Connotation and Semantic Prosody

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Connotation and Semantic Prosody

• IDB 322

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Connotation and Three Distinct Phenomena

• Social and situational connotation Markers of
  particular speech variety (class, regional
  origin, sex, age, relationships) E.g.,
  absolutely awful (upper-middle class) beefy
  (colloquial use)
• Cultural connotation What a lexical item
  denotes within a culture. E.g., woman frail,
  prone to tears, irrational, gentle, compassionate
• Expressive connotation- Choosing to use certain
  lexical items implies favourable or unfavourable
  evaluation by the speaker towards what they
  describe. E.g., pig-headed disapproval I am
  firm, you are stubborn, he is pig-headed

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Connotation-Semantic Prosody

• Expressive connotation is a problem area for
  language learners.
• One particular subtle and interesting aspect of
  expressive connotation is a phenomenon of
  semantic prosody and it can be highlighted by
  corpus data.

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The verb commit
Commit ltfoul, deception, crime,
offencegt Unfavourable connotation, revealed via
its collocates
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The collocates of commit in BNCweb Log-like MI
results
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The collocates of set in in BNCweb MI results
Sinclair (1987) set in is habitually associated
with unpleasant events.
Cultural rot has set in. The first proof that
the rot had set in at the Midland was the full
disclosure of its profits and reserves in 1969.
When campaigns ended in disaster and the
submarine sank disillusionment and self-criticism
set in. Undesirable process is being described.
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The unpleasant collocates of cause (Stubbs, 1995)
BNCweb-MI list
BNCweb-LL list
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Favourable prosody of the word provide
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What is semantic prosody?

• Firth (1957) The term prosody is borrowed from
  Firths phonological colouring which spread
  beyond segmental boundaries.
• Semantic prosody refers to the spreading of
  connotational colouring beyond single word
  boundaries.

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Louw (1993) Prosodic clash

• Writers sometimes diverge from the expected
  profiles of semantic prosodies with the
  intention of irony.
• Eg. Bent on unfavourbable items bent on
  self-improvement
• Fusion of corpus linguistics and lexicography is
  making the study of prosodic profiles feasible.

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Learner dictionaries and prosodies

• LDOCE 1987 Cobulid 1987 make explicit reference
  to prosodic behaviour of set in
• E.g. if something unpleasant sets in, it begins
  and seems likely to continue (Cobuild 1987)
• Peddle (v) peddler (n) It is found to appear
  in unfavourable environments in journalistic
  writing.
• LDOCE 1987 usu derog (usually derogatory)
• Cobuild 1987 someone who is a peddler of
  particular ideas often expresses these ideas to
  other people.
• 1995 Three of four dictionaries include some
  explicit indication of the unfavourable character
  of this wordb

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Prosodies and persuasion sharp dealings

• Less apparent prosodic behaviour of words happen
  has a particular colouring on many occasions but
  not on all.
• When the semantic prosody of an item is not
  deterministic, it may not apparent even to a
  native speakers intuition, but corpus data may
  show its statistical tendencies.
• dealings personal or business relations (LDOCE
  1987)

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Dealings in the newspaper corpus
Dealings exhibited a strongly unfavourable
prosody it generally indicates some unattractive
or dishonest activity. It is very frequently
found in the company of words and phrases
expressing dubious legality, such as
investigation into, inquiry into, allegations
about. People also deny, decline, refuse to
discuss their dealings. Dealings with is common
and the party named after the preposition is
usually seen as pretty unsavoury, e.g, Hizbollah,
the Mafia, Iraq, extremists. Favourable
adjective with dealings cordial dealings
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The creation of prosodies

• The creation of attitude through prosody is the
  use in newspaper of the word fundamentalist (s)
• This is an over-the-fence word, a word used to
  describe outsider group The Independent and The
  Daily Telegraph would not use the word to
  describe themselves.
• Collocates noun heads such as aggressors,
  blacklash, cults, fanatics, guerrillas, warlords
  It right-collocates with abusive, armed, crazy,
  crude, militant, primitive, murderous
• Semantic field violence, mindlessness,
  underdevelopment
• Green fundamentalist

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Areas of further research

• Learners awareness of the phenomenon of semantic
  prosody.
• Concordance lines for well-known prosodies
  commit or perpetrate carry out or commit a
  harmful, immoral, illegal action
• Compare collocation behaviour persist and
  persevere
• Adverb-adjective and adjective-noun head phrases
  in which the first word of the pair is an
  intensifier. Eg. Utterly has an unfavourable
  prosody.