The Style of Pop Song Lyrics: A Corpus-linguistic Pilot Study
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Rolf Kreyer
Abstract
In the present paper, we discuss the analytic potential of corpus-linguistic research into the genre of pop song lyrics. More specifically, we are interested in a corpus-based description of the general style of and, potentially, the stylistic variation within the genre of pop song lyrics. To this end, we envisage the compilation, annotation and analysis of a large and representative corpus of pop song lyrics, the Giessen-Bonn Corpus of Popular Music (GBoP). In the present paper, we report on general findings from a pilot investigation of the pilot version of GBoP. The focus here is on the identification of style markers of pop song lyrics in general and on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the vocabulary and of lexicogrammatical routines in the corpus. Finally, we will also discuss the extent to which GBoP may help to shed light on metaphors that are typical of pop song lyrics.
© Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 2007
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- Adolescent Intonation in Canada: Talk Units in In-group Conversations
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Articles in the same Issue
- Spoken Styles of Present-Day English: An Introduction
- Adolescent Intonation in Canada: Talk Units in In-group Conversations
- The Style of Pop Song Lyrics: A Corpus-linguistic Pilot Study
- Genre Matters: Textual and Contextual Constraints on Contemporary English Speech Behaviour
- British English/American English Grammar: Convergence in Writing – Divergence in Speech?
- Language in the USA: Themes for the Twenty-first Century, ed. Edward Finegan & John R. Rickford
- Simone Müller, Discourse Markers in Native and Non-native English Discourse
- Werner Hüllen, Kleine Geschichte des Fremdsprachenlernens
- Jonathan Culpeper, History of English, 2nd ed.
- Hans Frede Nielsen, The Continental Backgrounds of English and its Insular Development until 1154. A Journey through the History of the English Language in England and America. Vol. I
- Hans Frede Nielsen, From Dialect to Standard: English in England 1154–1776. A Journey through the History of the English Language in England and America. Vol. II
- Heiner Bouwer, Studien zum Wortfeld um eald und niwe im Altenglischen
- Thomas Kohnen, Text, Textsorte, Sprachgeschichte: Englische Partizipial- und Gerundialkonstruktionen 1100 bis 1700
- The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Volume II: The Middle Ages, ed. Alastair Minnis & Ian Johnson
- Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse
- Nicolette Zeeman, “Piers Plowman” and the Medieval Discourse of Desire
- The Ancrene Wisse: A Four-Manuscript Parallel Text. Parts 5–8 with Wordlists, ed. Tadao Kubouchi & Keiko Ikegami with John Scahill, Shoko Ono, Harumi Tanabe, Yoshiko Ota, Ayako Kobayashi, Koichi Nakamura
- Renaissance Go-Betweens: Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe, ed. Andreas Höfele & Werner von Koppenfels
- Stefan Horlacher, Masculinities: Konzeptionen von Männlichkeit im Werk von Thomas Hardy und D. H. Lawrence
- Stephan Laqué, Hermetik und Dekonstruktion: Die Erfahrung von Transzendenz in Shakespeares Hamlet
- Luke Thurston, James Joyce and the Problem of Psychoanalysis
- Rolf Breuer, Samuel Beckett: Eine Einführung
- Silver Fork Novels, 1826–1841, gen. ed. Harriet Devine Jump. Vol.1: Thomas Henry Lister, Granby: A Novel (1826), ed. Clare Bainbridge; Vol.2: Letitia Landon, Romance and Reality, ed. Cynthia Lawford; Vol.3: Edward Bulwer Lytton, Godolphin. A Novel, ed. Harriet Devine Jump; Vol.4: Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, The Victims of Society, ed. Ann R. Hawkins & Jeraldine R. Kraver; Vol.5: Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Cheveley; or, The Man of Honour, ed. Marie Mulvey-Roberts; Vol.6: Catherine Gore, Cecil: or, The Adventures of a Coxcomb, ed. Andrea Hibbard & Edward Copeland
- Jenny Davidson, Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness: Manners and Morals from Locke to Austen
- Natur – Kultur – Text: Beiträge zu Ökologie und Literaturwissenschaft, ed. Catrin Gersdorf & Sylvia Mayer
- Alan Freeman, Imagined Worlds: Fiction by Scottish Women 1900–1935
- Carmen Birkle, Migration – Miscegenation – Transculturation: Writing Multicultural America into the Twentieth Century
- Peter Erlebach, Formen der Wiederholung in der englischen Literatur
- Key Concepts in American Cultural History: From the Colonial Period to the End of the 19th Century, ed. Bernd Engler & Oliver Scheiding
- Eingegangene Schriften