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In:Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts: In honor of Merja Kytö
Edited by Ewa Jonsson and Tove Larsson
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 97] 2020
► pp. 317–336

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Chapter 19
Orality on the searchable web

A comparison of involved web registers and face-to-face conversation

 | Northern Arizona University
 | Northern Arizona University
Published online: 5 October 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.97.19bib
As Culpeper and Kytö (2010) discuss, one challenge of historical linguistics is the extent to which written texts represent the linguistic characteristics of speech. Synchronic linguists face similar challenges, leading to the practice of using a web corpus to represent the spectrum of oral–literate registers. However, there has been little research that tests the validity of this practice. The present chapter begins by summarizing the patterns of register variation on the searchable web documented in Biber and Egbert (2018). While that study documents the importance of oral–literate linguistic dimensions, it does not investigate whether involved web registers represent the linguistic characteristics of spoken registers. We explore that research question here, comparing the multi-dimensional profiles of online registers and spoken conversation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background: Describing the patterns of register variation on the searchable web
    • 2.1The multi-dimensional analysis of web registers
  • 3.Analyzing the extent to which ‘oral’ registers from the searchable web represent the characteristics of face-to-face conversation and online conversations
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
References (16)
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Hober, Nicole
2024. Metalinguistic awareness as a factor in contact-induced language change. Linguistics Vanguard 10:s2 ► pp. 159 ff. DOI logo

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