‘Where did you say that?’ The positional features of words as a characteristic of meaning

1. ‘Where did you say that?’The positional features of words as a characteristic of meaning Matthew Brook O’Donnell Michael Hoey Mike Scott Michaela Mahlberg

2. In the news recently… ‘Tony Blair has already announced that he is going to announce, next week, when he is going to announce his retirement.’ Guardian, May 4, 2007 • Are words distributed evenly across texts or do they have ‘preferred’ positions? • Hoey’s lexical priming theory argues that words can be textually primed and that one such priming is textual colligation (i.e. the position(s) in a text unit where a word tends to be found) • Can this claim be supported?

3. Textual Priming ProjectAims • to investigate how many (and what types of) lexical items are primed to appear in text-initial or paragraph-initial position • to identify lexico-grammatical patterns and see how these patterns can be functionally interpreted in the textual contexts • to relate these lexical and corpus-driven facts to current textual descriptions of (hard) news stories that might provide explanations for the positive primings of relevant lexis …thanks to the AHRC

4. Approach • Corpus: Guardian news archive (1998-2004) • 650,000+ articles • News • Home news, overseas, features, sport, obituaries, etc. • Paragraph and other structural divisions in markup • Sentence tokenization + identify sentences by position • Create frequency lists (words + clusters) and carry out keyword procedure

5. Subdividing the corpus • TISC = Text initial sentences • PISC = Paragraph initial sentence [not in TISC and at para contains 2+ sentences] • SISC = Paragraphs of one sentence [not in TISC] • NISC = Non-paragraph initial sentences • HISC = Headline, sub-headline, etc..

6. TISC text initial sentence PISC paragraph initial sentence NISC non-initial sentence PISC NISC HISC Anatomy of a news article Pope 'deeply sorry' but Muslim protests spread (1) Italian police were yesterday ordered to tighten security at potential Catholic targets across the country as the leaders of the Roman Catholic church anxiously waited to see if a personal expression of regret by Pope Benedict would assuage Muslim fury over his remarks on Islam. (2) The Pope's speech in Germany last week, in which he quoted a medieval ruler who said Muhammad's innovations were "evil and inhuman", has led to widespread condemnation in the Muslim world. (3) Last night the controversy seemed to have claimed its first victims when gunmen killed a 65-year-old Italian nun and her bodyguard at the entrance to a hospital where she worked in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu. (4) A doctor said the nun, who was named as Sister Leonella Sgorbati, from Piacenza in northern Italy, had been shot four times in the back by two men with pistols. (5) The attack was linked by some to the Pope's remarks. Guardian Sept 18, 2006

7. SISC single- sentence paragraph PISC NISC SISC PISC NISC Anatomy of a news article (6) A Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said he hoped it was "an isolated event", adding: "We are worried about the consequences of this wave of hatred and hope it doesn't have grave consequences for the church around the world." (7) The pontiff appeared to risk causing fresh controversy during his speech yesterday when he cited a passage from St Paul that risked being interpreted as hostile - not by Muslims, but by Jews. (8) It described the crucifixion of Jesus as a "scandal for the Jews". (9) At Castel Gandolfo in the hills east of Rome, where the Pope has his summer residence, armed police kept watch from a balcony on the town hall as he prepared for the most nervously awaited statement of his 17-month papacy. (10) Some of the pilgrims entering the courtyard of his residence to listen to his traditional Sunday address were searched by police, who confiscated metal-tipped umbrellas and some bottles of liquid. (11) Plainclothes officers dressed as tourists filmed the gathering using video cameras. Guardian Sept 18, 2006

8. Summary of positional subcorpora Guardian Home News 1998-2004

9. Summary of positional subcorpora Guardian Home News 1998-2004 Sentences Tokens TISC 4.8% PISC 25.9% SISC 23.7% NISC 45.48% TISC 6% PISC 24% SISC 32.9% NISC 37.1%

10. TISC PISC SISC NISC raw 34646 19405 24510 13363 per 10000 wds 110.97 15.50 14.31 6.91 per 100 sents 30.58 3.20 4.41 1.26 % of occs 37.69 21.11 26.66 14.54 expect.occs 5507.16 22088.16 30216.14 34112.54 YESTERDAY

11. YESTERDAY: Sentence Position • (1) George Bush yesterday suffered a blow to his argument…(P1S1, Sept 27, 2006) • (2) Bulgaria and Romania yesterday received the green light to • join the EU in January • (P1S1, Sept 27, 2006) • (3) Yesterday, the paper shelved its plan to give… • (P2S2, Apr 3, 1998) • (4)Yesterday the prime minister was taunted by Iain Duncan Smith. • (P8S2, Apr 25, 2002)

12. Method: Keywords TISC v NISC

13. TISC PISC SISC NISC raw 2026 2568 3961 2535 per 10000 wds 6.49 2.05 2.31 1.31 per 100 sents 1.79 0.42 0.71 0.24 % of occs 18.27 23.16 35.72 22.86 expect.occs 664.4 2664.8 3645.4 4115.4 ANNOUNCED…

14. Method: Collocates

15. Method: Key collocates

16. Method: Key collocates

17. Method: Key collocates

18. ANNOUNCED + TIME

19. ANNOUNCED + TIME

20. Method: Key collocates

21. PLANS

22. Method: Patterns • under X + (to be) + announced

23. Method: Patterns • under X + (to be) + announced • sentence position BUT… very rough measure because of variable sentence length and longer sentences in TISC

24. Method: Patterns • under X + (to be) + announced • sentence position • it was announced + TIME (+recency)

25. It was V-ed…

26. Method: Textual Functions • PLANS + ANNOUNCED in same sentence • 2004 Home News section of Guardian • TISC 45 Articles • NISC 19 Articles • How does pattern function at the text level?

27. National roundup: Law: 'No knives before 18' proposal (1) The age at which knives can be bought is to be raised from 16 to 18, under plans to be announced by the home secretary, David Blunkett, this week. (2) The move is expected to be agreed on Wednesday with police chiefs at a Downing Street summit to discuss progress in dealing with gun crime and other violent offences. (3) The plan will also include imposing stiffer penalties on teenagers who are found to be carrying knives when they are searched on the street. (4) Mr Blunkett wants to introduce a maximum five-year sentence for carrying a knife on the street. (5) The summit will be used to discuss the proposal with senior representatives of Britain's chief constables. (6) But the home secretary is said to be keen to push ahead with the changes. (7) "We must do everything we can to get knives off the streets, including strengthening the law," said Mr Blunkett. (8) He added: "I think there is a very strong argument for having to be 18 to buy a knife, just as with alcohol and fireworks. (9) The education secretary, Charles Clarke, and I are working together to tackle the dual menace of young people carrying knives in our schools and on our streets." (10) The outgoing Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir John Stevens, has been pushing for tougher punishment for violent crimes involving knifes. (11) He said earlier this month that gun crime had been reduced in London, but that the problem had moved on to knives. (12) Sir John believes those who carry knives "for the wrong reasons" should receive a mandatory sentence of up to three years.

28. National roundup: Law: 'No knives before 18' proposal (1) The age at which knives can be bought is to be raised from 16 to 18, under plans to be announced by the home secretary, David Blunkett, this week. (2) The move is expected to be agreed on Wednesday with police chiefs at a Downing Street summit to discuss progress in dealing with gun crime and other violent offences. (3) The plan will also include imposing stiffer penalties on teenagers who are found to be carrying knives when they are searched on the street. (4) Mr Blunkett wants to introduce a maximum five-year sentence for carrying a knife on the street. (5) The summit will be used to discuss the proposal with senior representatives of Britain's chief constables. (6) But the home secretary is said to be keen to push ahead with the changes. (7) "We must do everything we can to get knives off the streets, including strengthening the law," said Mr Blunkett. (8) He added: "I think there is a very strong argument for having to be 18 to buy a knife, just as with alcohol and fireworks. (9) The education secretary, Charles Clarke, and I are working together to tackle the dual menace of young people carrying knives in our schools and on our streets." (10) The outgoing Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir John Stevens, has been pushing for tougher punishment for violent crimes involving knifes. (11) He said earlier this month that gun crime had been reduced in London, but that the problem had moved on to knives. (12) Sir John believes those who carry knives "for the wrong reasons" should receive a mandatory sentence of up to three years.

29. Schools urged to extend classroom links across the world (1) All schools will be urged to develop formal links with others throughout the world as part of a ground-breaking new strategy to be unveiled by ministers today. (2) The education secretary, Charles Clarke, will give practical examples of how teachers can give a much-needed "international dimension" to school life and promote better understanding of the world by building relationships with partner schools abroad. (3) A report to be published today by the Department for Education and Skills - Putting the World Back in World-Class Education - will set out ways that both primary and secondary schools can work with others by using technology such as video-conferencing, alongside more traditional tools such as encouraging pen-pals. (4) Crucially, the DfES wants to persuade some 7,000 schools to win one of the British Council's international school awards - which recognise work abroad - within three years. (5) Somewhat ambitiously, it wants every school to have done so by 2010. (6) Central to the drive is a new website which will act as an international "introductory agency" to schools. (7) The government has developed strategic partnerships with more than 30 countries including the US, Saudi Arabia and much of Europe, to help develop more formal links. (8) Higher education is also to be targeted. (9) Mr Clarke hopes to reverse the decline in the numbers of youngsters studying foreign languages - which under Labour's new policy they are allowed to drop from the age of 14. (10) Last week the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, announced plans to offer pounds 2,000 bursaries to talented linguists wanting to study languages at degree level, along with other subjects such as physics, chemistry and engineering.

30. Textual Hypothesis • ANNOUNCED + PLANS + TIME+recency in TISC is associated with nucleus (topical) • ANNOUNCED + PLANS + (TIME-recency) in NISC is a component of contextualization (supporting) Position is meaningful in a textual pattern (the local textual functions)

31. Summary • Use of specialized corpus with large number of relatively homogenous ‘whole’ texts allows examination of ‘textual position’ • Initial findings suggest that certain words are primed for text initial position • Requires examination of patterning of collocates, colligations (including sentence position) and local textual functions • Findings suggestive of link between these primings, patterns and text level descriptions