A corpus-based investigation into English representations of Turks and Ottomans in the early modern period
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Helen Baker
Abstract
Lexical priming theory (Hoey 2005) works not just at any single moment in time. For Hoey (2005: 8) words are “primed for collocational use. A word is acquired through encounters with it in speech and writing, it becomes cumulatively loaded with the contexts and c-texts in which it is encountered, and our knowledge of it includes the fact that it co-occurs with certain other words in certain kinds of context”. So time is clearly one important context within which primings may be acquired; through exposure to word primings over time, words are imbued with meaning and a key feature of this process is collocation. Some suitable data sources are now becoming available, notably the Corpus of Historical American English (Davies 2012) and the EEBO corpus (for details see McEnery & Baker 2016). The existence of a corpus such as the EBBO corpus, which provides a billion words of English data for the seventeenth century alone, allows for the exploration of priming drift for many content words across the century. Yet the explanation for any drift in priming observed may relate to society as much as language per se. Accordingly, in this chapter, we will look with both a linguistic and historical lens at a group, the Ottomans, who, in the seventeenth century, we might assume to be subject to a change of representation in discourse.
Abstract
Lexical priming theory (Hoey 2005) works not just at any single moment in time. For Hoey (2005: 8) words are “primed for collocational use. A word is acquired through encounters with it in speech and writing, it becomes cumulatively loaded with the contexts and c-texts in which it is encountered, and our knowledge of it includes the fact that it co-occurs with certain other words in certain kinds of context”. So time is clearly one important context within which primings may be acquired; through exposure to word primings over time, words are imbued with meaning and a key feature of this process is collocation. Some suitable data sources are now becoming available, notably the Corpus of Historical American English (Davies 2012) and the EEBO corpus (for details see McEnery & Baker 2016). The existence of a corpus such as the EBBO corpus, which provides a billion words of English data for the seventeenth century alone, allows for the exploration of priming drift for many content words across the century. Yet the explanation for any drift in priming observed may relate to society as much as language per se. Accordingly, in this chapter, we will look with both a linguistic and historical lens at a group, the Ottomans, who, in the seventeenth century, we might assume to be subject to a change of representation in discourse.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Foreword ix
- Introduction xi
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Part I. Discourse analysis
- Cohesion and coherence in a content-specific corpus 3
- A corpus-based investigation into English representations of Turks and Ottomans in the early modern period 41
- Forced lexical primings in transdiscoursive political messaging 67
- Can lexical priming be detected in conversation turn-taking strategies? 93
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Part II. Similes, synonymy and metaphors
- Lexical priming and the selection and sequencing of synonyms 121
- Lexical priming and metaphor – Evidence of nesting in metaphoric language 141
- Teaching near-synonyms more effectively 163
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Part III. Collocations, associations and priming
- Lexical priming and register variation 189
- Colligational effects of collocation 231
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Part IV. Language learning and teaching
- Lexical and morphological priming 253
- Concordancing lexical primings 273
- Notes on authors 297
- Index 303
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Foreword ix
- Introduction xi
-
Part I. Discourse analysis
- Cohesion and coherence in a content-specific corpus 3
- A corpus-based investigation into English representations of Turks and Ottomans in the early modern period 41
- Forced lexical primings in transdiscoursive political messaging 67
- Can lexical priming be detected in conversation turn-taking strategies? 93
-
Part II. Similes, synonymy and metaphors
- Lexical priming and the selection and sequencing of synonyms 121
- Lexical priming and metaphor – Evidence of nesting in metaphoric language 141
- Teaching near-synonyms more effectively 163
-
Part III. Collocations, associations and priming
- Lexical priming and register variation 189
- Colligational effects of collocation 231
-
Part IV. Language learning and teaching
- Lexical and morphological priming 253
- Concordancing lexical primings 273
- Notes on authors 297
- Index 303
