The aim of this thesis is to discuss certain aspects of the language of book reviews, stressing the importance and indispensability of a corpus-based approach in any study of this type. The thesis is to show that the register of book reviewing is a specialized language, characterized by specific vocabulary. By this is meant that there exist some words and phrases which tend to be used more frequently here than in other registers, or that some words have a special, narrowed meaning.
For this purpose the researcher has compiled her own corpus of book reviews in an electronic form, which provides the foundation for the analysis. This collection of written language samples is referred to as the Do-It-Yourself Book Review Corpus (henceforth, DIY BRC). As regards the source of materials, the reviews come from the websites of popular quality newspapers.
In order to ensure the research a relatively high reliability, the linguistic data needs to be as large as possible. Therefore, my corpus (DIY BRC) totals approximately 115 000 words derived from as many as 166 book reviews. The mean sample size is between 660 and 982 words.
At a glance
- Appendix reproduces the 450 most frequent word-forms in the corpus
- Frequency lists and concordances generated with WordSmith Tools
- Contextual comparison of the synonyms writer and author
- 34 sources in the bibliography
Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
1 THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF THE CORPUS LINGUISTICS
1.1 Corpus linguistics - historical sketch and scope of interest
1.1.1 The definition and area of interest
1.1.2 The historical background of corpus linguistics
1.2 The idea of corpus
1.2.1 Defining the term
1.2.2 Major electronic corpora
1.2.2.1 The COBUILD Bank of English
1.2.2.2 The British National Corpus
1.2.2.3 Other important corpora of English
1.2.2.4 Corpora for special purposes
1.2.3 Issues in compilation and corpus design
1.2.3.1 Criteria for corpus design
1.2.3.2 Size
1.2.3.3 Representativeness
1.2.4 Basic procedures used in corpus analysis
1.2.4.1 Frequency list
1.2.4.2 Concordances
CHAPTER TWO
2 INFORMATION CONNECTED WITH THE GENRE OF REVIEWS
2.1 Main characteristic of the press
2.1.1 Press genres
2.2 Main characteristic of reviews
2.2.1 Book reviews
2.2.1.1 Book review vocabulary
CHAPTER THREE
3 A CORPUS-BASED RESEARCH INTO BOOKS’ REVIEWS
3.1 Compilation of the DIY Book Review Corpus – basic information
3.2 Frequency of words
3.2.1 General versus specialized vocabulary
3.2.2 Findings concerning the frequency list of book review terms
3.3 Concordance analyses of selected terms
3.3.1 The noun reader
3.3.2 The noun book
3.3.3 The noun novel
3.3.4 The noun plot
3.3.5 The noun character
3.3.6 The noun story
3.3.7 Synonyms writer and author
CONCLUSION
SUMMARY IN POLISH
Objectives and Topics
This study investigates the language of English-language book reviews and asks which words and phrases readers are most likely to encounter in them. It examines whether book reviewing can be understood as a specialized register, using an author-compiled corpus and corpus-linguistic methods to explore vocabulary, frequency and context.
- The history, scope and methods of corpus linguistics
- Corpus design, size and representativeness
- Press genres and the characteristics of book reviews
- An intuitively selected glossary of book review terminology
- Word frequencies and concordance patterns in newspaper reviews
- Contextual comparison of the synonyms writer and author
Excerpt from the Book
1.2.3.1 Criteria for corpus design
Prior to compiling a corpus, researcher should take many issues into consideration. First of all, the aim of the project ought to be clearly defined. It affects the type of corpus and its design. However, the main problem that linguists come up against is to compile corpus that can serve the purpose for which it was aimed.
It is obviously impossible to pick all objects of research into a corpus. Therefore, compiler should consider some general criteria for texts selection. The majority of linguists deal only with external criteria which seem to be primarily at least at the beginning of the process. These are fundamentally non-linguistic criteria referred to representativeness, size and sampling that are presented below.
Another issues are, according to Atkins et al., range of language varieties, the time period covered and decisions whether to include written and spoken texts and in case of containing speech the approximate level of encoding detail to be recorded in electronic form. If one decides to make both written material and speech as a part of corpus, the next choice should be related to the proportion of each, Kennedy called it a balance.
Including of spoken language may bring some problems, that is why linguists often concentrate only on written form. Sinclair warned compilers not to include so called ‘quasi-speech’ forms like film scripts, drama texts, etc., which may be regarded by some researchers as spoken materials. They are of poor value in a general corpus, because such scripts does not substitute for natural conversations.
The corpus may comprise either a total population of texts, e.g. of a particular author, or a sample of texts from an analysed population. Another matter that should be borne in mind is a decision about the type of corpus, whether it should be synchronic, which means that the time of the text publishing is rather irrelevant, or diachronic one, if the period to be covered is closely connected with the subject of study.
All things considered, there are many criteria that may be used in corpus design. Nevertheless, it is recommendable to accept the smallest set of criteria that is regarded as reasonable for a corpus. Useful criteria for a general corpus, according to Sinclair, are issues referred to the style of texts (formal, informal), the age, sex and origin of the author, the genre of writing (whether the work is fiction or non-fiction) and the source of texts (book, newspaper, journal).
Chapter Summaries
INTRODUCTION: The author sets out the research question, the purpose of the corpus and the organization of the study.
1 THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF THE CORPUS LINGUISTICS: This chapter introduces corpus linguistics, major English corpora and the principles of corpus design. It also explains frequency lists and concordances as tools for linguistic analysis.
2 INFORMATION CONNECTED WITH THE GENRE OF REVIEWS: The chapter discusses the press, opinion genres and the structure and purposes of book reviews. It also presents an intuitively selected glossary of book review vocabulary.
3 A CORPUS-BASED RESEARCH INTO BOOKS’ REVIEWS: The author describes the compilation of the DIY Book Review Corpus and examines word frequencies and selected terms in context. A concordance analysis also compares the uses of writer and author.
CONCLUSION: The concluding chapter brings together the study’s observations about specialized vocabulary and reflects on corpus analysis and linguistic intuition.
SUMMARY IN POLISH: A Polish-language summary outlines the study’s aims, corpus, methods and chapter structure.
Keywords
corpus linguistics, book reviews, specialized language, newspaper reviews, DIY Book Review Corpus, corpus design, word frequency, concordances, WordSmith Tools, lexical analysis, book review vocabulary, linguistic intuition, collocations, register
Frequently Asked Questions
What is this study about?
It examines the English used in newspaper book reviews, with particular attention to recurring vocabulary and expressions.
What are its central topics?
The study covers corpus linguistics, corpus design, press genres, book review vocabulary, word frequency and concordance analysis.
What is the main research question?
The author asks which words and phrases are most likely to appear in book reviews and explores the genre as a specialized register.
What research method does the author use?
The author compiles a specialized corpus of book reviews and analyzes it using frequency lists and concordances in WordSmith Tools.
What does the main analysis cover?
It describes the corpus, examines a frequency list of review terms and studies selected nouns and their contexts, including a comparison of writer and author.
Which keywords characterize the study?
Key terms include corpus linguistics, book reviews, specialized language, word frequency, concordances and lexical analysis.
What material does the author’s corpus contain?
The DIY Book Review Corpus consists of 166 complete book reviews totaling 114,938 words, drawn from three British and American newspaper sources.
How does the study use an intuitively selected glossary?
The author presents a glossary of terms selected through intuition and compares that selection with vocabulary identified through corpus frequencies.
Which pair of synonyms receives a contextual comparison?
The study compares writer and author using concordance lines to examine similarities and differences in their contexts.
- Quote paper
- Renata Frosztęga (Author), 2014, A corpus-based study of the language used in book reviews, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/337151
