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Chapter 7. Lexical bundles in Early Modern and Present-day English Acts of Parliament

Abstract

This chapter analyses three-word sequences in Early Modern and Present-day English legal writing by defining their grammatical and functional distribution in Acts of Parliament. The method follows a corpus-driven approach: the lexical bundles are retrieved automatically from the corpus using frequency as the criterion. The study indicates that lexical bundles in acts extend to the textual level and reveals consistent word combinations on the level of the lexis. The study illustrates that the acts are established as a genre, and the overall distribution of both grammatical types and functions of bundles is rather similar in all the analysed periods. Nevertheless, textual organisation is more important in contemporary acts and textual links further become more specific, although early modern bundles already show textual patterning. Noun phrase and prepositional phrases also increase in contemporary acts, indicating a change to nominal writing conventions.

Abstract

This chapter analyses three-word sequences in Early Modern and Present-day English legal writing by defining their grammatical and functional distribution in Acts of Parliament. The method follows a corpus-driven approach: the lexical bundles are retrieved automatically from the corpus using frequency as the criterion. The study indicates that lexical bundles in acts extend to the textual level and reveals consistent word combinations on the level of the lexis. The study illustrates that the acts are established as a genre, and the overall distribution of both grammatical types and functions of bundles is rather similar in all the analysed periods. Nevertheless, textual organisation is more important in contemporary acts and textual links further become more specific, although early modern bundles already show textual patterning. Noun phrase and prepositional phrases also increase in contemporary acts, indicating a change to nominal writing conventions.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Chapter 1. Present applications and future directions in pattern-driven approaches to corpus linguistics 1
  5. Part I. Methodological explorations
  6. Chapter 2. From lexical bundles to surprisal and language models 15
  7. Chapter 3. Fine-tuning lexical bundles 57
  8. Chapter 4. Lexical obsolescence and loss in English: 1700–2000 81
  9. Part II. Patterns in utilitarian texts
  10. Chapter 5. Constance and variability 107
  11. Chapter 6. Between corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches to textual recurrence 131
  12. Chapter 7. Lexical bundles in Early Modern and Present-day English Acts of Parliament 159
  13. Part III. Patterns in online texts
  14. Chapter 8. Lexical bundles in Wikipedia articles and related texts 189
  15. Chapter 9. Join us for this 213
  16. Chapter 10. I don’t want to and don’t get me wrong 251
  17. Chapter 11. Blogging around the world 277
  18. Index 311
Applications of Pattern-driven Methods in Corpus Linguistics
This chapter is in the book Applications of Pattern-driven Methods in Corpus Linguistics
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.82.07leh

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Chapter 1. Present applications and future directions in pattern-driven approaches to corpus linguistics 1
  5. Part I. Methodological explorations
  6. Chapter 2. From lexical bundles to surprisal and language models 15
  7. Chapter 3. Fine-tuning lexical bundles 57
  8. Chapter 4. Lexical obsolescence and loss in English: 1700–2000 81
  9. Part II. Patterns in utilitarian texts
  10. Chapter 5. Constance and variability 107
  11. Chapter 6. Between corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches to textual recurrence 131
  12. Chapter 7. Lexical bundles in Early Modern and Present-day English Acts of Parliament 159
  13. Part III. Patterns in online texts
  14. Chapter 8. Lexical bundles in Wikipedia articles and related texts 189
  15. Chapter 9. Join us for this 213
  16. Chapter 10. I don’t want to and don’t get me wrong 251
  17. Chapter 11. Blogging around the world 277
  18. Index 311
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