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Corpus-based Approaches to Register Variation
Edited by Elena Seoane and Douglas Biber
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 103] 2021
► pp. 313–338

Chapter 12
Exploring sub-register variation in Victorian newspapers

Evidence from the British Library Newspapers database

| University of Helsinki

This chapter explores sub-register variation in newspaper writing in the 19th century using two corpora extracted from the British Library Newspapers database, the most comprehensive collection of national and regional newspapers from the Victorian period. As an ‘agile’ (Hundt & Mair 1999) register, newspaper writing is well suited for tracing language change and investigating the interrelationship between language and culture. Frequency analysis of select linguistic features identifies systematic patterns of variation, which can be linked to the communicative functions of sub-registers. The chapter also critically reflects on the value of the database for corpus-based register analysis, especially on how the findings and interpretations are contingent on what sampling criteria are used and how the notion of (sub-)register is operationalized.

Keywords: register variation, sub-register, newspaper prose, British Library Newspapers , sampling, text classfication
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Register analysis using BL Newspapers
  • 3.Material and method
    • 3.1Extracting a sample
    • 3.2Method of analysis
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 8 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.103.12hil
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