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Corpora and the Changing Society: Studies in the evolution of English
Edited by Paula Rautionaho, Arja Nurmi and Juhani Klemola
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 96] 2020
► pp. 79–112

Semantic neology

Challenges in matching corpus-based semantic change to real-world change

| Birmingham City University

This study deals with contemporary real-world social change and its linguistic expression by means of neosemes, with the help of the WebCorpLSE automated collocation analysis software. The study briefly outlines the history and pattern of diffusion of each of the five user-defined neosemes, noting where possible the tipping point of popularization. We examine these modern neosemes in a series of case studies, focussing on the challenges faced in this task, for instance in the form of rarity of occurrence, as emergent or ephemeral formations. The functionality of the software is examined in each case, in order to demonstrate various measures which can be undertaken to allow or enhance its performance in teasing out collocational profiles from sparse data.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and methods
    • 2.1Data and tools
    • 2.2Tracking the neosemes
  • 3.Case studies
    • 3.1Case study 1: Birther
      • 3.1.1Provenance
      • 3.1.2Assessment of challenge
      • 3.1.3System performance
    • 3.2Case study 2: Normalisation
      • 3.2.1Provenance
      • 3.2.2Assessment of challenge
      • 3.2.3System performance
    • 3.3Case study 3: Cougar
      • 3.3.1Provenance
      • 3.3.2Assessment of challenge
      • 3.3.3System performance
    • 3.4Case study 4: Snowflake
      • 3.4.1Provenance
      • 3.4.2Assessment of challenge
      • 3.4.3System performance
    • 3.5Case study 5: Ghosting
      • 3.5.1Provenance
      • 3.5.2Assessment of challenge
      • 3.5.3System performance
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Challenges
    • 4.2Measures shown to allow or enhance system performance
    • 4.3Sociolinguistic insights gained in the study
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.96.04ren
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Corpora and tools

ACRONYM = Automatic Collocational Retrieval of NYMS project
1994–1997, Liverpool University. [URL]
APRIL = Automatic Prediction of Innovation in Language project
1997–2000, Liverpool University. [URL]
AVIATOR = Analysis of Verbal Interaction & Text Retrieval project
1990–1993, Birmingham University. [URL]
WebCorpLSE = WebCorp Linguist’s Search Engine tools
[URL]

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