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Article published In: Languages in Contrast
Vol. 18:2 (2018) ► pp.175–206

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Shallow features as indicators of English–German contrasts in lexical cohesion

 | Heidelberg University (Germany)
 | Saarland University (Germany)
 | Saarland University (Germany)
 | Saarland University (Germany)
 | Saarland University (Germany)
Published online: 28 November 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.16005.kun
Abstract
This paper contrasts lexical cohesion between English and German spoken and written registers, reporting findings from a quantitative lexical analysis. After an overview of research aims and motivations we formulate hypotheses on distributions of shallow features as indicators of lexical cohesion across languages and modes and with respect to register ranking and variation. The shallow features analysed are: highly frequent words in texts, lexical density, standardized type-token-ratio, top-frequent content words of the language within individual registers and texts, and several types of Latinate words. Descriptive analyses of the corpus are then presented and statistically validated with the help of univariate and multivariate analyses. The results are interpreted relative to our hypotheses and related to the following properties of texts in terms of lexical cohesion: semantic variability, cohesive strength, number and length of nominal chains, degree of specification of lexis, and degree of variation along all of these properties.
Article outline
  • 1.Aims and Motivation
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Hypotheses
    • 2.2Data
    • 2.3Statistical Techniques
  • 3.Analyses
    • 3.1Most frequent words
    • 3.2Lexical density
    • 3.3Standardized type-token ratio
    • 3.4Top content words
    • 3.5Latinate words
    • 3.6Overall comparison
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
    • 4.1Language contrast English vs. German
    • 4.2Spoken vs. written mode
    • 4.3Register ranking
    • 4.4Register variation
  • Notes
  • References
References (44)
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