Glenn Hadikin

Lexical selection and the evolution of language units

Abstract In this paper I discuss similarities and differences between a potential new model of language development - lexical selection, and its biological equivalent - natural selection. Based on Dawkins (1976) concept of the meme I discuss two units of language and explore their potential to be seen as linguistic replicators. The central discussion revolves around two key parts - the units that could potentially play the role of replicators in a lexical selection system and a visual representation of the model proposed. draw on work by Hoey (2005), Wray (2008) and Sinclair (1996, 1998) for the theoretical basis; Croft (2000) is highlighted as a similar framework. Finally brief examples are taken from the free online corpora provided by the corpus analysis tool Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff, Rychly, Smrz and Tugwell 2004) to ground the discussion in real world communicative situations. The examples highlight the point that different situational contexts will allow for different units to flourish based on the local social and linguistic environment. The paper also shows how a close look at the specific context and strings available to a language user at any given moment has potential to illuminate different aspects of language when compared with a more abstract approach.

Korean English: a corpus-driven study of a new English

The English language is changing every day and it is us – the individual speakers and writers – that drive those changes in small ways by choosing to use certain strings of words over others. This book discusses and describes some of the choices made by speakers from South Korea by examining the similarities and differences between two Korean communities: one in England and one in South Korea. The book has two overall aims. Firstly, it is intended to begin a discussion about phraseology and Lexical Priming and how these theoretical concepts relate and play out in the context of a New English. Secondly, it provides a model of how a language variety can be explored by detailed analysis of short strings. It delves into a range of areas from World Englishes to phraseology and formulaic language and would be suitable for students, teachers and researchers in all these areas.

‘Environment’ submissions in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework 2014

There has been much debate about university research assessment exercises. In the UK, a major element of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF2014) has been the research ‘Environment’. Here we analyse 98 REF2014 ‘Environment’ submissions in Business and Management Studies. We explore whether there are distinctive language-related differences between submissions of high and low ranked universities, and conclude that submission writers have a strong incentive to exaggerate strengths and conceal problems. In addition, innate biases such as the ‘halo’ and ‘velcro’ effects may distract the attention of assessors from a submission’s strengths and weaknesses, since they are likely to influence their pre-existing impressions. We propose several changes to improve how ‘Environment’ is evaluated. We also argue that the research ‘Environment’ would be more likely to be enhanced if the number of outputs submitted in future were an average of two and a maximum of four per academic, rather than the maximum of six currently being considered.

‘They parked two buses’: a corpus study of a football expression

The Liverpool football manager, Brendan Rodgers, was clearly upset. He had just seen the title chances of his vibrant attacking team, scorers of more league goals than any other team in England, suffer a major setback, with defeat against Chelsea: ‘They parked two buses, rather than one’, he lamented of the Chelsea tactics in a post-match interview: ‘from the first minute, they had 10 men behind the ball. We were the team trying to win, but we just couldnt make the breakthrough’ (Bevan, 2014). A few days later, after Chelsea had lost to Atletico Madrid in the second leg of a European Champions League semi-final, after playing very defensively in the first leg, this defeat was celebrated by vengeful rival fans on twitter, drawing on the same ‘park the bus’ metaphor, e.g. ‘when you park the bus, make sure its not near any red lines’ (the humour of which derives from Atletico playing in red and white stripes, while yellow lines in the UK forbid parking, so the bus is penalized for being in the wrong place) or ‘Atletico parked 4 Ferraris and 2 Veyrons. TOO DAMN FAST. Chelsea bus cannot catch up with the speed bro!’, where the Chelsea bus is ridiculed for simply being too slow (Footballburp, 2014).