Quantifying polysemy in Cognitive Sociolinguistics
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Justyna A. Robinson
Abstract
This chapter uses various statistical techniques to explore the extralinguistic grounding of individual conceptualisations of polysemous adjectives in English, such as awesome, gay, wicked. It considers the extent to which individual conceptualisations are non-random and can be related to the socio-demographic characteristics of the speaker. The experimental survey data collected from 72 speakers is analysed via hierarchical agglomerative clustering, decision tree analysis, and logistic regression analysis. The results reveal that not only individual adjectives, as indicated in Robinson (2010a), but whole groups of polysemous adjectives currently undergoing semantic change form usage patterns that can be explained by a very similar sociolinguistic distribution. This study demonstrates that employing a socio-cognitive perspective when researching polysemy is hugely advantageous.
Abstract
This chapter uses various statistical techniques to explore the extralinguistic grounding of individual conceptualisations of polysemous adjectives in English, such as awesome, gay, wicked. It considers the extent to which individual conceptualisations are non-random and can be related to the socio-demographic characteristics of the speaker. The experimental survey data collected from 72 speakers is analysed via hierarchical agglomerative clustering, decision tree analysis, and logistic regression analysis. The results reveal that not only individual adjectives, as indicated in Robinson (2010a), but whole groups of polysemous adjectives currently undergoing semantic change form usage patterns that can be explained by a very similar sociolinguistic distribution. This study demonstrates that employing a socio-cognitive perspective when researching polysemy is hugely advantageous.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Outline 1
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Section 1. Polysemy and synonymy
- Polysemy and synonymy 7
- Competing ‘transfer’ constructions in Dutch 39
- Rethinking constructional polysemy 61
- Quantifying polysemy in Cognitive Sociolinguistics 87
- The many uses of run 117
- Visualizing distances in a set of near-synonyms 145
- A case for the multifactorial assessment of learner language 179
- Dutch causative constructions 205
- The semasiological structure of Polish myśleć ‘to think’ 223
- A multifactorial corpus analysis of grammatical synonymy 253
- A diachronic corpus-based multivariate analysis of “I think that” vs. “I think zero” 279
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Section 2. Statistical techniques
- Techniques and tools 307
- Statistics in R 343
- Frequency tables 365
- Collostructional analysis 391
- Cluster analysis 405
- Correspondence analysis 443
- Logistic regression 487
- Name index 535
- Subject index 541
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Outline 1
-
Section 1. Polysemy and synonymy
- Polysemy and synonymy 7
- Competing ‘transfer’ constructions in Dutch 39
- Rethinking constructional polysemy 61
- Quantifying polysemy in Cognitive Sociolinguistics 87
- The many uses of run 117
- Visualizing distances in a set of near-synonyms 145
- A case for the multifactorial assessment of learner language 179
- Dutch causative constructions 205
- The semasiological structure of Polish myśleć ‘to think’ 223
- A multifactorial corpus analysis of grammatical synonymy 253
- A diachronic corpus-based multivariate analysis of “I think that” vs. “I think zero” 279
-
Section 2. Statistical techniques
- Techniques and tools 307
- Statistics in R 343
- Frequency tables 365
- Collostructional analysis 391
- Cluster analysis 405
- Correspondence analysis 443
- Logistic regression 487
- Name index 535
- Subject index 541
