The papers examines 1,000 English titles of academic publications in linguistics, dated between 1970 and 2004, exemplifying four publication types (books, dissertations, journal articles and proceedings papers) and ten keywords (i.e. bilingual(s); discourse; learning; morphology; phonetic/phonological; pragmatic(s); semantic; sociolinguistic; speech act(s)/lexical; syntactic/syntax) representing different areas and topics of investigation in linguistics. Aspects analysed include length in words, structural organization, macro and micro syntactic encoding, lexical density, content, information sequencing, semantic-syntactic forms of expansion. The titles display both similarities and differences across publication types. Similarities include: high lexical density; preference for one or two information units; sequencing of information in two-unit titles as a transition from a general topic to a specific one; frequent syntactic encoding of title units as noun phrases; high frequency of coordinated noun phrases, of adjectival pre-modification of nominal heads, and of prepositional post-modification of nominal heads; and frequent reference to the languages and technical aspects of the studies named by the titles. Differences have to do with ordered frequency hierarchies (i.e. dissertation > journal articles > proceedings articles > books) in the distribution of certain features: the length of the titles in number of words (per sub-corpus, title and title unit), and the occurrence of total expansions, pre-modification strategies, post-modification resources, function words and information units about context. Other features, however, reveal variable cross-genre distributional preferences, as is the case with number of total units, frequency of one-title units, occurrence of coordination or post-modification strategies, and sequencing of information units in two-unit titles. The sub-corpora, therefore, display fairly distinctive traits, but not totally clear-cut differences.

Encoding of information in titles: Academic practices across four genres in linguistics

GESUATO, SARA
2008

Abstract

The papers examines 1,000 English titles of academic publications in linguistics, dated between 1970 and 2004, exemplifying four publication types (books, dissertations, journal articles and proceedings papers) and ten keywords (i.e. bilingual(s); discourse; learning; morphology; phonetic/phonological; pragmatic(s); semantic; sociolinguistic; speech act(s)/lexical; syntactic/syntax) representing different areas and topics of investigation in linguistics. Aspects analysed include length in words, structural organization, macro and micro syntactic encoding, lexical density, content, information sequencing, semantic-syntactic forms of expansion. The titles display both similarities and differences across publication types. Similarities include: high lexical density; preference for one or two information units; sequencing of information in two-unit titles as a transition from a general topic to a specific one; frequent syntactic encoding of title units as noun phrases; high frequency of coordinated noun phrases, of adjectival pre-modification of nominal heads, and of prepositional post-modification of nominal heads; and frequent reference to the languages and technical aspects of the studies named by the titles. Differences have to do with ordered frequency hierarchies (i.e. dissertation > journal articles > proceedings articles > books) in the distribution of certain features: the length of the titles in number of words (per sub-corpus, title and title unit), and the occurrence of total expansions, pre-modification strategies, post-modification resources, function words and information units about context. Other features, however, reveal variable cross-genre distributional preferences, as is the case with number of total units, frequency of one-title units, occurrence of coordination or post-modification strategies, and sequencing of information units in two-unit titles. The sub-corpora, therefore, display fairly distinctive traits, but not totally clear-cut differences.
2008
Ecolingua: the Role of e-corpora in translation and language learning
9788883032523
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11577/2271152
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