The study showed that there is a big difference between the frequencies of male-representing and female-representing job titles and the frequency of male-specific pronouns is more than the frequency of female-specific pronouns after the use of male-oriented and female-oriented job titles and this leads to discrimination of females. It is suggested that job titles should be used appropriately so that no gender can be discriminated against. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The words we choose when we communicate with one another convey meaning and information. In written or spoken language, we tend to employ a relatively small number of words repeatedly whereas a large number of words in the lexicon are seldom used. By considering a ratio of means of the most prevalent word in a body of texts (or corpus) compared to that of the word in question, one can quantify the prevalence of the word in question. Furthermore, the concept of word classes or grouping words having similar measures of prevalence enables the investigator to compare the words. Using a sample of texts having varying lengths from a corpus, the sample mean relative frequency of a word and the maximum likelihood estimator using the zero-inflated beta distribution serve as two measures of the prevalence of a word. We construct and then compare asymptotic confidence intervals involving ratios of means for a number of words in the British National Corpus, a 100 million-word collection of written and spoken language of a wide range of British English. We also examine the sample sizes required to meet specific objectives regarding word classes and ratios of means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ultimate goal of this article is to show that consist of and made up of are somewhat different in their use. It is worth pointing out that the type made up of (1,129 tokens) may be preferable to the type consist of (993 tokens) in the UK. A further point to note is that consist of is 57.14% the same as made up of. Talking about consist of and made up of in the Hansard Corpus (20, April 2022. Online https://english-corpora.org/hansard/), the former is preferable to the latter in the British parliament. Quite interestingly, consist of was the most preferable one (942 tokens) for British politicians in 1960, but it was the least preferred one (49 tokens) in 1800. On the other hand, made up of reached a peak (1,020 tokens) in the British parliament in 1990. More importantly, the BNC (20, April 2022. Online https://corpus.byu.edu/bnc) shows that consist of people is the most frequently used one in the UK, whereas made up of people and made up of representatives are the most widely used ones. Finally, it is worthwhile noting that 6.66% of forty five nouns are the collocations of both consist of and made up of. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses a vital issue of forming idioms with nominations of human body. Human body-related words nominating body parts, physiological and mental processes are used to form numerous English idioms. In given paper these idioms are referred to as human body-related. The paper aims at revealing the specifics of lexical and semantic constituents of the idioms with reference to their contexts. We collected 200 human body-related English idioms from academic books and dictionaries. The research comprised four stages. The thematic classification based on the lexical structure of the idioms revealed prevalence of the idioms comprising words head, eyes, heart, back, foot, and hand. The similarities found in the meanings of all the idioms under study provided semantic classification into five groups, namely, characteristics, action, state, causation, and ability. Next we focused on contextual and semantic specifics of the idioms. In particular, the idioms, containing the word head were studied in the texts of the British National Corpus. The contexts provided the following additional meanings of the idioms: higher position, achievements, location, expenses, and inability to do something. The revealed collocations follow AV+K type. The obtained results and developed algorithm may be applied to lexical and contextual studies of idioms and lexical groups.

Cognitive linguistics combines knowledge of different sciences, such as philosophy, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, mathematical statistics and others. Therefore, cognitive linguistics uses specific methods and types of analyses. Among them is the method of corpus analysis, which is widely used in cognitive research. The Master Degree Programme “Digital technologies in philology. Computer linguistics” at Southern Federal University, Russia, Rostov-on-Don, aims at enabling students to master modern methods and other tools applicable in cognitive research. The teaching process covers several stages. They are: critical analysis of published corpus analysis research, working out the algorithm of conducting the corpus research, practical application of the corpus method, reading widely papers on cognitive linguistics when coming across some tricky points, arguing basic propositions of cognitive linguistics used in the research.

In Pakistan, gender discrimination is widespread due to insufficient legislation, cultural barriers and masculine interpretation of religion. The discrimination is also present atworkplace and job titles. This study attempts to, using Fairclough's three-dimensional model, identify the implicit ideologies and gendered pronouns in the use of job titles. Following a mixed-method approach, this research-study employs British National Corpus (BNC) and aims to identify and analyze the use of male-representing, female-representing, and neutral job titles and the use of pronouns in job titles.A total of 15 job titles are selected including only those job titles forwhich female-representing and neutral job titles are available and that are frequently used by people. Sketch Engine is used to know the frequencies of these job titles. The frequencies are, in turn, compared to know what type of job titles are used more in the BNC. The study reveals that there is a significant difference between the frequencies of male-representing and female-representing job titles. Further, the frequency of male-specific pronouns is more than female-specific pronouns when used after male-oriented and female-oriented job titles, leading to discrimination against the female gender. The study recommends measures for creating awareness about the gendered titles and their appropriate use to prevent discriminatory practices.

This article reports on research into the phenomenon whereby English adjectives of very similar meaning are sometimes used in combination, either as an uncoordinated sequence (as in ‘simple straightforward’) or as a coordinated pair (as in ‘dull and monotonous’). One of the preliminary goals of the research is to identify areas of meaning in which such adjective combinations typically occur. In order to find relevant examples, the British National Corpus was used as a source of textual material to work from. The article explains the methodology employed to locate phrasal items of interest, which partly involved using the Phrases in English (PIE) database. Details are presented of ten specific areas of descriptive meaning where a number of different adjective combinations were found, as well as a set of emphasizing and/or intensifying adjectives with similar characteristics. Possible reasons are suggested for the doubling-up of meaning, and the relevance of the phenomenon to synonym studies is discussed. More than 200 corpus examples are included.

Введение. Описывается олигархия как аксиологически маркированный феномен с точки зрения языка. Материал и методы. Материалом для анализа репрезентации указанного феномена в текстах СМИ послужили статьи, извлеченные из подкорпуса Британского национального корпуса – the NOW Corpus, который содержит газетные и журнальные публикации в период с 2010 г. по настоящее время. Основные результаты. Анализ сочетаемости термина «олигархия» в Британском национальном корпусе проводится по следующим параметрам: виды, характеристика, сочетаемость с другими концептами, метафорическое осмысление явления. В результате анализа продемонстрировано, что репрезентация феномена олигархии в англоязычном массмедийном дискурсе детерминирована социальными и дискурсивными особенностями определенной лингвокультуры, ценностными приоритетами и установками участников различных типов институционального общения: политического, экономического, социального дискурсов. При наличии универсальных черт (связь олигархии с определенным видом человеческой деятельности) в английском языке существуют специфические термины для обозначения олигархии в той или иной стране. При рассмотрении взаимоотношения олигархии с другими концептами она трактуется не как отличная от других деструктивных явлений, а как феномен синонимичного порядка (коррупция и олигархия, деспотизм и олигархия, империализм и олигархия). Образное отображение феномена олигархии представлено небольшим количеством метафорических моделей, что детерминировано динамикой метафор с различными сферами-источниками и национальными особенностями той или иной лингвокультуры. Теоретическая значимость работы заключается в расширении теории массмедийного дискурса и аксиологической лингвистики за счет анализа обыденного толкования термина в средствах массовой информации. Практическая ценность исследования состоит в возможности применения результатов анализа для изучения других аксиологически маркированных феноменов. Заключение. В работе намечаются возможные перспективы исследования, к числу которых относится рассмотрение интерпретации феномена олигархии на материале англоязычного дискурса в диахроническом аспекте, что позволит дополнить полученные результаты и выявить те аспекты представления анализируемого явления, которые отсутствуют в репрезентации феномена олигархии в современном английском языке.

Corpus linguistics is the study of language as expressed in a body of texts or documents. The relative frequency of a word within a text and the dispersion of the word across the collection of texts provide information about the word's prominence and diffusion, respectively. In practice, people tend to use a relatively small number of words in a language's inventory of words and thus a large number of words in the lexicon are rarely employed. The zero-inflated beta distribution enables one to model the relative frequency of a word in a text since some texts may not even contain the word under study. In this paper, the expectation of a word's prominence and dispersion are defined under the zero-inflated beta model. Estimates of a word's prominence and dispersion are computed for words in the British National Corpus 1994 (BNC), a 100 million word collection of written and spoken language of a wide range of British English. The relationship between a word's prominence and dispersion is discussed as well as measures that are functions of both prominence and dispersion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The representativeness of a corpus is a function of the relationship between the corpus and a target language or language variety the corpus is intended to sample. However, the second term of this relationship can only be apprehended via a finite set of language occurrences, i.e. a corpus. For this reason we prefer to consider representativeness with respect to one’s specific research goals. In the enunciative approach to language, markers are described in terms of an invariant schematic form, configured by the pressure of surrounding operations into contextually-situated shapes. The elaboration of a schematic form is carried out on the evidence of authentic examples studied in context and submitted to manipulations and judgements of acceptability on the basis of the linguist’s intuition, essentially. This paper argues that corpus methodologies can provide invaluable quantitative support for these intuitions and, from there, for the theoretical constructions of enunciative approaches to language. We argue the case for such an approach with a study of the marker “along,“ using data from the British National Corpus. Collocational affinities of “along“ will allow us progressively to identify four particularly significant contextual configurations, yielding spatial, temporal, subjective and argumentative values for the marker.

The aim of this study is to describe the intransitive phrasal verbs with particlethrough used in the British National Corpus. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative method. Linguistic data sources were taken from the British National Corpus. The data containing the phrasal verbs with particle through, collected and then classified into several categories. The categories that are suitable for the purpose of the research are separated and labeled and then explained in a narrative according to the theory and research objectives. The results showed that the intransitive phrasal verbs with particle through in the British National Corpus consisted of two types, namely dynamic and stative intransitive phrasal verbs. Dynamic intransitive is a phrasal verbs with a particle through which indicates the existence of an activity or event carried out by the subject of the sentence. Dynamic intransitive phrasal verbs consist of phrasal verbs belonging to event verbs and activity verbs. Stative intransitive phrasal verbs are classified as existence verbs.