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Partington, 2009, p. 140). To take a famous example from Sinclair (also cited in Tognini-Bonelli, 2001, p. 104), the sequence difficulty experienced implied by barely , and the to the. Another frequently-cited example is provided by Stubbs (1995, p. 247-248), who notes that the verb cause is typically followed by negative collocates such as crisis, cancer, and delay, while the verb provide indicates positive meanings, co-occurring as it does with nouns such as help, relief, and support. Sinclair (2004, p. 142-147) also demonstrates that the word budge is likely to be used in a negative sense by occurring in an extended phrasal unit in context, leading to the understanding that a word functions not as an independent object but in a sequence; that is, in what he calls a unit of meaning. While Sinclair largely focuses (2006) makes the important point (from the point of view of the current study) that semantic prosody can be discourse-specific as well. In his own analysis of business English, for example, Nelson found that boss typically co-occurs with negative words or co-text, such as old-fashioned boss, meanest boss or the boss is a Neanderthal, but the use of manager in business English contexts contains neutral or positive meanings. To summarise the discussion thus far, then, semantic prosody may be paraphrased as for the broad attitudinal meaning with which a unit of meaning is imbued (Hoey, 1997, p. 2). Semantic prosody also stands at a more abstract level than collocation and (colligational) pattern, because it depends on contextual and discourse meanings (Stubbs, 2001). However, as some scholars have begun to point out, the concept of semantic prosody may be vulnerable to the variable interpretation of textual meanings. For example, Hunston (2007b) illustrates an example of ambiguity in semantic prosody in the use of the adjective persistent. She points out, [f]rom the viewpoint of the thieves, persistence has enabled them to achieve the goal of obtaining the figure but from the viewpoint of the manager, persistence has prevented him from achieving his goal of protecting the stores property (Hunston, 2007b, p. 10). Thus, in her view, it is possible for the predicative adjective persistent to occur in the discourse of both a desirable and an undesirable quality. Using this assumption in examining other examples (e.g. the noun destruction) as well, she found that the choice of animacy of collocates also affects the implied meaning and semantics given by the sequence of words. In other words, the properties of collocates and contextual meanings 44
are also interrelated. In an attempt to resolve this interpretative problem, Hunston (2007b, 2007c) divides the concept of semantic prosody into two ideas, derived from Partington (2004) and Sinclair (1991) respectively. In Partingtons view, semantic prosody is still the semantic property of a word, presenting the positive or negative attitudinal meaning. On the other hand, in Sinclairs view, both the attitudinal discourse function and semantic feature are created not by a single word, but by a phrasal unit or unit of meaning. Hunston (2007b) supports s view that semantic prosody is identified by collocation and phraseology and could be renamed semantic preference or attitudinal preference because its feature is not simply distinguished between positive and negative value, but indicates a particular evaluative meaning (p. 24). In other words, evaluation in a text can be retrieved and interpreted from semantic prosody. However, such discussion may be of no value in the case of investigation in a particular academic discourse. Semantic prosody should be changeable in a general English corpus because various genres and types of texts construct such a general reference corpus whereby the aura of a lexical item should vary in different ways. On the other hand, it is reasonable to assume that the tendency (I would rather say probability) of semantic prosody is likely to be more consistent (and less ambiguous) in a particular discourse, largely because the structure, content and phraseological expression of discourse-specific argumentation is more constrained by convention and shared understandings that make up disciplinary custom and culture. In other words, my hypothesis is that semantic prosody is more consistently realized in a specialized discourse than it is in general English. 3.6. Conclusion This chapter has introduced and discussed the theoretical underpinnings of the major features that will be analysed in the current study: lexico-grammatical patterns, collocations, and evaluationsattitude in my term. It has been argued that lexico-grammatical patterns are closely connected to textual meaning and evaluation (Hunston & Sinclair, 2000; Hunston, 2002b, 2007a), that patterns, meanings, and discourse are interrelated to one another, and that their interaction plays a major role in constructing the discursive identity in a disciplinary specific discourse. In other words, to identify patterns and their meanings is to identify features of a particular discourse and its (disciplinary) culture. This is the main aim of the 45
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Evaluative Meanings and Disciplinar
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ABSTRACT The purpose of this study
Page 5 and 6: CONTENTS C H APT E R 1. Introductio
Page 7 and 8: C H APT E R 9. The second theme: Re
Page 9 and 10: Figure A-1 Histogram for tokens of
Page 11 and 12: Table 8.15 The SKILFULNESS group in
Page 13 and 14: CHAPTER 1. Introduction 1.1. Genera
Page 15 and 16: study are still not large enough fo
Page 17 and 18: RQ1) Is it valuable to apply a new
Page 19 and 20: in the way each of these evaluative
Page 21 and 22: disciplines feature different bodie
Page 23 and 24: White and Liccardi (2006) have show
Page 25 and 26: However, it was not possible to cla
Page 27 and 28: typically presented as impersonal a
Page 29 and 30: 2.5. Applied linguistics and busine
Page 31 and 32: 2.6.2. Business studies Business co
Page 33 and 34: Swales (2004) thus offers a rather
Page 35 and 36: genre has come increasingly under t
Page 37 and 38: CHAPTER 3. Pattern, meaning and eva
Page 39 and 40: 170). 7 On the basis of the vast am
Page 41 and 42: 3.3. Lexico-grammatical patterns 3.
Page 43 and 44: syntactic patterns encodes differen
Page 45 and 46: RESULT/DATA based on DATA/THEORY In
Page 47 and 48: (Biber, 1988, p. 237). Indeed, Chaf
Page 49 and 50: aspect of language use. For these r
Page 51 and 52: 1986), hedging (Holmes, 1988; Hylan
Page 53 and 54: adverbs but rather in certain patte
Page 55: average work is described as sound
Page 59 and 60: CHAPTER 4. Correspondence analysis
Page 61 and 62: - end. Although there is no doubt t
Page 63 and 64: appeal of multivariate analysis is
Page 65 and 66: While such observations might be in
Page 67 and 68: The contingency table has the follo
Page 69 and 70: CHAPTER 5. Corpus creation and meth
Page 71 and 72: of sub-disciplines contained within
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Page 79 and 80: 5.3.4. Discourse analysis procedure
Page 81 and 82: CHAPTER 6. A case study In this cha
Page 83 and 84: express human feelings: specificall
Page 85 and 86: contingency table consists of 66 ro
Page 87 and 88: of this case study is limited. Howe
Page 89 and 90: likely to express what they feel ab
Page 91 and 92: 6.2.2. The NERVOUSNESS group While
Page 93 and 94: adjectives in this group in the pat
Page 95 and 96: While the LSP enthusiastic about N
Page 97 and 98: AWARE and IGNORANT group in Francis
Page 99 and 100: CHAPTER 7. Data analyses 7.1. Intro
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same for a corpus of a more special
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Table 7.5 above indicates that simi
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about for from in of on to with 8 l
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In the plot shown in Figure 7.1, it
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Figure 7.4. Adjective plot in the s
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Figure 7.7. Adjective plot for A DJ
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Figure 7.9. Adjective plot for the
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same time. This being the case, I h
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Other adjectives in this quadrant a
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This concludes my analysis of the e
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Figure 7.21 also indicates that adj
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With the sole exception of the patt
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evaluation (Martin & Rose, 2007, p.
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judgments tend to draw on both emot
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[Business studies: neutral about/on
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modals in BC, on the other hand, mo
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Order ALC Freq. BC Freq. 1 more 14
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itself. 8.1.3. Importance The third
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Fewer of the control variables are
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someone/something is certain or unc
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current/past oriented. While the nu
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monogloss heterogloss ALC 35%(7) 65
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that the default assumption among a
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monogloss heterogloss ALC 29%(4) 71
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general category of appreciation as
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while the BC examples evaluate the
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it seems that researchers in busine
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Overall, my findings suggest that a
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interpretation. Finally, these sema
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entities. This group is especially
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[Applied Linguistics] [
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The proportions for this group are
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In addition, this LSP strongly occu
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or evidence in the writers (ongoing
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Francis et al. (1998, p. 479) indic
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In summary, the intensity of severa
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The depended- entities in ALC are p
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order ALC freq. BC freq. 1 differen
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[Business Studies] Thi
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[Applied Linguistics] Scores (but
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In general, business studies discou
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Order ALC Freq. BC Freq. 1 involved
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[Applied Linguistics]
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[Business Studies] Language is
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something (e.g. ability, knowledge,
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[Business Studies] Only companies
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adverbs. Table 9.18 below summarize
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Order ALC Freq. BC Freq. 1 responsi
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Order ALC Freq. BC Freq. 1 present
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ALC BC Negative Noun inherent other
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In each of the above concordances t
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Several adjectives in this group in
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[Business Studies] Our sample is r
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Order ALC Freq. BC Freq. 1 study 27
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[Business studies: model + based on
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particular thing in order to deepen
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across the two disciplines. However
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A DJ PR EP N. Figure 10.1. Discipli
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likely to occur in applied linguist
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10.3.2. Cause vs. Effect As argued
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and unostentatious fashion. This fi
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10.4. Conclusion The fundamental as
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as follows: [A new methodology] RQ1
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linguistics and business studies on
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disciplinary culture of the two dis
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p. 156). By investigating a corpus,
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Figure A-3: Histogram for types of
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Appendix B: Tables for adjectives i
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vague 1 worried 1 1 2 1 2 1 wrong 1
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indispensable 1 1 ineligible 2 1 in
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indistinguishable 8 4 1 1 1 1 2 1 i
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immersed 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 implicated 4
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Table B-10. Contingency table for t
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12 conditional 3 clear 5 26 good 1
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51 free 17 unique 18 141 antagonist
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comparable 21 2 8 3 1 2 3 11 3 4 7
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new 2 12 1 11 2 5 4 8 3 2 9 3 45 ne
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27 comparable 4 competitive 3 68 si
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pregnant 1 preoccupied 2 1 1 replet
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crucial-as 1 effecti
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puzzled-by 1 recogni
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SRHE/Open University Press Bell, R.
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articles in biology and history. In
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Herbert, A. (1965). The structure o
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Lewis, M. (1997). Implementing the
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Rundell, M. (Ed.). (2007). Macmilla
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functional perspective. English for
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