Variation in English

Multi-Dimensional Studies

Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781138153479
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317884200
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Historical & Comparative Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Studies in Language and Linguistics
General Editors- Geoffrey Leech, Department of Modern English Language, Lancaster University and Jenny Thomas, School of English and Linguistics, University of Wales, Bangor
Broad-ranging and authoritative, Studies in Language and Linguistics is an occasional series
incorporating major new work in all areas of linguistics.

Variation in English- Multi-Dimensional Studies provides both a comprehensive view into a relatively new technique for studying language, and a diverse, exciting collection of studies of variation in English.
The first part of the book provides an explanation of multi-dimensional (MD) analysis, a research technique for studying language variation. MD is a corpus-based approach developed by Doug Biber that facilitates large-scale studies of language variation and the investigation of research questions that were previously intractable. The second part of the book contains studies that apply Biber's original MD analysis of English to new domains. These studies cover the historical evolution of English; specialized domains such as medical writing and oral proficiency testing; and dialect variation, including gender and British/American.
The third part of the book contains studies that conduct new MD analyses, covering adult/child language differences, 18th century speech and writing, and discourse complexity. Readers of this book will become familiar with the analytical techniques of multi-dimensional analysis, with its applicability to a wide variety of language issues, and with the findings of important studies previously published in diverse journals as well as new studies appearing for the first time.

PART I

Introduction to Multi-Dimensional Analysis

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction:

Multi-dimensional analysis and the study of register variation

Douglas Biber and Susan Conrad

1. Registers and register variation

For many years, researchers have been interested in variation in language use across different situations. As part of this interest in language use, numerous studies have focused on the description of registers and register variation.

In this book, register is used as a cover term for any language variety defined in terms of a particular constellation of situational characteristics. That is, register distinctions are defined in non-linguistic terms, including the speaker’s purpose in communication, the topic, the relationship between speaker and hearer, and the production circumstances. However, as illustrated by the chapters in this book, there are usually important linguistic differences across registers that correspond to the differences in situational characteristics.

In many cases, registers are named varieties within a culture, such as novels, biographies, letters, memos, book reviews, editorials, sermons, lectures, and debates. However, registers can be defined at any level of generality, and more specialized registers may not have widely used names. For example, ‘academic prose’ is a very general register, while ‘methodology sections in experimental psychology articles’ is a much more highly specified register.

Because registers vary in the extent to which they are specified situationally, the texts within registers also vary in the extent to which their linguistic characteristics are similar. At one extreme, texts from a specialized register (such as methodology sections of experimental psychology articles or air-traffic-controller talk) tend to be very similar in their linguistic characteristics, corresponding to the extent to which the register is specified situationally. In contrast, the texts in a general register, such as academic prose or fiction, tend to exhibit a wide range of linguistic variation.¹

Studies of registers have come from a wide range of disciplines and subdisciplines, including functional/sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, corpus/computational linguistics, composition/rhetoric studies, and communication research. Many studies have described the situational and linguistic characteristics of a particular register. Such studies typically analyze a few texts in detail to identify the distinctive linguistic features that function as register markers. For example, grammatical routines can sometimes serve as distinctive register markers, as in the use of the phrase the count is two and one in a baseball game broadcast (see Ferguson 1983). These studies often focus on relatively specialized registers, such as sports announcer talk (Ferguson 1983), note-taking (Janda 1985), personal ads (Bruthiaux 1994), classified advertising (Bruthiaux 1996), and sports coaching (Heath and Langman 1994). (Atkinson and Biber 1994 provide an extensive survey of empirical register studies.)

In contrast to investigating a single variety, the study of register can also be approached from a comparative perspective, investigating the patterns of register variation. Register variation is inherent in human language: a single speaker will make systematic choices in pronunciation, morphology, word choice, and grammar reflecting a range of non-linguistic factors. The ubiquitous nature of register variation has been noted by a number of scholars, for example:

‘each language community has its own system of registers … corresponding to the range of activities in which its members normally engage’ (Ure 1982: 5)

‘register variation, in which language structure varies in accordance with the occasions of use, is all-pervasive in human language’ (Ferguson 1983: 154)

‘no human being talks the same way all the time … At the very least, a variety of registers and styles is used and encountered’ (Hymes 1984: 44)

However, despite the fundamental importance of register variation, there have been few comprehensive analyses of the register differences in a language. This gap is due mostly to methodological difficulties: until recently, it has been unfeasible to analyze the full range of texts, registers, and linguistic characteristics required for comprehensive analyses of register variation. However, with the availability of large on-line text corpora and computational analytical tools, such analyses have become possible.

The multi-dimensional (MD) analytical approach was developed for the comprehensive analysis of register variation. Early MD studies investigated the relations among spoken and written registers in English (for example, Biber 1984, 1986, 1988), while later studies investigated the patterns of register variation in other languages (for example, Kim and Biber 1994 on Korean; Biber and Hared 1992a on Somali). Biber (1995) summarizes these studies and discusses cross-linguistic similarities and differences in the patterns of register variation.

More recently, there have been numerous studies applying this analytical approach to a range of issues in English language studies, including the historical evolution of registers, ESP/EAP (English for Special Purposes/English for Academic Purposes), language development, language testing, and demographic variation. The papers collected in this volume include many of the most important multi-dimensional studies of this type.

1.1 Quantitative analyses of register variation

From a comparative perspective, most registers are not reliably distinguished by the presence of register markers. Instead most register differences are realized through core lexical and grammatical features that are found to some extent in almost all texts and registers. Such register features are pervasive indicators of register distinctions because there are often large differences in their relative distributions across registers. In fact, many registers are distinguished only by a particularly frequent or infrequent occurrence of a set of register features. Any linguistic feature having a functional or conventional association can be distributed in a way that distinguishes among registers.

Register analyses of these core linguistic features are necessarily quantitative, to determine the relative distribution of linguistic features. Further, such analyses require a comparative approach. That is, it is only by quantitative comparison to a range of other registers that we are able to determine whether a given frequency of occurrence is notably common or rare.

A quantitative comparative approach allows us to treat register as a continuous construct, that is, as texts situated within a continuous space of linguistic variation. This approach should be contrasted with the attempt to identify discrete linguistic characteristics that define categorical differences among registers. Instead, the approach advocated here describes the ways in which registers are more or less different with respect to the full range of core linguist...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Publisher’s Acknowledgements
• Part I — Introduction to Multi-Dimensional Analysis
• Part II — Multi-Dimensional Studies Based on the 1988 Model of Variation in Spoken and Written Registers
• Part III — Other Studies Based on the Multi-Dimensional Approach
• References
• Index