Highly recommended for those with an interest in formulaic language and
corpus approaches to the study of language.
James
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[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ben Rampton
Sent: 31 October 2008 12:01
To: baalmail
Subject: [Baalmail] Douglas Biber seminar 8 dec 09
Professor Douglas Biber
Regents' Professor, Applied Linguistics, Northern Arizona
University
Frequency-based approaches to formulaic language in English:
Extending the construct of lexical bundle
Monday 8 December 2008
King's College London, Waterloo Campus, Franklin-Wilkins
Building
5.30-7.30pm Room 2.40
In previous research (e.g., Biber et al. 1999, Biber, Conrad
and Cortes 2004), the construct of lexical bundle was
developed to analyze formulaic language from a
frequency-based, corpus perspective. Lexical bundles are
defined simply as the most common recurrent sequences of
words in a register, with the added condition that the word
sequences are distributed widely across texts (and so they
do not reflect the idiosyncratic style of an individual
speaker/writer). Although lexical bundles are identified in
a bottom-up manner, based strictly on distributional
criteria, it turns out that in English they generally have
systematic structural and functional characteristics:
* They are usually not complete grammatical structures
* They are usually not idiomatic in meaning
* They are usually structurally complex
* They usually have identifiable discourse functions,
relating to stance, discourse organization, or referential
framing
* They are considerably more common in spoken
discourse than written discourse
The lexical-bundle analytical approach has thus proven to be
useful for the analysis of formulaic language in large
corpora, complementing perceptually-based approaches that
are more effective for in-depth analysis of individual texts.
However, at the same time there are obvious limitations to
the lexical-bundle approach as it has been applied in
previous studies. For example, previous research has focused
primarily on 4-word sequences; despite the fact that many of
these sequences are themselves part of longer sequences. In
addition, bundles in previous research are considered to be
formulaic simply by virtue of their frequency, with no
measure of the strength of association among the component
parts.
Professor Biber's talk reviews previous findings on lexical
bundles in English and then explores extensions to this
construct. Several sub-types are identified based on
distributional criteria, such as sequences that are
relatively fixed versus sequences that have a variable slot.
Then the register distribution and function of each subtype
is investigated in corpora of conversation versus academic
writing. These findings are used to address the differing
ways in which spoken and written is formulaic. In
conclusion, the talk will briefly discuss the distribution
and function of bundles in other languages, raising the
question of whether these patterns are generally valid
cross-linguistically or restricted to particular types of
languages.
The seminar is organised by King's College London: Centre
for Language Discourse & Communication in collaboration with
the Centre for Computing in the Humanities
-------------------------------------
Melissa de Graaff
Centre Administrator
Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication (LDC)
King's College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building
Room 1/1, Waterloo Bridge Wing
Waterloo Road, London SE1 9NH
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 3189
Fax: +44 (0)20 7848 3182
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ldc
A map showing how to reach the FWB Waterloo Bridge Wing
(WBW) on the Waterloo Campus can be found at
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/campuses/waterloo-det.html The
WBW is the lighter green building on the map
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