Using Word Sketch to Investigate the Lexical and Grammatical Environment of Cognates across English and Italian
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2016.i7.505Abstract
Word Sketches are automatic, corpus-based summaries – one or two pages in length – of a word’s grammatical and collocational behaviour. Word Sketch is one of the many facilities offered by Sketch Engine and has been extensively adopted by lexicographers in view of its detailed and visually friendly features. However, dictionaries can provide only a limited amount of information and therefore may not necessarily report specific grammatical and/or semantic features – in particular semantic prosodies – of the word in question. This paper offers a critical analysis of examples of Bilingual Word Sketch searches across English and Italian, with particular reference to cognates of the two languages with apparently similar meanings, in an attempt to shed light on the advantages and disadvantages of Word Sketch to investigate cross-language near-synonym differentiation.
References
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Berber-Sardinha, Tony. “Semantic prosodies in English and Portuguese: A contrastive study.” Cuadernos de Filologìa Inglesa 9.1 (2000): 93-110.
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Jakubíček, Miloš, Adam Kilgarriff, Vojtěch Kovář, Pavel Rychlý and Vit Suchomel. “The TenTen Corpus Family.” Proceedings of the 7th International Corpus Linguistics Conference CL 2013, United Kingdom, 2013. 125-137.
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Kilgarriff, Adam, Vojtěch Kovář, Simon Krek, Irena Srdanovic and Carole Tiberius. “A Quantitative Evaluation of Word Sketches.” Proceedings of the 14th EURALEX International Congress 2010. The Netherlands, 2010. 372–379.
Kilgarriff, Adam and Iztok Kosem. “Corpus tools for lexicographers.” Electronic Lexicography. Eds. Sylviane Granger and Magali Paquot. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 31–55.
Kilgarriff, Adam, Pavel Rychlý, Vojtěch Kovář and Vit Baisa. “Finding multiwords of more than two words.” Proceedings of the 15th EURALEX International Congress 2012, Norway, 2012. 693-700.
Kilgarriff Adam, Vít Baisa, Jan Bušta, Miloš Jakubíček, Vojtěch Kovář, Jan. Michelfeit, Pavel Rychlý, Vít Suchomel. “The Sketch Engine: Ten Years On.” Lexicography ASIALEX 1 (2014): 7-36.
Lee, Ching-Ying, and Liu Jyi-Shane. “Effects of Collocation Information on Learning Lexical Semantics for Near Synonym Distinction.” Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing 14.2 (2009): 205-220.
McEnery, Anthony, and Richard Xiao. Corpus-based Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
Munday, Jeremy. “Looming large: a cross-linguistic analysis of semantic prosodies in comparable reference corpora.” Corpus-based Translation Studies: Research and Applications. Eds. Alet Kruger, Kim Wallmach and Jeremy Munday. London: Continuum, 2011. 169-186.
Olohan, Maeve. Scientific and Technical Translation. London and New York: Routledge, 2016.
Stewart, Dominic. “Safeguarding the lexicogrammatical environment: translating semantic prosody.” Corpus Use and Translating: Corpus Use for Learning to Translate and Learning Corpus Use to Translate. Eds. Allison Beeby, Patricia Rodríguez-Inés and Pilar Sánchez-Gijón. Amsterdam and New York: John Benjamins, 2009. 29-46.
Stewart, Dominic. Semantic Prosody: A Critical Evaluation. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
Thomas, James. “Stealing a march on collocation: deriving extended collocations from full-text for student analysis and synthesis.” Multiple Affordances of Language Corpora for Data-driven Learning. Eds. Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańzka and Alex Boulton. Amsterdam and New York: John Benjamins, 2015. 85-108.
Whitsitt, Sam. “A critique of the concept of semantic prosody.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 10.3 (2005): 283-305.
Xiao, Richard, and Anthony McEnery. “Near synonymy, collocation and semantic prosody: a cross-linguistic perspective.” Applied Linguistics 27.1 (2006): 103-129.
Dictionaries consulted
Macmillan Dictionary Online: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Online http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/
Oxford Dictionary Online http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/?view=uk
Sabatini Coletti Online http://dizionari.corriere.it/dizionario_italiano/
Berber-Sardinha, Tony. “Semantic prosodies in English and Portuguese: A contrastive study.” Cuadernos de Filologìa Inglesa 9.1 (2000): 93-110.
Carloni, Giovanna. “Corpora, cognitive styles, English content-specific vocabulary and academic language at university level.” Handbook of Research on Individual Differences in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Ed. Mahimi, Mehrak. Hershey PA: IGI Global, 2015. 197-222.
Dam-Jensen, Helle, and Karen Korning Zethsen. “Pragmatic patterns and the lexical system - a reassessment of evaluation in language.” Journal of Pragmatics 39.9 (2007): 1608-1623.
Dilts, Philip, and John Newman. “A note on quantifying “good” and “bad” prosodies.” Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 2.2 (2006): 233-242.
Jakubíček, Miloš, Adam Kilgarriff, Vojtěch Kovář, Pavel Rychlý and Vit Suchomel. “The TenTen Corpus Family.” Proceedings of the 7th International Corpus Linguistics Conference CL 2013, United Kingdom, 2013. 125-137.
Kilgarriff Adam and Michael Rundell. “Lexical Profiling Software and its lexicographic applications: a case study.” Proceedings of the 10th EURALEX International Congress 2002, Copenhagen, 2002. 807-818.
Kilgarriff, Adam, Pavel Rychlý, Pavel Smrz and David Tugwell. “The Sketch Engine.” Proceedings of the 11th EURALEX International Congress 2004, France, 2004. 105–116.
Kilgarriff, Adam, Vojtěch Kovář, Simon Krek, Irena Srdanovic and Carole Tiberius. “A Quantitative Evaluation of Word Sketches.” Proceedings of the 14th EURALEX International Congress 2010. The Netherlands, 2010. 372–379.
Kilgarriff, Adam and Iztok Kosem. “Corpus tools for lexicographers.” Electronic Lexicography. Eds. Sylviane Granger and Magali Paquot. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 31–55.
Kilgarriff, Adam, Pavel Rychlý, Vojtěch Kovář and Vit Baisa. “Finding multiwords of more than two words.” Proceedings of the 15th EURALEX International Congress 2012, Norway, 2012. 693-700.
Kilgarriff Adam, Vít Baisa, Jan Bušta, Miloš Jakubíček, Vojtěch Kovář, Jan. Michelfeit, Pavel Rychlý, Vít Suchomel. “The Sketch Engine: Ten Years On.” Lexicography ASIALEX 1 (2014): 7-36.
Lee, Ching-Ying, and Liu Jyi-Shane. “Effects of Collocation Information on Learning Lexical Semantics for Near Synonym Distinction.” Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing 14.2 (2009): 205-220.
McEnery, Anthony, and Richard Xiao. Corpus-based Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
Munday, Jeremy. “Looming large: a cross-linguistic analysis of semantic prosodies in comparable reference corpora.” Corpus-based Translation Studies: Research and Applications. Eds. Alet Kruger, Kim Wallmach and Jeremy Munday. London: Continuum, 2011. 169-186.
Olohan, Maeve. Scientific and Technical Translation. London and New York: Routledge, 2016.
Stewart, Dominic. “Safeguarding the lexicogrammatical environment: translating semantic prosody.” Corpus Use and Translating: Corpus Use for Learning to Translate and Learning Corpus Use to Translate. Eds. Allison Beeby, Patricia Rodríguez-Inés and Pilar Sánchez-Gijón. Amsterdam and New York: John Benjamins, 2009. 29-46.
Stewart, Dominic. Semantic Prosody: A Critical Evaluation. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
Thomas, James. “Stealing a march on collocation: deriving extended collocations from full-text for student analysis and synthesis.” Multiple Affordances of Language Corpora for Data-driven Learning. Eds. Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańzka and Alex Boulton. Amsterdam and New York: John Benjamins, 2015. 85-108.
Whitsitt, Sam. “A critique of the concept of semantic prosody.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 10.3 (2005): 283-305.
Xiao, Richard, and Anthony McEnery. “Near synonymy, collocation and semantic prosody: a cross-linguistic perspective.” Applied Linguistics 27.1 (2006): 103-129.
Dictionaries consulted
Macmillan Dictionary Online: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Online http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/
Oxford Dictionary Online http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/?view=uk
Sabatini Coletti Online http://dizionari.corriere.it/dizionario_italiano/
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Published
2016-06-01
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Articles (general section) - English language and linguistics
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