Article published in:

Genre- and register-related discourse features in contrast
Edited by Marie-Aude Lefer and Svetlana Vogeleer
[Languages in Contrast 14:1] 2014
► pp. 7–34

Using multi-dimensional analysis to explore cross-linguistic universals of register variation

Douglas Biber | Northern Arizona University, USA

Multi-Dimensional analyses have been conducted for many different discourse domains and many different languages. Using bottom-up statistical analyses, these studies have investigated specific patterns of register variation in several different discourse domains of English, as well as the more general patterns of register variation in many different languages. Each study identifies linguistic dimensions that are peculiar to that particular language/domain. However, the more theoretically interesting finding is that linguistically similar dimensions emerge in nearly all of these studies. Two of these dimensions are especially robust, making them strong candidates for universal dimensions of register variation: 1) a fundamental opposition between clausal/‘oral’ discourse vs. phrasal/‘literate’ discourse, and 2) the opposition between narrative vs. non-narrative discourse. The present paper introduces the methodology of Multi-Dimensional analysis and surveys the research studies carried out to date, with an emphasis on these potentially universal patterns of register variation.

Keywords: register variation, oral discourse, multi-dimensional analysis, cross-linguistic universals, literate discourse

Published online: 04 March 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.14.1.02bib

References

Asención Delaney, Y.

and Collentine, J. 2011 “A Multidimensional Analysis of Written L2 Spanish”. Applied Linguistics 32(3):299–322.

Atkinson, D.

1999 Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context: the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675-1975 . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Berber-Sardinha, T., Kauffmann, C.

and Acunzo, Ch 2012 “Dimensions of Variation in Spoken and Written Brazilian Portuguese”. Ms.

Besnier, N.

1988 “The Linguistic Relationships of Spoken and Written Nukulaelae Registers”. Language 64:707–736.

Biber, D.

1985 “Investigating Macroscopic Textual Variation through Multi feature / Multi dimensional Analyses”. Linguistics 23:337–360.

1986 “Spoken and Written Textual Dimensions in English: Resolving the Contradictory Findings”. Language 62:384–414.

1988 Variation across Speech and Writing . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1995 Dimensions of Register Variation: a Cross-linguistic Perspective . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2001 “Dimensions of Variation among Eighteenth-century Speech-based and Written Registers”. In Multi-Dimensional Studies of Register Variation in English , S. Conrad and D. Biber (eds), 200–214. London: Longman.

2006 University Language: a Corpus-based Study of Spoken and Written Registers . Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

2008 “Corpus-based Analyses of Discourse: Dimensions of Variation in Conversation”. In Advances in Discourse Studies, V. Bhatia, J. Flowerdew and R. Jones (eds), 100–114. London: Routledge.

2009 “Are There Linguistic Consequences of Literacy? Comparing the Potentials of Language Use in Speech and Writing”. In Cambridge Handbook of Literacy , D. R. Olson and N. Torrance (eds), 75–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2011 “Speech and Writing: Linguistic Styles Enabled by the Technology of Literacy”. In The Pragmatics of Society , G. Andersen and K. Aijmer (eds), 137–152. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Biber, D., Connor, U.

and Upton, T. A. 2007 Discourse on the Move: Using Corpus Analysis to Describe Discourse Structure . Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Biber, D.

and Conrad, S. 2009 Register, Genre, and Style . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Biber, D., Davies, M., Jones, J. K.

and Tracy-Ventura, N. 2006 “Spoken and Written Register Variation in Spanish: a Multi-dimensional Analysis”. Corpora 1:7–38.

Biber, D.

and Gray, B. 2011 “Grammar Emerging in the Noun Phrase: the Influence of Written Language Use”. English Language and Linguistics 15:223–250.

and Gray, B. 2013 Discourse Characteristics of Writing and Speaking Responses on the TOEFL iBT . Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Biber, D., Gray, B.

and Poonpon, K. 2011 “Should We Use Characteristics of Conversation to Measure Grammatical Complexity in L2 Writing Development?” TESOL Quarterly 45:5–35.

Biber, D.

and Hared, M. 1992 “Dimensions of Register Variation in Somali”. Language Variation and Change 4:41–75.

and Jones, J. K. 2005 “Merging Corpus Linguistic and Discourse-analytic Research Goals: Discourse Units in Biology Research Articles”. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 1:151–182.

and Kurjian, J. 2007 “Towards a Taxonomy of Web Registers and Text Types: a Multi-dimensional Analysis”. In Corpus Linguistics and the Web , M. Hundt, N. Nesselhauf and C. Biewer (eds), 109–132. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Duranti, A.

1994 From Grammar to Politics: Linguistic Anthropology in a Western Samoan Village . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Egbert, J.

2012 “Style in Nineteenth Century Fiction: a Multi-dimensional Analysis”. Scientific Study of Literature 2:167–198.

Friginal, E.

2009 The Language of Outsourced Call Centers . Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

2013 “Twenty-five Years of Biber’s Multi-Dimensional Analysis: Introduction to the Special Issue and Interview with Douglas Biber”. Corpora 8(2):715–736.

Goźdź-Roszkowski, S.

2011 Patterns of Linguistic Variation in American Legal English: a Corpus-based Study . Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Gray, B.

2013 “More than Discipline: Uncovering Multi-dimensional Patterns of Variation in Academic Research Articles”. Corpora 8(2): 153–181.

Grieve, J., Biber, D., Friginal, E.

and Nekrasova, T. 2011 “Variation among Blogs: a Multi-dimensional Analysis”. In Genres on the Web: Computational Models and Empirical Studies , A. Mehler, S. Sharoff and M. Santini (eds), 303–322. Berlin: Springer.

Jang, Shyue-Chian

1998 Dimensions of Spoken and Written Taiwanese: a Corpus-based Register Study . PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii.

Kanoksilapatham, B.

2007 “Rhetorical Moves in Biochemistry Research Articles”. In Biber, Connor and Upton 2007 73–120.

Kim, YongJin

and Biber, D. 1994 “A Corpus-based Analysis of Register Variation in Korean”. In Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register , D. Biber and E. Finegan (eds), 157–181. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kodytek, V.

2007 “On the Replicability of the Biber Model: the Case of Czech”. Ms.

Parodi, G.

2007 “Variation across Registers in Spanish”. In Working with Spanish Corpora , G. Parodi (ed), 11–53. London: Continuum.

Purvis, T. M.

2008 A Linguistic and Discursive Analysis of Register Variation in Dagbani . PhD Dissertation, Indiana University.

Reppen, R.

2001 “Register Variation in Student and Adult Speech and Writing”. In Multi-Dimensional Studies of Register Variation in English , S. Conrad and D. Biber (eds), 187–199. London: Longman.

White, M.

1994 Language in Job Interviews: Differences Relating to Success and Socioeconomic Variables . Ph.D. Dissertation, Northern Arizona University.

Xiao, R.

2009 “Multidimensional Analysis and the Study of World Englishes”. World English 28(4):421–450.

Cited by

Cited by 28 other publications

Biber, Douglas

2014. In Multi-Dimensional Analysis, 25 years on [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 60], ► pp. xxvii ff.

Biber, Douglas

2019. Text-linguistic approaches to register variation. Register Studies 1:1 ► pp. 42 ff.

Biber, Douglas & Susan Conrad

2019. In Register, Genre, and Style,

Biber, Douglas & Jesse Egbert

2016. Register Variation on the Searchable Web. Journal of English Linguistics 44:2 ► pp. 95 ff.

Biber, Douglas & Jesse Egbert

2018. In Register Variation Online,

Biber, Douglas & Jesse Egbert

2020. In Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 97], ► pp. 318 ff.

Biber, Douglas, Jesse Egbert & Daniel Keller

2020. Reconceptualizing register in a continuous situational space . Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 16:3 ► pp. 581 ff.

Biber, Douglas, Bethany Gray & Shelley Staples

2016. Predicting Patterns of Grammatical Complexity Across Language Exam Task Types and Proficiency Levels. Applied Linguistics 37:5 ► pp. 639 ff.

Biber, Douglas, Bethany Gray, Shelley Staples & Jesse Egbert

2020. Investigating grammatical complexity in L2 English writing research: Linguistic description versus predictive measurement. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 46 ► pp. 100869 ff.

Bohmann, Axel

2019. In Variation in English Worldwide,

Cvrček, Václav, Zuzana Komrsková, David Lukeš, Petra Poukarová, Anna Řehořková & Adrian Jan Zasina

2018. From extra- to intratextual characteristics: Charting the space of variation in Czech through MDA . Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 0:0

Cvrček, Václav, Zuzana Komrsková, David Lukeš, Petra Poukarová, Anna Řehořková, Adrian Jan Zasina & Vladimír Benko

2020. Comparing web-crawled and traditional corpora. Language Resources and Evaluation 54:3 ► pp. 713 ff.

Dunn, Jonathan

2018. Finding variants for construction-based dialectometry: A corpus-based approach to regional CxGs. Cognitive Linguistics 29:2 ► pp. 275 ff.

Egbert, Jesse & Michaela Mahlberg

2020. Fiction – one register or two?. Register Studies 2:1 ► pp. 72 ff.

Goulart, Larissa, Bethany Gray, Shelley Staples, Amanda Black, Aisha Shelton, Douglas Biber, Jesse Egbert & Stacey Wizner

2020. Linguistic Perspectives on Register. Annual Review of Linguistics 6:1 ► pp. 435 ff.

Granger, Sylviane & Marie-Aude Lefer

2020. Introduction. Languages in Contrast 20:2 ► pp. 167 ff.

Ivaska, Ilmari & Silvia Bernardini

2020. Constrained language use in Finnish: A corpus-driven approach. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 43:1 ► pp. 33 ff.

Keller, Daniel & Maria Kostromitina

2020. Characterizing non-chain restaurants’ Yelp star-ratings: Generalizable findings from a representative sample of Yelp reviews. International Journal of Hospitality Management 86 ► pp. 102440 ff.

Kruger, Haidee & Bertus van Rooy

2018. Register variation in written contact varieties of English. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 39:2 ► pp. 214 ff.

Kruger, Haidee & Adam Smith

2018. Colloquialization versus Densification in Australian English: A Multidimensional Analysis of the Australian Diachronic Hansard Corpus (ADHC). Australian Journal of Linguistics 38:3 ► pp. 293 ff.

Kruger, Haidee, Bertus van Rooy & Adam Smith

2019. Register Change in the British and Australian Hansard (1901-2015). Journal of English Linguistics 47:3 ► pp. 183 ff.

Liimatta, Aatu

2019. Exploring register variation on Reddit. Register Studies 1:2 ► pp. 269 ff.

Liimatta, Aatu

2020. In Corpus Approaches to Social Media [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 98], ► pp. 111 ff.

Rabadán, Rosa

2019. In Parallel Corpora for Contrastive and Translation Studies [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 90], ► pp. 57 ff.

Shakir, Muhammad & Dagmar Deuber

2018. A multidimensional study of interactive registers in Pakistani and US English. World Englishes 37:4 ► pp. 607 ff.

Staples, Shelley, Jesse Egbert, Douglas Biber & Bethany Gray

2016. Academic Writing Development at the University Level. Written Communication 33:2 ► pp. 149 ff.

Wang, Feng (Robin)

2017. Paul Baker & Jesse Egbert Triangulating methodological approaches in Corpus Linguistic Research . Functions of Language 24:3 ► pp. 357 ff.

Wright, Heidi R.

2020. In Advances in Corpus-based Research on Academic Writing [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 95], ► pp. 308 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 april 2021. 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.