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Article published In: Register Studies
Vol. 6:1 (2024) ► pp.31–59

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Variation-Based Distance and Similarity Modeling

A new way of measuring distances between registers

ORCiD logo with link | KU Leuven
ORCiD logo with link | KU Leuven
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with KU Leuven.

Published online: 11 October 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.23011.zha
Abstract
We present a corpus-based method — Variation-Based Distance and Similarity Modeling (VADIS) — that calculates distances between registers as a function of the extent to which the probabilistic conditioning of variation differs across registers. When language users have a choice between different ways of saying similar things (e.g., cut off the tops versus cut the tops off), what is the extent to which these choices are regulated differently in different registers? In this spirit, we re-analyze pre-existing datasets that cover the genitive, dative, and particle placement alternations in the grammar of English. These datasets cover five broad register categories: spoken informal English, spoken formal English, written informal English, written formal English, and online/web-based English. Analysis shows that (a) the registers under analysis are relatively but not entirely homogeneous in terms of the probabilistic grammars conditioning grammatical choices, and (b) more often than not we see a split between spoken and written registers.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods and data
    • 2.1Datasets and registers under study
    • 2.2Method: Variation-Based Distance and Similarity Modeling (VADIS)
      • Step 1
      • Step 2
      • Step 3
      • Step 4
      • Step 5
      • Step 6
      • Step 7
    • 2.3Questions and answers about our methodology
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Quantification via similarity coefficients
    • 3.2Mapping out (dis)similarity relationship between registers
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (46)
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