Corpusdriven Studies of semantic prosody:

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Corpus-driven Studies of semantic
prosody Ideas and Methods
Wei Naixing
Shanghai Jiaotong University
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Overview of the presentation

• 1. Defining semantic prosody
• Definitions of semantic prosody
• Categorization of semantic prosody
• 2. A corpus-driven study of the semantic prosody
• Methods and procedures
• Case studies
• 3. The Functional aspect attitudinal meanings
  and exploitations
• 4. Extensions

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1. Defining semantic prosody

• 1.1 Definitions
• Semantic prosody is the consistent aura of
  meaning with which a form is imbued by its
  collocates ( Louw 1993 157)
• Semantic prosody is the spreading of
  connotational colouring beyond single word
  boundaries (Partington 1998 68)
• When the usage of a word gives an impression of
  an attitudinal or pragmatic meaning, this is
  called a semantic prosody (Sinclair 1999)

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1.1 Definitions

• A word may be said to have a particular semantic
  prosody if it can be shown to co-occur typically
  with other words that belong to a particular
  semantic set. (Hunston Francis, 2000 137)

The term prosody is derived from its Firthian
sense which refers to a phonological feature
which extends beyond a phonological unit.
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1.2 Categorization of semantic prosody

• Positive prosody the node word attracts
  exclusively collocates with positive semantic
  characteristics.

Negative prosody the node word attracts
exclusively collocates with negative semantic
characteristics
Mixed prosody the node word attracts a mixed
category of collocates with diverse semantic
characteristics
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What Sinclair says about semantic prosody

• a. It is a property of a phrase, a unit of
  meaning, not of a word.
• The major structural categories that have been
  proposed here- collocation, colligation, semantic
  preference and semantic prosody- and their
  inter-relationships, will be elaborated and will
  assume a central rather than a peripheral role in
  language description. (199694)

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What Sinclair says about semantic prosody

• b. It refers to the pragmatic or discourse
  effect of the unit of meaning.
• A semantic prosody is attitudinal, and on the
  pragmatic side of the semantic/pragmatic
  continuum. The semantic prosody has a leading
  role to play in the integration of an item with
  its surroundings. It expresses something close to
  the function of the item- it shows how the rest
  of the item is to be integrated functionally.
  Without it, the string of words just means- it
  is not put to use in a viable communication
  (199688)

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What Sinclair says about semantic prosody

• c. This is part of Sinclair's argument that
  meaning belongs to phrases, not to words, and
  that phrases are relatively fixed in terms of (i)
  what makes them up - the collocations and
  colligations of the node words, and (ii) what
  they are used to do- their semantic prosody.
• Semantic prosody semantic preference
  colligation the core collocation

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What Sinclair says about semantic prosody

• Sinclairs examples
• invisible to the naked eye
• too fain to be seen with naked eye
• barely visible to the naked eye
• it is not really visible to the naked eye
• a semantic prosody of difficulty
• a semantic preference of visibility
• a colligation of preposition
• the core collocation the naked eye

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2 Methods and procedures
2.1 The word cause a case of negative prosody
Concordances
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(1) Collocates at N-1
a colligation of modality,
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(2) Collocates at N-4 to N-2.
syndrome, errors, undesirable odors, the
vibration, rampant inflation, injury or surgery,
slipping wrench, Air pollution injury, organic
chemicals, toxic contaminants, a bad odor,
repeated cycles of strain, and Hydrogen chloride.
a semantic preference of undesirability
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(3) Collocates at N1 to N4 core collocations
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(4) A Prosody of Caution
1 Any kind of radiation can cause severe damage
to human beings.
(5) Prosodic Structure
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2.2 Negative prosody rife
Concordances

• Semantic preference and categorization of
  collocates on the left
• Social phenomenon
• Economic/business phenomenon
• speculation (5), protectionism (1), devaluation
  (1), smuggling (1), piracy (1), illegal trade (1)
  
• Politics
• threatening manoeuvres (1), unavailing diplomacy
  (1), conspiracy theories (1)

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• Semantic preference and categorization of the
  collocates
• Crime
• kidnappings (1), sexual abuse (1), corruption
  (1), venality (1)
• Morality
• sexual promiscuity (1), seduction (1),
  cheating (1)
• Disagreement
• controversy (1), criticism (1), internecine
  dispute (1), warring factions (1)
• Others
• rumour(s) (9), gossip (2), unemployment (1),
  absurd social niceties (1)

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Semantic preference and categorization

• -- Feelings
• anxiety (1), fear(s) (2), excitement (1),
  attitude (1)
• alarm (1), distrust (1), feelings (1)
• Physical unease
• torture (1), diseases (2), digestive disorders
  (1), infectious virus (1), contamination (1)
• Others
• reinfestation (1), anthropophagy (1)

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Observations of the collocates

• The most significant collocates of rife
  are rumour(s) and speculation
• The semantic category of rife is diversified
• The majority of the collocates are in the
  singular noun form (38 out of 53, 72)
• The collocates are almost exclusively negative,
  only 4 of the 53 stay neutral.

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A close look at the neutral collocates

• 14. Excitement was rife in Spring 1915 with the
  arrival at Saltash of the Steam Collier
  Thordis'.
• 24. Such an attitude is particularly rife in the
  USA where the youth cult has been and remains
  strong (Levin and Levin 1980).
• 25. Pastoral and other cross-curricular
  involvements can form domains of confusion where
  such stress-enhancing feelings are rife.
• 46. In a world rife with absurd social niceties,
  KMFDM stand out by virtue of their name alone --
  Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode.
• No one knew exactly what he had done, but
  speculation ran rife.

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2.2 Negative prosody rife

• Among the above four concordances, only No. 14
  has a doubtful neutral meaning, whereas the other
  three again convey a negative meaning
• In summary, 52 out of 53 collocates of rife in
  the 50 concordances have a negative semantic
  feature (98)
• rife almost exclusively attracts bad words
  which indicate undesirable social phenomenon, bad
  feelings, physical unease, etc.

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Observation colligations of rife
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A Summary

• rife shows a strong semantic preference for
  negative collocates in a wide range of
  categories.
• rife is mostly used in the colligations of S
  V-l A-n and V-l A-n PREP N.
• The semantic preference, the colligations and
  collocations constitute a negative prosody.
• The negative prosody realizes a variety of
  semantic and pragmatic meanings which have to be
  spelt out in specific contexts.

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2.3 Positive prosody
The word career
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More Instances of Semantic Prosody
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3 Pragmatic aspect 3.1 Attitudinal meanings

• Attitudinal meaning is one of the intrinsic
  properties of semantic prosody
• The attitudinal meaning involves the functional
  choice which links meaning to purpose .
• Attitudinal meanings in semantic prosody can be
  realized through usual and conventionalized
  collocations and unusual collocations as well.

The faintest idea
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• Typically the forms
• Without the faintest idea
• I didn't have the faintest idea
• I haven't the faintest idea
• didn't seem to have the faintest idea
• I haven't got the faintest idea
• did not have the faintest notion

A semantic preference of not having A colligation
of negation A prosody (Attitudinal meaning)of
reasoning (because, even if, it's quite clear,
questions), etc.
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3.2 Pragmatic aspect hidden meanings

• Intensifiers
• Perfectly
• Totally
• Completely
• Utterly
• Etc.

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Observations of the hidden meanings

• The word fantastically is imbued with the
  meanings of wonderfulness, beauty, strangeness,
  incedibility, derived from such collocates as
  good looking, sexy, huge, efficient, fast, happy,
  accurate, fortunate
• The word amazingly is imbued with the meanings
  of surprise, wonder, approval, pleasure, derived
  from such collocates as good, effective,
  youthful, strong, well-informed, articulate, etc.
• The word perfectly is imbued with emphatic
  meanings of various kinds, uniqueness,
  perfection, maximum quality, derived from
  collocates like appropriate, legitimate,
  beautiful, qualified, sensible, acceptable,
  clear, etc.
• But totally, completely, and utterly belong
  to different categories, imbued with negative
  meanings to varying degrees. They either
  collocate with mixed categories of words, or
  attract exclusively negative words of various
  kinds
• They are not synonymous at all. Their meanings
  are hidden among the contextual collocates

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3.4 Pragmatic aspect exploitations of
semantic prosody

• The Gricean cooperative principles
• Exploitation of the maxims results in
  conversational implicatures

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Instances
1eradication of life within the river. One can
therefore consider pollutants as being
oxygen-depleting or directly toxic to the river
fauna. Discharge of these types certainly cause
the more spectacular effects on the river system.
2. Going to war with cruise missiles would be
precise, ruthless and utterly effective.
Launched,the missiles are accurate enough with 10
times the power of the Hiroshima bomb.
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4 Extensions1 diagnostic potential for
treatment of learner error

• The learner may produce grammatically acceptable
  but prosodically unacceptable collocations

infant mortality are lower. But what cause these
development? ? First, It What's more, it's the
electricity?that cause vp3,4-3 the development
of lture and industrial developed, which
cause people's living condition improved.
job unanimously, wd3, s- which can cause
people to do their work efficiently
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Learners unusual collocation
The reason for this change is mainly about the
increase of life level, people are no longer
hungry. They primarily live a happy and healthy
life, so these cause the rise of life
expectancy.
From CLEC
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Extensions2 Forensic linguistics

• The libel suit in Southeast Asia
• The word regime

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Extensions3 language description

• Lexicography the COBUILD Model
• Happen ? when something, especially something
  unpleasant happens to you, it affects you.
• Cause ? to cause something, usually something
  bad, means to make it happen.
• This was a genuine mistake, but it did
  cause me worry.
• Incur If you incur something unpleasant, it
  happens to you because of something you have
  done.
• She falls in love and incurs the wrath
  of her father.

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Extensions4 language description

• Phrasal tendency in language use
• invisible to the naked eye
• do not have the faintest (slightest) idea
• never (unable to) express (show, indicate) our
  true feelings
• brook no interference (tolerance, opposition)
• I fully appreciate
• I entirely agree.
• broadly speaking
• largely because of (as a result of, due to,
  thanks to)

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5. Conclusions
5.1 Semantic prosody is a particular
collocational phenomenon in which characteristic
collocates build up a characteristic aura of
meaning which influences the entire environment
it pervades beyond a defined span, a
colligational framework and even extends over the
sentence boundary.
5.2 Semantic prosody is both semantic and
pragmatic. It links meaning to purpose. The
prosody and semantic preference control both
lexical and syntactic choices on the syntagmatic
axis. There is no such thing as syntactic
regimentation.
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5.3 Semantic prosody is dynamic as a result of
changes in language use, social phenomenon and
cultural values. It varies with language.
5.4 Semantic prosody can only be explored by the
powerful means of corpus linguistics. Until now
only a tip of iceberg of it has emerged.
5.5 semantic prosody has provided a useful
perspective from which we examine the learner
interlanguage. It has great implications for
studies inlanguage description, culture and
ideology,
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Thank you, everybody!
Questions and comments are welcome!