Article published in:
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 25:3 (2020) ► pp. 297–321

Too early to say: The English too ADJ to V construction and models of cross-cultural communications styles

A collostructional approach

| University of Niš
This paper studies the English too ADJ to V construction. It starts with a (multiple) distinctive collexeme analysis (as one of the subtypes of collostructional analysis) of the ADJ-V pairs appearing in the given construction in three regional varieties of English (American, British and Indian English) based on the GloWbE corpus. This analysis establishes the most distinctive and most strongly repelled ADJ-V pairs in the respective varieties. These results are then interpreted from the perspective of three models of inter-cultural and cross-cultural communication styles. The paper demonstrates that the most distinctive and the most repelled ADJ-V pairs do differ across the three varieties and that this may reflect subtle differences in the underlying cultural conceptualizations. The paper also introduces the notion of ‘(multiple) distinctive collexeme analysis of co-varying collexemes’, as an extension of the existing notion of the given type of collostructional analysis.
Keywords: language-culture interrelation, construction grammar, collostructional analysis, communication styles
Published online: 14 October 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.19044.pav
References

References

Baker, P.
(2017) American and British English: Divided by a Common Language? Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bergen, B., & Binsted, K.
(2004) The cognitive linguistics of scalar humor. In M. Achard & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Language, Culture and Mind (pp. 79–91). CSLI.Google Scholar
Davies, M.
(2008–) The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): 600 million words, 1990-present. https://​www​.english​-corpora​.org​/coca/
(2013) Corpus of Global Web-Based English: 1.9 billion words from speakers in 20 countries (GloWbE). https://​www​.english​-corpora​.org​/glowbe/
Fina, M. E.
(2011) What a TripAdvisor corpus can tell us about culture. Cultus: The Journal of Intercultural Mediation and Communication, 4, 59–80.Google Scholar
Fortuin, E.
(2013) The construction of excess and sufficiency from a crosslinguistic perspective. Linguistic Typology, 17, 31–88. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
[ p. 319 ]
(2014) Deconstructing a verbal illusion: The ‘no X is too Y to Z’ construction and the rhetoric of negation. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(2), 242–292. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Geeraerts, D., & Kristiansen, G.
(2014) Cognitive linguistics and language variation. In J. Littlemore & J. Taylor (Eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 202–217). Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E.
(1995) Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gries, S. Th., & Stefanowitsch, A.
(2004a) Extending collostructional analysis: A corpus-based perspective on “alternations”. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 9(1), 97–129.Google Scholar
(2004b) Covarying collexemes in the into-causative. In M. Achard & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Language, Culture and Mind (pp. 225–236). CSLI.Google Scholar
Gries, S. Th., Hampe, B., & Schönefeld, D.
(2005) Converging evidence: Bringing together experimental and corpus data on the association of verbs and constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 16(4), 635–76. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hall, E.
(1976) Beyond Culture. Doubleday.Google Scholar
Hoffman, T., & Trousdale, G.
(Eds.) (2013) The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hofstede, G.
(1991) Cultures and Organizations. McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
(2001) Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Howe, J.
(2016) Rethinking Job Security: A Comparative Analysis of Unfair Dismissal Law in the UK, Australia and the USA. Taylor & Francis. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ivorra Pérez, F. M.
(2014) Cultural values and digital discourse: An intercultural communication approach to the transactional discourse of Spanish and US sales websites. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 36, 50–76.Google Scholar
Jensen, K. E.
(2014a) This construction is too hot to handle: A corpus study of an adjectival construction. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Cognitive Linguistics Association (pp. 740–748). Japanese Cognitive Linguistics Association.Google Scholar
(2014b)  Too female to be ruthless and too pregnant to argue: Semantic conflict and resolution in the [too ADJ to V]-construction. Suvremena lingvistika, 40(77), 1–26Google Scholar
(2014c, July). Force-dynamic cultural models in a scalar adjectival construction [Paper presentation]. 5th UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Lancaster, England. https://​vbn​.aau​.dk​/ws​/files​/206865129​/Force​_dynamic​_manuscript​.pdf
(2015) Inferring cultural models from corpus data: Force-dynamic cultural models reflected in the discursive behavior of a scalar adjectival construction. Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication, 1, 126–151.Google Scholar
(2017) Corpora and cultural cognition: How corpus-linguistic methodology can contribute to cultural linguistics. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), Advances in Cultural Linguistics (pp. 477–505). Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M.
(1987) The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. University of Chicago Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, R. D.
(2005) Finland, Cultural Lone Wolf. Intercultural Press.Google Scholar
(2006) When Cultures Collide: Managing Successfully across Cultures (3rd ed.). Nicholas Brealey.Google Scholar
Murphy, L.
(2018) The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship between American and British English. Penguin.Google Scholar
[ p. 320 ]
Nishimura, S., Nevgi, A., & Tella, S.
(2008) Communication style and cultural features in high/low context communication cultures: A case study of Finland, Japan and India. In A. Kallioniemi (Ed.), Renovating and Developing Subject Didactics. Proceedings of a Subject-didactic Symposium in Helsinki on Feb. 2, 2008 (pp. 783–796). University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
Paradis, C.
(2000)  It’s well weird: Degree modifiers of adjectives revisited: The nineties. In J. M. Kirk (Ed.), Corpora Galore: Analyses and Techniques in Describing English (pp. 147–160). Rodopi.Google Scholar
Pavlović, V.
(2019) Massive corpora and models of cross-cultural communication styles in cognitive linguistics: The case of the N1 V (for) N2 to-infinitive construction in English. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 17(1), 29–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2020) On elements of culturally influenced language use in the “Adj Enough to V” construction in British and American English. In B. Čubrović (Ed.), BELLS90 Proceedings: International Conference to Mark the 90th Anniversary of the English Department (Vol. 1, pp. 165–185). Faculty of Philology. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Piller, I.
(2007) Linguistics and intercultural communication. Language and Linguistic Compass, 1(3). 208–226. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Prykarpatska, I.
(2008) Why are you late? Cross-cultural pragmatic study of complaints in American English and Ukrainian. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, 21, 87–102. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team
(2019) R: A language and environment for statistical computing (Version 3.5.3) [Computer software]. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://​www​.R​-project​.org/
Schönefeld, D.
(2013) It is… quite common for theoretical predictions to go untested (BNC_CMH). A register-specific analysis of the English go un-V-en construction. Journal of Pragmatics, 52, 17–33. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, E. W.
(2007) Postcolonial English: Varieties around the World. Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stefanowitsch, A.
(2013) Collostructional analysis. In T. Hoffman & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar (pp. 290–306). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stefanowitsch, A., & Gries, S. Th.
(2003) Collostructions: Investigating the interaction between words and constructions. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 8(2), 209–243. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2005) Covarying collexemes. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 1(1), 1–43.Google Scholar
Stewart, E. C., & Bennett, M. J.
(1991) American Cultural Patterns: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Rev. ed.). Nicholas Brealey.Google Scholar
Tognini-Bonelli, E.
(2001) Corpus Linguistics at Work. John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tummers, J., Heylen, K., & Geeraerts, D.
(2005) Usage-based approaches in cognitive linguistics: A technical state of the art. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 1(2), 225–261. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wulff, S., Stefanowitsch, A., & Gries, S. Th.
(2007) Brutal Brits and persuasive Americans: Variety-specific meaning construction in the into-causative. In Radden, G., Köpcke, K. -M., Berg, T., & Siemund, P. (Eds.), Aspects of Meaning Construction in Lexicon and Grammar (p. 265–281). John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
[ p. 321 ]