Final published version
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Usage Fluctuation Analysis
T2 - A new way of analysing shifts in historical discourse
AU - McEnery, Anthony
AU - Brezina, Vaclav
AU - Baker, Helen
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - This article introduces a methodology for the diachronic analysis of large historical corpora, Usage Fluctuation Analysis (UFA). UFA looks at the fluctuation of the usage of a word as observed through collocation. It presupposes neither a commitment to a specific semantic theory, nor that the results will focus solely on semantics. We focus, rather, upon a word’s usage. UFA considers large amounts of evidence about usage, through time, as made available by historical corpora, displaying fluctuation in word usage in the form of a graph. The paper provides guidelines for the interpretation of UFA graphs and provides three short case studies applying the technique to (i) the analysis of the word its and (ii) two words related to social actors, WHORE and HARLOT. These case studies relate UFA to prior, labour intensive, corpus and historical analyses. They also highlight the novel observations that the technique affords.
AB - This article introduces a methodology for the diachronic analysis of large historical corpora, Usage Fluctuation Analysis (UFA). UFA looks at the fluctuation of the usage of a word as observed through collocation. It presupposes neither a commitment to a specific semantic theory, nor that the results will focus solely on semantics. We focus, rather, upon a word’s usage. UFA considers large amounts of evidence about usage, through time, as made available by historical corpora, displaying fluctuation in word usage in the form of a graph. The paper provides guidelines for the interpretation of UFA graphs and provides three short case studies applying the technique to (i) the analysis of the word its and (ii) two words related to social actors, WHORE and HARLOT. These case studies relate UFA to prior, labour intensive, corpus and historical analyses. They also highlight the novel observations that the technique affords.
KW - collocation
KW - time series data
KW - usage change
KW - Early Modern English
KW - non-parametric regression
U2 - 10.1075/ijcl.18096.mce
DO - 10.1075/ijcl.18096.mce
M3 - Journal article
VL - 24
SP - 413
EP - 444
JO - International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
JF - International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
SN - 1384-6655
IS - 4
ER -