Towards an Understanding
of Semantic Prosody
李鑫
2011.4.8
You shall know a word by the
company it keeps. —J. R. Firth
Significance
• Theoretically: SP is a fundamental aspect
of the idiom or phraseological principle of
language production and interpretation, in
particular providing convincing evidence of
how elements of meaning “hunt in packs”
(i.e. the co-selection principle).
• Practically: an awareness of SP can be
invaluable for the translator and language
learner in distinguishing among items
considered to be synonyms or translation
equivalents.
E.g. “Your kind help caused my success in
the exam.” “I would like to thank my
supervisor for his persistent help and
advice.”
• (Morley & Partington 2009)
Various definitions
• Semantic prosody is the “consistent aura of meaning with
which a form is imbued by its collocates” (Louw, 1993:
157)关键词项的典型搭配词在其语境中营造起的语义
氛围
• A semantic prosody is attitudinal, and on the pragmatic
side of the semantics/pragmatics continuum. …It
expresses something close to the “function” of the item –
it shows how the rest of the item is to be interpreted
functionally. Without it, the string of words just “means” –
it is not put to use in a viable communication. (Sinclair,
1996: 87-88)
• Semantic prosody is “the spreading of connotational
colouring beyond single word boundaries”. (Partington,
1998: 68)
• A semantic prosody refers to a form of meaning which is
established through the proximity of a consistent series of
collocates, often characterisable as positive or negative,
and whose primary function is the expression of the
attitude of its speaker or writer towards some pragmatic
situation. (Louw, 2000: 56)
• Semantic prosody refers to POS/NEG connotation as well
as more complex attitudinal connotations, affecting both
single words and larger units of meaning such as phrases,
i.e. concerns both ‘traditional’ connotation (said to relate
to single words) and ‘prosodic’ connotation (connotation
that is “distributed prosodically across a textual
sequence”) (Bednarek, 2008)
Origin
• The term “semantic prosody” was first used in print and
introduced to the public by Louw (1993) who credited
Sinclair with its coinage (“personal communication 1988”).
• The term “prosody” was borrowed from Firth who used it,
as in “prosodic phonology”, to refer to phonological coloring
which was capable of transcending segmental boundaries.
E.g. Amen: the vowels are imbued with a nasal quality
because of their proximity to the nasals m and n. (Louw,
1993)
• The concept of SP was developed by post-Firthian corpus
linguists -- Sinclair, Louw, Stubbs, Partington and Hunston.
Clarification
• Q1: Is SP the same as connotation?
– Semantic prosodies are not merely connotational.
Whereas knowledge of connotations is often a form of
schematic knowledge of repeatable events, semantic
prosodies are more strictly functional or attitudinal.
(Louw, 2000)
– Connotation is a feature of a single word/item, while SP
resides in the collocational patterns of items in a text.
Connotation is more evident and less hidden/sutble than
SP. (Morley & Partington, 2009)
– E.g. wedding, funeral v.s. happen/build up
• Q 2: What’s the relationship between semantic prosody
and semantic preference?
– Sinclair’s model of ELU (extended lexical
units): The units of meaning are somewhere
between words and sentences. “So strong are
the co-occurrence tendencies of words, word
classes, meanings and attitudes that we must
widen our horizons and expect the units of
meanings to be much more extensive and varied
than is seen in a single word.”(Sinclair, 1996)
A compound lexical item/ELU with four parameters--from
concrete to abstract: collocation, colligation, semantic
preference and semantic prosody
E.g. “the naked eye”
Collocation: N-1: with, to; N-2: see, visible, invisible; N-3:
evident, undetectable
Colligation: preposition+the naked eye
Semantic preference: visibility
Semantic prosody: difficulty (through a larger context)
Compound lexical item/ELU: visibility+preposition+the
naked eye
– Semantic preference is more concrete and
collocationally detectable than semantic prosody.
Semantic preference relates the node item to another
item from a particular semantic set, while semantic
prosody is an abstraction from wider stretches of text.
– They interact with each other: S preference,
contributes powerfully to building S prosody; S prosody
dictates the general environment which constrains the
preferential choices of the node item. (Partington,
2004)
E.g. undergo
• Semantic preference: medicine (treatment,
hysterectomy, brain surgery etc.), tests
(examinations, training) and change (dramatic
changes, a historic transformation among others);
involuntariness (must, forced to and required to)
• Semantic prosody: NEG
• Q 3: Is SP simply a two-term system as either POS or
NEG?
– Stubbs: NEG; POS; neutral/mixed prosody (Stubbs,
1996)
– After some initial confusion, corpus linguists have
reached a general agreement in appreciating the POSNEG distinction at the heart of the notion of SP. The
POS-NEG distinction is the essential simplicity at the
heart of a complex system. (Partington, 2004)
e.g. place—informal invitation (Sinclair, 1996)
– Caution: NEG collocates don’t necessarily result in NEG
SP.
e.g. alleviate, heal, relieve
• Q 4: Is SP a lexical feature or a discourse function?
–
1.
Two ways of viewing SP: the lexical priming perspective
vs. the discoursal perspective
SP is associated with the lexical item and expresses
itself in patterns of co-occurrence. Lexical items carry
with them a set of suggestions on how to use them, on
how they normally interact with other items—they have
“primings” (Hoey). Among these is the SP.
2. From another perspective, SP is definable as the
evaluative intent of the speaker, i.e. the attitude s/he
has to the topic in any individual text fragment. The
overall SP choice dictates the lower choices of
phraseology and lexis.
E.g. speaker’s NEG attitude-- wish to say a certain
situation is bad because it is dangerous— “fraught with”
danger, not “brimming with” danger
c.f. I choose “fraught with” because my communicative
competence informs me that its SP primings allow it to
be used in this way. (Morley & Partington, 2009)
• Q 5: Should the term SP be replaced by discourse prosody
(Stubbs) or pragmatic prosody?
– Stubbs argues that, since prosodies express speaker
attitude, we should avoid using the term semantic, which
relates to aspects of meaning which are independent of
speakers. However, prosodies are independent of
individual speakers, otherwise communication would be
impossible. Thus the potential of an item for engaging in
the expression of favourable or unfavourable evaluation
is part of its basic communicative function. (Partington,
2004)
Approaches and findings
• Data-based approach: colligation
• Data-driven approach: node, span and collocate;
statistical tests of collocational strength (MI
score, T score, Z score, etc.)
• Integrated approach
– 卫乃兴. (2002). 语义韵研究的一般方法. 外语教学与研究(04),
300-307.
Author
Negative
prosody
Sinclair (1991, 1996)
BREAK
HAPPEN
SET
in out
Louw (1993, 2000)
utterly
bent on
build
of v. ed
END
up verbing
GET
oneself
Stubbs
2001)
(1995,
1996, teenager(s)
CAUSE
signs of
Positive prosody
Neutral/mixed
prosody
place
BUILD up a
PROVIDE
career
Author
Negative prosody
Partington (1998)
COMMIT
PEDDLE/peddler
dealings
Hunston
2007)
(2002,
Positive prosody
Neutral/mixed
prosody
SIT through
persistent
(Xiao & McEnery,
2006)
Consequence(s)
cause
(卫乃
兴 , 2002a,
2002b,
2006)
Cause
Incur
Incidence of
Commit
(Xiao & McEnery,
2006)
Consequence(s)
cause
Result
outcome
career
Result
outcome
Consequently
结果
Probability of
effect
Consequently
结果
Implications
• SP is a controversial and elusive concept, but it is
crucial to our understanding of lexical behaviors
and discourse meanings, hence the significance of
research.
• A working definition is needed before we conduct
any serious empirical research on SP.
• More SP studies about languages other than
English are yet to be conducted.
• Investigating SP on translated language?
Reference
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Bednarek, M. (2008). Semantic preference and semantic prosody re-examined. Corpus Linguistics
and Linguistic Theory, 4(2), 119-139.
Louw, B. (1993). Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential of semantic
prosodies. In M. Baker, G. Francis & E. Tognini-Bonelli (Eds.), Text and Technology (pp. 157-176).
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Louw, B. (2000). Contextual prosodic theory: Bringing semantic prosodies to life, Words in
Context: A tribute to John Sinclair on his retirement. (pp. 48-94). Birmingham: University of
Birmingham.
Morley, J., & Partington, A. (2009). A few Frequently Asked Questions about semantic or
evaluative prosody. International journal of corpus linguistics, 14(2), 139-158.
Partington, A. (1998). Patterns and meanings. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Partington, A. (2004). " Utterly content in each others company": Semantic prosody and semantic
preference. International journal of corpus linguistics, 9(1), 131-156.
Sinclair, J. (1996). The search for units of meaning. Textus, 9(1), 75-106.
Stubbs, M. (1996). Text and corpus analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Xiao, R., & McEnery, T. (2006). Collocation, semantic prosody, and near synonymy: A crosslinguistic perspective. Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 103-129.
卫乃兴. (2002a). 语料库数据驱动的专业文本语义韵研究. 现代外语, 25(002), 165-175.
卫乃兴. (2002b). 语义韵研究的一般方法. 外语教学与研究(04), 300-307.
卫乃兴. (2006). 基于语料库学生英语中的语义韵对比研究. 外语学刊(05), 50-54+112.