Article published in:
Words, grammar, text: revisiting the work of John SinclairEdited by Rosamund Moon
[International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 12:2] 2007
► pp. 249–268
Semantic prosody revisited
Susan Hunston | University of Birmingham
This paper considers the contentious term ‘semantic prosody’ and discusses a number of aspects of the concept described by the term. It is pointed out that although many writers use it to refer to the implied attitudinal meaning of a word, Sinclair uses the term to refer to the discourse function of a unit of meaning. Problems of apparent counter-examples, when a word or unit does not have the semantic prosody that is typical of it, are discussed. The second point made is that the phenomena described as ‘semantic prosody’ can be regarded as observational data, but that they are often used to explain subjective reactions to a given text or to predict such reactions. The issues raised by these different uses are discussed. Finally, the pitfalls of using concordance lines to observe attitudinal language in highly opinionated texts are discussed.
Published online: 27 June 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.12.2.09hun
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.12.2.09hun
Cited by
Cited by 89 other publications
No author info given
2015. .
In Crime and Corpus [Linguistic Approaches to Literature, 20],
No author info given
2016. .
In Contrastive Pragmatics and Translation [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 261],
No author info given
2019. Introduction.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 1 ff.
No author info given
2019. From a Unit of Meaning to a Meaning-Shift Unit.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 9 ff.
No author info given
2019. L2 Use and Processing of Multi-Word Units.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 38 ff.
No author info given
2019. Triangulating Usage, Exposure and Processing.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 66 ff.
No author info given
2019. Meaning-Shift Units in L2 Learning and Use: Usage vs. Exposure.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 101 ff.
No author info given
2019. Meaning-Shift Units in L2 Processing: Usage vs. Word Association Responses.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 153 ff.
No author info given
2019. Towards the Bigger Picture.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 206 ff.
No author info given
2019. A Sample Word Association Task.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 220 ff.
No author info given
2019. Usage Concgrams Compared to Exposure Corpus.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 224 ff.
No author info given
2019. Meaning-Based Responses Are ‘Harder’ to Give.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 239 ff.
No author info given
2019. References.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 245 ff.
No author info given
2019. Index.
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
► pp. 264 ff.
No author info given
2019. .
In Sensory Linguistics [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 20],
No author info given
2019. Chapter 18. Conclusion.
In Sensory Linguistics [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 20],
► pp. 235 ff.
Abdumanapovna, Sharipova Aziza
2019. .
In 2019 International Conference on Information Science and Communications Technologies (ICISCT),
► pp. 1 ff.
Albakry, Mohammed
2015. Telling by omission.
In Corpus-based Research in Applied Linguistics [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 66],
► pp. 79 ff.
Andersen, Gisle
2017. A corpus study of pragmatic adaptation: The case of the Anglicism [ jobb ] in Norwegian.
Journal of Pragmatics 113 ► pp. 127 ff.
AYTAÇ DEMİRÇİVİ, Kadriye
2022. A Corpus-Based Comparative Analysis of Dedikodu and Gıybet in Turkish.
Dil Eğitimi ve Araştırmaları Dergisi
Bartley, Leanne & Encarnación Hidalgo-Tenorio
2016. “To be Irish, gay, and on the outside”.
Journal of Language and Sexuality 5:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Blinder, Scott & William L. Allen
2016. Constructing Immigrants: Portrayals of Migrant Groups in British National Newspapers, 2010–2012.
International Migration Review 50:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Bondi, Marina & Leonardo Sanna
2022. Chapter 7. Exploring the echo chamber concept.
In Conspiracy Theory Discourses [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 98],
► pp. 143 ff.
Braun, Nadine, Martijn Goudbeek & Emiel Krahmer
2022. Affective Words and the Company They Keep: Studying the Accuracy of Affective Word Lists in Determining Sentence and Word Valence in a Domain-Specific Corpus.
IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing 13:3 ► pp. 1440 ff.
Carr, Georgia & Monika Bednarek
2019. Beyond risk and safety? Identifying shifts in sex education advice targeted at young women.
Discourse & Society 30:3 ► pp. 225 ff.
Chen, Yaoyao & Svenja Adolphs
2022. Towards a corpus-based description of speech-gesture units of meaning.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Cheong, Euijung
2013. Review.
English for Specific Purposes 32:3 ► pp. 190 ff.
Diaz, Brett A.
2021. Corpus Linguistic Methodology as an Advanced Conversion Design for Social Science Research.
International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches 13:3 ► pp. 254 ff.
Dong, Jihua & Louisa Buckingham
2018. The collocation networks of stance phrases.
Journal of English for Academic Purposes 36 ► pp. 119 ff.
Dushku, Silvana & Youngshil Paek
2021. Investigating ESL learners’ awareness of semantic prosody across proficiency levels.
Language Awareness 30:3 ► pp. 234 ff.
Egbert, Jesse, Tove Larsson & Douglas Biber
2020. .
In Doing Linguistics with a Corpus,
Ethelston, Graham
2009. Appraisal in evangelical sermons: the projection and functions of misguided voices.
Text & Talk - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies 29:6 ► pp. 683 ff.
Forchini, Pierfranca
2013. A diachronic study of familiarizers (‘man’, ‘guys’, ‘buddy’, ‘dude’) in movie language.
Perspectives 21:4 ► pp. 504 ff.
Freitas, Cláudia
2013. Sobre a construção de um léxico da afetividade para o processamento computacional do português.
Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada 13:4 ► pp. 1031 ff.
Giovanelli, Marcello
2022. Blame.
In The Language of Siegfried Sassoon [Palgrave Studies in Language, Literature and Style, ],
► pp. 111 ff.
Grabowski, Łukasz
2022. Provoke or encourage improvements? On semantic prosody in English-to-Polish translation.
Perspectives 30:1 ► pp. 120 ff.
Guo, Xiuyan, Li Zheng, Lei Zhu, Zhiliang Yang, Chao Chen, Lei Zhang, Wendy Ma & Zoltan Dienes
2011. Acquisition of conscious and unconscious knowledge of semantic prosody.
Consciousness and Cognition 20:2 ► pp. 417 ff.
GÜNDOĞDU, Ayşe Eda
2020. Karşıtlıkların Anlambilimsel Söylem Ezgisi: Hafif ve Ağır Düğüm Sözcükleri Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme.
SÖYLEM Filoloji Dergisi
Hathaway, Yulia
2021. “They Made us into a Race. We Made Ourselves into a People”: A Corpus Study of Contemporary Black American Group Identity in the Non-Fictional Writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Corpus Pragmatics 5:3 ► pp. 313 ff.
Hobbs, Valerie
2015. Characterizations of Feminism in Reformed Christian Online Media.
Journal of Media and Religion 14:4 ► pp. 211 ff.
Isam, Hishamudin, Mohd Izani Mohd Zain, Mashetoh Abd Mutalib & Rohaidah Haron
2014. Semantic Prosody of [pendidikan/education] from Khaled Nordin's Perspective: An Analysis of Speech Texts based on Corpus Linguistic Methodology.
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 118 ► pp. 172 ff.
Jurko, Primož
2017. Pragmatic meaning in contrast: semantic prosodies of Slovene and English.
Perspectives 25:1 ► pp. 157 ff.
Jurko, Primož
2022. Semantic prosody of Slovene adverb–verb collocations: introducing the top-down approach.
Corpora 17:1 ► pp. 39 ff.
Krishnamurthy, Ramesh
2019. Collocations and Lexicography: Sinclairian Theory in Practice.
In International Handbook of Modern Lexis and Lexicography,
► pp. 1 ff.
Lan, Xijun & Yuanqi Wang
2021. .
In 2021 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Image Processing, Electronics and Computers,
► pp. 590 ff.
Lehecka, Tomas
2015. Collocation and colligation.
In Handbook of Pragmatics,
Lehto, Anu
2019. Chapter 10. The representation of citizens and monarchy in Acts of Parliament in 1800 to 2000.
In Corpus-based Research on Variation in English Legal Discourse [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 91],
► pp. 235 ff.
Lehto, Anu
2022. Chapter 9. Unhappy patients and eminent physicians.
In Corpus Pragmatic Studies on the History of Medical Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 330],
► pp. 203 ff.
Li, Xiaohong & Naixing Wei
2020. Exploring the Roles of Semantic Prosody and Semantic Preference for Achieving Cross-Language Equivalence: A Corpus-based Contrastive Analysis of Translation Pairs in English and Chinese.
In Corpus-based Translation and Interpreting Studies in Chinese Contexts,
► pp. 115 ff.
Lima-Lopes, Rodrigo Esteves, Karen Tank Mercuri & Maristella Gabardo
2021. Avaliatividade em comentários sobre postagens dedicadas à verificação de notícias falsas nas eleições presidenciais de 2018.
Cadernos de Linguística 1:4 ► pp. 01 ff.
Littlemore, Jeannette, Paula Pérez Sobrino, David Houghton, Jinfang Shi & Bodo Winter
2018. What makes a good metaphor? A cross-cultural study of computer-generated metaphor appreciation.
Metaphor and Symbol 33:2 ► pp. 101 ff.
Marko, Karoline
2021. Serving the Public Good?—A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis of Private Prisons and For-Profit Incarceration in the United States.
Frontiers in Communication 6
Mason, Jon
2014. The why dimension, dialogic inquiry, and technology supported learning.
In Educating in Dialog [Dialogue Studies, 24],
► pp. 51 ff.
McGee, Iain
2012. Should We Teach Semantic Prosody Awareness?.
RELC Journal 43:2 ► pp. 169 ff.
McIntyre, Dan
2007. Review of Sinclair & Carter ((2004)): Trust the Text: Language, Corpus and Discourse.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 12:4 ► pp. 563 ff.
McIntyre, Dan
2014. The year’s work in stylistics 2013.
Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 23:4 ► pp. 389 ff.
McIntyre, Dan
2018. Chapter 5. Irony and semantic prosody revisited.
In The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter [Linguistic Approaches to Literature, 30],
► pp. 81 ff.
Omidian, Taha & Anna Siyanova‐Chanturia
2020. Semantic Prosody Revisited: Implications for Language Learning.
TESOL Quarterly 54:2 ► pp. 512 ff.
Oster, Ulrike
2010. Using corpus methodology for semantic and pragmatic analyses: What can corpora tell us about the linguistic expression of emotions?.
cogl 21:4 ► pp. 727 ff.
Partington, Alan
2011. Phrasal irony: Its form, function and exploitation.
Journal of Pragmatics 43:6 ► pp. 1786 ff.
Partington, Alan
2014. Evaluative prosody.
In Corpus Pragmatics,
► pp. 279 ff.
Partington, Alan
2014. Mind the gaps.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19:1 ► pp. 118 ff.
Partington, Alan
2017. Evaluative clash, evaluative cohesion and how we actually read evaluation in texts.
Journal of Pragmatics 117 ► pp. 190 ff.
Partington, Alan
2017. Varieties of non-obvious meaning in CL and CADS: from ‘hindsight post-dictability’ to sweet serendipity.
Corpora 12:3 ► pp. 339 ff.
Sayaheen, Bilal & Mona Nabeel Malkawi
2019. Understanding the Nature of Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Corpus-based Study of Semantic Prosody in Arabic Political Discourse.
Lebende Sprachen 64:2 ► pp. 309 ff.
Schmitt, Norbert
2012. Formulaic Language and Collocation.
In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics,
Shin, Yu Kyoung
2020. Evaluative prosody and semantic preference: Extending the analysis of recurrent multiword sequences.
English for Specific Purposes 59 ► pp. 45 ff.
Sivaieva, Olga
2020. CORPUS ANALYSIS OF COLLOCATIONS WITH HEALTH IN THE MEDIA TEXTS.
Studia Philologica 2:15 ► pp. 14 ff.
Snefjella, Bryor & Victor Kuperman
2016. It’s all in the delivery: Effects of context valence, arousal, and concreteness on visual word processing.
Cognition 156 ► pp. 135 ff.
Snefjella, Bryor, Nadia Lana & Victor Kuperman
2020. How emotion is learned: Semantic learning of novel words in emotional contexts.
Journal of Memory and Language 115 ► pp. 104171 ff.
Soro, Tommie
2021. How symbolic value is constructed through utterances: Discursive power and performances of reputation in the field of online art magazines.
Poetics 89 ► pp. 101572 ff.
Soro, Tommie, Tim Stott & Brendan K. O’Rourke
2021. The rules of the game: discursive norms and limits in the field of online art magazines.
Social Semiotics 31:2 ► pp. 324 ff.
Stubbs, Michael
2009. Memorial Article: John Sinclair (1933–2007).
Applied Linguistics 30:1 ► pp. 115 ff.
Stubbs, Michael
2015. Computer-Assisted Methods of Analyzing Textual and Intertextual Competence.
In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis,
► pp. 486 ff.
Su, Hang & Susan Hunston
2019. Adjective complementation patterns and judgement: Aligning lexical-grammatical and discourse-semantic approaches in appraisal research.
Text & Talk 39:3 ► pp. 415 ff.
Tang, Xuri
2017. Lexeme-based collexeme analysis with DepCluster.
Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 13:1
Tang, Xuri & Gaixiang Liu
2018. Solving contradictions in semantic prosody analysis with prosody concord.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 23:4 ► pp. 437 ff.
Vessey, Rachelle
2016. Approaches to Language Ideology.
In Language and Canadian Media,
► pp. 59 ff.
Vetchinnikova, Svetlana
2019. .
In Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
Vetchinnikova, Svetlana & Turo Hiltunen
2020. ELF and Language Change at the Individual Level.
In Language Change,
► pp. 205 ff.
Wei, Naixing
2015. Review of Xiao & McEnery ((2010)): A Corpus-based Contrastive Study of English and Chinese.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 20:2 ► pp. 260 ff.
Weizman, Elda & Marjut Johansson
2019. Constructing ordinariness in online commenting in Hebrew1 and Finnish.
In The Construction of ‘Ordinariness’ across Media Genres [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 307],
► pp. 209 ff.
Wild, Kate, Andrew Church, Diana McCarthy & Jacquelin Burgess
2013. Quantifying lexical usage: vocabulary pertaining to ecosystems and the environment.
Corpora 8:1 ► pp. 53 ff.
Winter, Bodo
2016. Taste and smell words form an affectively loaded and emotionally flexible part of the English lexicon.
Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 31:8 ► pp. 975 ff.
Zanettin, Federico
2021. .
In News Media Translation,
Zhang, Dan
2022. Multiculturalism in media representation.
Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal 13:1 ► pp. 99 ff.
Zhang, Hong
2021. “What do you know about semantic prosody?” Teaching and evaluating implicit knowledge of English with corpus-assisted methods.
English in Education 55:4 ► pp. 337 ff.
마승혜
2014. Corpus-Based Semantic Prosody Teaching, Necessary to be Incorporated into Translation Courses.
The Journal of Translation Studies 15:5 ► pp. 57 ff.
신수영
2014. A corpus-based study on semantic prosodies of Chinese near-synonym : with daozhi(導致)and yinqi(引起) as an example.
The Journal of Study on Language and Culture of Korea and China null:36 ► pp. 79 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 january 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.