Svenja Adolphs is a professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Nottingham and also the Associate Director of the Center for Research and Applied Linguistics, the Director of Research for the Faculty of Arts, and the Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Studies. Her main interests are in corpus linguistics and discourse analysis and she many publications regarding this topic.
In chapter four of Svenja Adolphs’s book, Introducing Electronic Text Analysis, describes techniques in analyzing individual words and phrases on the concordance level. He describes concordance programs that allow for individuals to search for certain words or phrase in electronic texts, having them appear in the center of the page. The words or phrases are called “nodes,” and the items to the left and right are called the “span.” He states that concordance analyses can both generate and test hypotheses regarding a proposed research question.
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One technique in this type of research that Adolph describes is using the Key Word in Context (KWIC) software to do a concordance analysis on the verb “disagree” in casual conversation. As stated by Adolph, one would not expect to find many instances of this verb due to the nature of the conversation. After the concordance analysis, the individuals doing this study discovered that there were forty-four instances of the item. Further investigation found that “I” is only the subject in four of those instances and that the majority of the time the verb was being used to describe another person not present in the conversation.
Concordance analysis is a great way to discover unknown information about the way language is used in many types of conversation and in electronic texts. Because of the huge increase in the amount of online texts that are available, more studies will be able to be done to help understand the way in which language is changing and the patterns it is following. In chapter four of Adolphs book, he describes the benefits of this type of analysis saying:
“Concordance analysis has a key place in language description and lexicography, especially because such an analysis can reveal patterns of co-occurrence and association that not only challenge some traditional beliefs about language as a slot-and-filler system, but also lead to insights that are not easily generated on the basis of intuition alone.”
I believe that the use of language today and throughout history is, in many instances, overlooked by individuals and therefore not analyzed in ways that it could be. Because many words, phrases, and sayings that people use are so second nature to them, they fail to realize that the way in which they communicate has an associated pattern to it. Adolph dives into this idea briefly when he cites Sinclair (1996) regarding two principles which language is based. Sinclair states that there is the “idiom principle” which says that certain phrases are stored in long term memory and placed in conversation as one unit, and the “open choice principle” which says that language is used solely based on grammatical rules and is “selected slot-by slot.” In Adolphs opinion, concordance analysis is a wonderful tool in overturning the belief that language is based on grammatical rules instead of inherent or second nature phrases retained in a persons memory.
The idea of concordance analysis of texts and conversation has made me wonder about how much of the language I use everyday is based off my experiences and conversations with people throughout my life, and how much it is based off an inherent ability to try to follow grammatical rules. An interesting blog post by Adam Elhardt on December 3, 2009 called “THE CONSCIOUS VS. SUBCONSCIOUS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING” describes the different influences on how we structure our language. He describes a study done by University of Southern California linguist Stephen Krashen that has identified two ways in which people pick up language. “Conscious learning” is formed from the study of grammar and rules associated with sentences. “Subconsciousness aquistion” is based on absorbing the conversation and style based from everyday interactions. Elhardt says:
“According to Krashen, the most effective language study focuses on language acquisition rather than grammar rules. When students are actively engaged in speaking and listening their focus is on the message being communicated rather than the form of the communication. Successful students know their grammar but they don’t use rules to form the sentences they speak. Rather they have developed a feel for the language that lets them create sentences more organically.”
Language is a diverse and unique aspect of every individual, and a crucial part of daily interactions. With the advancement of technology and online electronic texts, we will only be able to further our knowledge of how and why language is used in different ways around the world. Only through these types of analysis will we fully realize the enormous scale on which language evolves throughout time, and varies between individuals.
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