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Statistical approaches in linguistics seem to have gained in importance in recent times, especially in the field of Corpus Linguistics. In particular, the last ten years have seen an upsurge of linguists being dedicated to statistical methods and the improvement of statistical knowledge. This has repeatedly been described as ‘the quantitative turn’ in linguistics. In the present paper, we assess how real this quantitative turn actually is and whether statistics can be considered the ‘new normal’ in (corpus) linguistics. To this end, we have analyzed the contributions to six high-impact journals (<italic>Corpora, Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, ICAME Journal, English World-Wide, Journal of English Linguistics</italic>, and <italic>Language Variation and Change</italic>) for a period of eleven years (January 2011 until December 2021). Our results suggest that, indeed, statistical methods seem to be on the rise in linguistic studies. However, their frequency strongly varies between the journals, and, in general, we have identified some room for improvement in the use of advanced statistical methods, in particular the discussion of true prediction.
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How real is the quantitative turn? Investigating statistics as the new normal in linguistics

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In the last few decades, much work in corpus linguistics has attempted to discover, and then interpret, differences in the frequencies of use of linguistic elements (words, patterns, constructions, discourse features, etc.). It is probably fair to say that such studies were particularly frequent in (i) learner corpus research, (ii) corpus-based varieties research, and (iii) sociolinguistically motivated studies. For instance, many studies have discussed the differences in how often certain elements are used (i) in corpus data from native speakers vs. corpus data from learner from different L1 backgrounds, (ii) in corpora representing different inner- and outer-circle varieties, or (iii) by speakers in corpora representing people of different gender or sexual identities.
This paper will make the admittedly bold claim that any such study can in fact by definition unable to ‘prove’ what is often their main points, namely that the distributional differences found are in fact due to the one hypothesized explanatory variable(s) of L1, VARIETY, or, e.g., GENDER even when the distributional differences are significant and come with a decent effect size. To substantiate this claim, I will discuss some terminology from the family of methods known as multi-level modeling, namely the distinction between level-1, level-2, ... level-<italic>n</italic> variables and its relevance for many corpus studies. Second, I will then demonstrate how studies using only the above kinds of variables cannot distinguish the effect of their favored predictors from the effect of local/contextual level-1 variables. Third, in discussing this, I will exemplify how such effects need to be explored quantitatively instead.
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Against level-3-only analyses in corpus linguistics

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The modal verbs of necessity and obligation, a testing ground of grammatical change, have been shown to exhibit change and variation in world Englishes. Previous studies have primarily concentrated on English as a native language (ENL) and English as a second language (ESL) varieties. The present study extends this line of research and explores variation in modal verbs of necessity and obligation in English use as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Descriptive statistics indicate that ELF resembles American English and also shares similarities with ESL varieties. In addition, ELF further exhibits divergence from both ENL and ESL varieties that arises in multilingual interactions. The multivariate analysis of this study employs mixed-effects logistic regression on the use of must and have to. Integrating social and linguistic factors, this analysis exploits metadata gathered from the VOICE corpus, which has thus far been underused. The results of the inferential statistics indicate that the same sociolinguistic factors that influence the variation in ENL and ESL varieties also shape ELF grammar. These findings not only bring ELF closer to other English varieties but also demonstrate the advantage of studying ELF from a variationist sociolinguistic perspective.
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Exploring variation in English as a lingua franca: Multivariate analysis of modal verbs of obligation and necessity in the VOICE corpus

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This article investigates semantic prosody in a diachronic perspective. Although prosodies have been shown to change over time, there is no consensus regarding the source of such changes. The present study explores this further through a corpus study of the development of the lemmas <sc>fabric</sc>, <sc>fabricate</sc> and <sc>fabrication</sc> from the late 15th century to the late 20th century, drawing on material from Early English Books Online, the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts and the British National Corpus. The results of the study show that prosodic changes coincide with the emergence of new senses and indicate that these processes are related to and possibly caused by semantic transfer induced by persistent prosodies over time.
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Semantic prosody, semantic transfer and semantic change

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Previous studies have identified frequent lexical bundles associated with qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research paradigms. These paradigmatic investigations of lexical bundles conducted thus far seem to have two limitations. One is that they have primarily concentrated on distinctive lexical bundles, without much analysis of the shared bundles in qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research paradigms. Another shortcoming is that they tend not to explore in which contexts lexical bundles are likely to occur. These two problems deserve attention, as shared bundles are also frequently used to facilitate fluent linguistic production and analysing lexical bundles in their surrounding contexts can help reveal their specific textual meanings. To address these two limitations, this study seeks to link shared lexical bundles with rhetorical moves based on a corpus consisting of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods nursing research articles. The findings of this study show that in certain move-steps, shared lexical bundles have distinctive discourse functions in mixed methods research. Meanwhile, the findings also show that there are move-steps where shared lexical bundles have similar discourse functions in two or three research paradigms. Revealing shared lexical bundles’ discourse functions in specific contexts may enable learners to know where to use the bundles in a text.
</abstract>

Mapping shared lexical bundles onto rhetorical moves in nursing research articles: A comparative study of paradigmatic variation

Review: Jesse Egbert, Douglas Biber and Bethany Gray. <italic>Designing and evaluating language corpora: A practical framework for corpus representativeness</italic>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 300 pp. ISBN 978-1316605882

Review: Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańska and Sandra Götz (eds.). <italic>Complexity, accuracy and fluency in learner corpus research</italic>. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2022. vi. 327 pp. ISBN 9789027212580 (HB)

Review: Theresa Neumaier. <italic>Conversation in World Englishes: Turn-taking and cultural variation in Southeast Asian and Caribbean English</italic>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. xvi. 288 pp. ISBN 9781108936996

AHEAD OF PRINT

Volume 48 (2024): Issue 1 (May 2024)

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ICAME Journal

 An annual publication containing articles and reviews on research carried out related to English language corpora.  Why subscribe and read?  The ICAME Journal provides an up-to-date international forum for research on English corpus linguistics. It features original studies on recent advances in the exploitation of corpora, corpus compilation and software applications. It also features a large number of reviews of scholarly work in the discipline.  Why submit?  The ICAME Journal reaches a broad audience interested in English corpus linguistics. A varied range of submissions is considered for publication: studies based on the use of language corpora or other electronic resources, reports on corpus compilation projects or software applications, shorter notices on recent events and projects, and reviews of recent work in English corpus linguistics.  The ICAME Journal is an annual blind peer-reviewed publication containing articles and reviews on research carried out related to English language corpora  Rejection Rate   22%   Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 

ICAME Journal

Volume 48 (2024): Issue 1 (May 2024)

How real is the quantitative turn? Investigating statistics as the new normal in linguistics

Against level-3-only analyses in corpus linguistics

Exploring variation in English as a lingua franca: Multivariate analysis of modal verbs of obligation and necessity in the VOICE corpus

Semantic prosody, semantic transfer and semantic change

Mapping shared lexical bundles onto rhetorical moves in nursing research articles: A comparative study of paradigmatic variation

Review: Jesse Egbert, Douglas Biber and Bethany Gray. Designing and evaluating language corpora: A practical framework for corpus representativeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 300 pp. ISBN 978-1316605882

Review: Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańska and Sandra Götz (eds.). Complexity, accuracy and fluency in learner corpus research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2022. vi. 327 pp. ISBN 9789027212580 (HB)

Review: Theresa Neumaier. Conversation in World Englishes: Turn-taking and cultural variation in Southeast Asian and Caribbean English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. xvi. 288 pp. ISBN 9781108936996

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