Semantic prosody
Encyclopedia
Semantic prosody, also discourse prosody, describes the way in which certain seemingly neutral words can be perceived with positive or negative associations through frequent occurrences with particular collocation
s.
An example given by John Sinclair is the combination, set in, which has a negative prosody: rot is a prime example for what is going to set in. Other well-known examples are cause, which is also used mostly in a negative context (accident, catastrophe, etc.), though one can also say that something "caused happiness"
(Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003).
In recent years, linguists have found many hidden associations affecting the neutrality of language, through the use of corpus linguistics
and concordancing software
. The software is used to arrange Key Words in Context from a corpus of several million words of naturally-occurring text. The collocates can then be arranged alphabetically according to first or second word to the right or to the left. Using such a method, Elena Tognini-Bonelli (2001) found that the word largely occurred more frequently with negative words or expressions, while broadly appeared more frequently with positive ones. Lexicographers
have often failed to allow for semantic prosody when defining a word, although with the recent development and increasing use of computer
s, the field of corpus linguistics is now being combined with that of lexicography.
Prosody has also been used to analyze discourse structure. Discourse is not a mere concatenation of utterances; talk is organized in sections through relations between discourse segments, topicality, or other ways. Prosody has been found to correlate with these structures of discourse, notably via key (the pitch of a first prominent syllable in an utterance).
Collocation
In corpus linguistics, collocation defines a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, collocation is a sub-type of phraseme. An example of a phraseological collocation is the expression strong tea...
s.
An example given by John Sinclair is the combination, set in, which has a negative prosody: rot is a prime example for what is going to set in. Other well-known examples are cause, which is also used mostly in a negative context (accident, catastrophe, etc.), though one can also say that something "caused happiness"
(Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003).
In recent years, linguists have found many hidden associations affecting the neutrality of language, through the use of corpus linguistics
Corpus linguistics
Corpus linguistics is the study of language as expressed in samples or "real world" text. This method represents a digestive approach to deriving a set of abstract rules by which a natural language is governed or else relates to another language. Originally done by hand, corpora are now largely...
and concordancing software
Concordancer
A concordancer is a computer program that automatically constructs a concordance. The output of a concordancer may serve as input to a translation memory system for computer-assisted translation, or as an early step in machine translation....
. The software is used to arrange Key Words in Context from a corpus of several million words of naturally-occurring text. The collocates can then be arranged alphabetically according to first or second word to the right or to the left. Using such a method, Elena Tognini-Bonelli (2001) found that the word largely occurred more frequently with negative words or expressions, while broadly appeared more frequently with positive ones. Lexicographers
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
have often failed to allow for semantic prosody when defining a word, although with the recent development and increasing use of computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s, the field of corpus linguistics is now being combined with that of lexicography.
Prosody has also been used to analyze discourse structure. Discourse is not a mere concatenation of utterances; talk is organized in sections through relations between discourse segments, topicality, or other ways. Prosody has been found to correlate with these structures of discourse, notably via key (the pitch of a first prominent syllable in an utterance).