Article published in:
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 20:3 (2015) ► pp. 273–292

ProtAnt

A tool for analysing the prototypicality of texts

| Waseda University
| Lancaster University
Corpus-based researchers and traditional qualitative researchers, such as those interested in critical discourse analysis, are often required to select prototypical texts for close reading that include the language features of interest that are present in a much larger corpus. Traditional approaches to this selection procedure have been largely ad hoc. In this paper, we offer a more principled way of selecting texts for close reading based on a ranking of texts in terms of the number of keywords they contain. To facilitate this analysis, we have developed a multiplatform, freeware software tool called ProtAnt that analyses the texts, generates a ranked list of keywords based on statistical significance and effect size, and then orders the texts by the number of keywords in them. We describe various experiments that demonstrate the ProtAnt analysis is effective not only at identifying prototypical texts, but also identifying outlier texts that may need to be removed from a target corpus.
Keywords: prototypicality, keywords, ProtAnt, qualitative research, critical discourse analysis
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 28 August 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.20.3.01ant
References
Anthony, L
(2014) AntConc (Version 3.4.3) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Retrieved from http://​www​.laurenceanthony​.net​/software​/antconc/ (last accessed May 2015).Google Scholar
Anthony, L., & Baker, P
(2015) ProtAnt (Version 1.0) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Retrieved from http://​www​.laurenceanthony​.net​/software​/protant/ (last accessed May 2015).Google Scholar
Bahrololoum, A., Nezamabadi-pour, H., Bahrololoum, H., & Saeed, M
(2012) A prototype classifier based on gravitational search algorithm. Applied Soft Computing, 12(2), 819–825. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baker, P
(2009) The BE06 Corpus of British English and recent language change. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 14(3), 312–337. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., & McEnery. T
(2013) Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam in the British Press. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Caldas-Coulthard, C.R., & van Leeuwen, T
(2013) Teddy bear stories. In R. Wodak, (Ed.), Critical Discourse Analysis Volume II: Methodologies (pp. 35–60). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. (Original work published 2003).Google Scholar
Chen, L., Guo, G., & Wang, K
(2011) Class-dependent projection based method for text categorization. Pattern Recognition Letters, 32(10), 1493–1501. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chouliaraki, L
(2013) Political discourse in the news: Democratizing responsibility or aestheticizing politics? In R. Wodak, (Ed.), Critical Discourse Analysis Volume II: Methodologies (pp. 97–118). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. (Original work published 2000).Google Scholar
Damerau, F.J
(1993) Generating and evaluating domain-oriented multi-word terms from texts. Information Processing and Management, 29(4), 433–447. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Durfee, A., Visa, A., Vanharanta, H., Schneberger, S., & Back, B
(2007) Mining text with the Prototype-matching method. Information Resources Management Journal, 20(3), 19–31. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ehrlich, S.Z., & Blum-Kulka, S
(2013) Peer talk as a ‘double opportunity space’: The case of argumentative discourse. In R. Wodak, (Ed.), Critical Discourse Analysis Volume II: Methodologies (pp. 145–168). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. (Original work published 2010).Google Scholar
Fayed, H.A., Hashem, S.R., & Atiya, A.F
(2007) Self-generating prototypes for pattern classification. Pattern Recognition, 40(5), 1498–1509. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gabrielatos, C., & Baker, P
(2008) Fleeing, sneaking, flooding: A corpus analysis of discursive constructions of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK Press (1996-2005). Journal of English Linguistics, 36(1), 5–38. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gavriely-Nuri, D
(2013) If both opponents “extend hands in peace”, why don’t they meet? Mythic metaphors and cultural codes in the Israeli peace discourse. In R. Wodak, (Ed.). Critical Discourse Analysis Volume II: Methodologies (pp. 169–186). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. (Original work published 2010).Google Scholar
Gries, S. Th
(2003) Towards a corpus-based identification of prototypical instances of constructions. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 11, 1–27. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hardie, A
(2014) CQPWeb (Version 3.1.10) [Computer Software]. Lancaster, UK: Lancaster University. Retrieved from https://​cqpweb​.lancs​.ac​.uk/ (last accessed May 2015).Google Scholar
Khosravinik, M
(2010) The representation of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in British newspapers: A critical discourse analysis. Journal of Language and Politics, 9(1), 1–28. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kloptchenko, A., Back, B., Visa, A., Toivonen, J., & Vanharanta, H
(2002) Toward content based retrieval from scientific text corpora. In Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Systems (ICAIS), Divnomorskoe, Russia , 5-10 September 2002 (pp. 444–449). Washington, DC, USA: IEEE Computer Society. Crossref
Kloptchenko, A., Magnusson, C., Back, B., Visa, A., & Vanharanta, H
(2004) Mining textual contents of financial reports. The International Journal of Digital Accounting Research, 4(7), 1–29.Google Scholar
Labov, W
(1973) The boundaries of words and their meanings. In J. Fishman (Ed.), New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English (pp. 340–73). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Leńko-Szymańska, A
(2006) The curse and blessing of mobile phones: A corpus-based study into American and Polish rhetorical conventions. In A. Wilson, D. Archer & P. Rayson (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics around the World (pp. 141–151). London, UK: Rodopi. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Machin, D., & Suleman, U
(2013) Arab and American computer war games: The influence of a global technology on discourse. In R. Wodak, (Ed.), Critical Discourse Analysis Volume II: Methodologies (pp. 229–252). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. (Original work published 2006)Google Scholar
Manning, C.D., Raghavan, P., & Schutze, H
(2008) An Introduction to Information Retrieval. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Potts, A., & Baker. P
(2012) Does semantic tagging identify cultural change in British and American English? International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 17(3), 295–324. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rosch, E
(1975) Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104(3), 192–233. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sajid, F
(2013) Critical discourse analysis of news headline about Imran Khan’s peace march towards Wazaristan. Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 7(3), 18–24. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Scott, M
(2014) WordSmith Tools (Version 6) [Computer Software]. Liverpool, UK: Lexical Analysis Software. Retrieved from http://​www​.lexically​.net​/wordsmith​/index​.html (last accessed May 2015).Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, T
(1996) The representation of social actors. In C.R. Caldas Coulthard & M. Coulthard (Eds.), Texts and Practices (pp. 32–70). London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Visa, A., Toivonen, J., Vanharanta, H., & Back, B
(2001) Prototype matching: Finding meaning in the books of the bible. In Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-34), Hawaii, USA, 3-6 January 2001 (pp. 3002). Washington, DC, USA: IEEE Computer Society.
Widdowson, H.G
(2004) Text, Context, Pretext: Critical Issues in Discourse Analysis. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wodak, R
(2013) Critical Discourse Analysis. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. CrossrefGoogle Scholar

Full-text

ProtAnt
Cited by

Cited by 11 other publications

Dong, Jihua
2018. Baker, P., & Egbert, J. (Eds.) (2016). Triangulating Methodological Approaches in Corpus Linguistic Research . International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 23:3 ► pp. 375 ff. Crossref logo
Fernández, Julieta
2022. Corpus linguistics in L2 pragmatics research. Applied Pragmatics Crossref logo
Gianfreda, Stella
2018. Politicization of the refugee crisis?: a content analysis of parliamentary debates in Italy, the UK, and the EU. Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica 48:1 ► pp. 85 ff. Crossref logo
Hocking, Darryl
2021. Artist’s statements, ‘how to guides’ and the conceptualisation of creative practice. English for Specific Purposes 62 ► pp. 103 ff. Crossref logo
Kania, Ursula
2020. Marriage for all (‘Ehe fuer alle’)?! A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the marriage equality debate in Germany. Critical Discourse Studies 17:2 ► pp. 138 ff. Crossref logo
Lienen, Carmen Sarah & J. Christopher Cohrs
2021. Redefining the Meaning of Negative History in Times of Sociopolitical Change: A Social Creativity Approach. Political Psychology 42:6 ► pp. 941 ff. Crossref logo
Mockler, Nicole
2020. Discourses of teacher quality in the Australian print media 2014–2017: a corpus-assisted analysis. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 41:6 ► pp. 854 ff. Crossref logo
Tang, Chris
2022. ‘Amber Alert’ or ‘Heatwave Warning’: The Role of Linguistic Framing in Mediating Understandings of Early Warning Messages about Heatwaves and Cold Spells. Applied Linguistics 43:2 ► pp. 227 ff. Crossref logo
Turner, Georgina, Sara Mills, Isabelle van der Bom, Laura Coffey-Glover, Laura L Paterson & Lucy Jones
2018. Opposition as victimhood in newspaper debates about same-sex marriage. Discourse & Society 29:2 ► pp. 180 ff. Crossref logo
Wang, Feng (Robin) & Philippe Humblé
2020. Readers’ perceptions of Anthony Yu’s self-retranslation of The Journey to the West. Perspectives 28:5 ► pp. 756 ff. Crossref logo
Zhang, Weiyu & Yin Ling Cheung
2022. The Hierarchy of News Values – A Corpus-Based Diachronic and Cross-Cultural Comparison of News Reporting on Epidemics. Journalism Studies 23:3 ► pp. 281 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2022. 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.