Dissertation Information
| Title: | Paradigm Shifts and Semantic Prosody: Analysis of a diachronic corpus of geological English | Add Dissertation |
| Author: | Carmela Chateau | Update Dissertation |
| Email: | click here to access email | |
| Degree Awarded: | Université de Bretagne-Sud , Ecole doctorale Arts Lettres et Langues | |
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Completed in:
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2012 | |
| Linguistic Subfield(s): | Text/Corpus Linguistics | |
| Subject Language(s): |
English
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| Director(s): |
Geoffrey Williams
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| Abstract: |
Was the transition from a fixed Earth to continental drift and plate tectonics a
paradigm shift? The history and philosophy of science in the mid-twentieth century suggests that it was. To examine this hypothesis further, a purpose-built diachronic corpus of geological English (WebsTerre) was compiled in order to investigate possible changes in language during a paradigm shift. The baseline is a sub-corpus of Lyell’s works, from 1830-1871, representative of the initial paradigm in geology. The second sub-corpus represents the Precursors to the paradigm shift, Taylor, Wegener and Du Toit. A micro-corpus of six core texts from the key period (1962-1966) and an outer core of texts (1948-1971) are contrasted with three sets of articles by Partisans and Opponents from 1962 to 1990. Several types of software are used to analyse the WebsTerre corpus, while reference corpora from 1961 and the early 1990s serve as markers to establish general language use for key terms before and after the paradigm shift. The semantic prosody for individual words as well as multi-word units is examined and evidence of prosody transfer from general to specialised usage is brought to light. Parallels are drawn between the history of Geology and that of Linguistics during the twentieth century. Earth Science and Corpus Linguistics, the new science of language, are both found to have experienced instrument- based (or technology-led) paradigm shifts in the second half of the twentieth century. The neutral semantic prosody of ‘plate tectonics’ seems easier to accept than the conflicting semantic prosodies of ‘continental’ and ‘drift’, separately and as a fixed expression, in British and American English. |
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