Been frantically working on my SSHRC scholarship application the past few days and got the darn thing mailed off today. The scholarship is worth $20,000 CND per year for 4 years so wish me luck. Anways, I thought it would be good to post what I wrote so everyone who asks "So what is it that you're studying again?" will be satisfied (well, maybe...:).
Here it is:
Program of Study
A corpus linguistic study of neologisms related to computers and the Internet
Many have heralded the internet as the technology that has most fundamentally changed society in the 21st century. According to Baugh and Cable “a new thing that becomes genuinely popular makes demands upon and extends the resources of the language” (2002: 299). My DPhil research will attempt to ascertain how computers and the explosion of the Internet since 1995 have made their mark on the English lexicon.
The influence of the Internet on communication and social patterns is currently a hot academic topic and organizations dedicated to studying the impact of the Internet are being established around the world
[1]. Several researchers have focused specifically on the impact of the Internet on language. Crystal suggests that a new type of communication, a hybrid between written, spoken and typographical characters such as smileys, has developed as a result of the Internet (2001: 17). He calls it Netspeak. The Journal of Computer Mediated Communication publishes work specifically about how people communicate online and with wireless technology. Baron (2000) and O’Donnell (1998) take a slightly different track, tracing the evolution of written human communication from the beginnings of the alphabet and papyrus to emails and chat rooms finding similarities between old and new communication technologies. My objective, however, is to research actual examples of language use and track the neologisms (or new words) coined to describe computers and the Internet.
My methodological approach includes aspects from both lexicography and corpus linguistics. First I intend to identify all the major neologisms related to the computers and the Internet coined and popularized in English since 1995, the year the Internet exploded in popularity. Scanning new additions to the Oxford English Dictionary Online will provide a list of how the language has innovated in this area since that time.
Secondly, I will use corpus linguistic methodologies to examine the use of these neologisms in natural language situations. There are no existing corpora that contain language samples recent enough for my period of study. However, there is an entire sub-area of corpus linguistics that focuses on using the web as a corpus (see Kilgarriff & Grefenstette, 2003, Meyer et al, 2003, Renouf, Kehoe & Mezquiriz, 2004, and Renouf, 2003). I intend to use the web as my corpus as it is constantly being updated and will provide the current data as well as being the logical place to search for vocabulary related to computers and the Internet.
I will use a tool called WebCorp (
www.webcorp.org) developed by Dr. Antoinette Renouf and her colleagues at the University of Central England in Birmingham. WebCorp harnesses the power of existing search engines such as Google and Altavista to return data in a format that is useful for corpus linguistics including KWIC (key word in context) concordance listings, frequencies and lists of words collocated (found to the left and right) of the search term. Using WebCorp I will analyze the relative frequency, meaning and usage of selected neologisms to evaluate how computers and the Internet have influenced the English language. As WebCorp searches the entire Internet it will be inclusive of the different varieties of English used around the world, at least in terms of how these varieties are used on the Net.
Following Algeo it is my belief that studying shifts in vocabulary can reveal insights about the complex relationship humans have to this new technology (1991: 1). A secondary thrust of my research will test a hypothesis that some computer and Internet terms are being applied analogously in non-technical contexts. Crystal gives the following anecdotal evidence of this type of language use, ‘It’s my turn to download now (i.e. I’ve heard all your gossip, now hear mine)…Let’s go offline for a few minutes (i.e. let’s talk in private)’ (19). I will evaluate the frequency of these types of usages to determine how common they are compared with traditional uses of computer and Internet related terms. This type of analysis may reveal the level of normalization of computers and the Internet in society and reflect cultural attitudes towards technology.
I am currently undertaking my first year of study in a three year DPhil program at the University of Oxford in the Faculty of English Language and Literature. This program is unique in that it supports linguistic research on the English language in addition to the study of literature. There are no programs similar to this one anywhere in Canada. My co-supervisors, Professor Suzanne Romaine and Dr. Lynda Mugglestone, are leading academics in the study of the English language. Professor Romaine has expertise in corpus linguistics, language change and sociolinguistics among other areas. Dr. Mugglestone is a specialist on the Oxford English Dictionary with an interest in social and cultural aspects of language change, language attitudes, lexicography, lexicology and the history of English.
Additionally Oxford is a centre of excellence on computing and the humanities. The British National Corpus, one of the first and few mega-corpus projects, was developed at Oxford, and is one of the standards against which all other corpora are measured. Oxford University Computing Services has set up an entire unit, the Oxford Text Archive (OTA) to catalogue and collect electronic texts for the purpose of humanities research. The OTA has a particular specialty in corpus linguistics. The Oxford Internet Institute was set up to study the societal implications of the internet and is also related to my research. Finally, Oxford is home to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which is the definitive authority on the English language and a cornerstone of lexicological and lexicographical research. The OED supports research using their massive data stores and Dr. Mugglestone is one who has benefited from these privileges. In short, the environment at Oxford is ideal for both my subject area (neologisms related to computers and the internet) and methodology (corpus linguistics and lexicography).
Works Cited
Baugh, Albert C, and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 5th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Crystal, David.
Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Baron, Naomi S. Alphabet to email: How Written English Evolved and Where It’s Heading. London: Routledge, 2000.
Fifty Years Among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms. 1941-1991. Ed. John Algeo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Kilgarriff, Adam and Gregory Grefenstette. ‘Introduction to the Special Issue on Web as Corpus.’Computational Linguistics 29.3 (2003):333-348.
Meyer, Charles, et al., ‘The World Wide Web as Linguistic Corpus.’ Corpus Analysis: Language Structure and Language Use. Eds. Leistyna, Pepi, and Charles F. Meyer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003. 241-254.
O’Donnell, James J. Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Renouf, Antoinette, Kehoe, Adam, and David Mezquiriz. 'The Accidental Corpus: Some Issues in Extracting Linguistic Information from the Web.' Advances in Corpus Linguistics: Papers from the 23rd International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 23) Eds. Aijmer, Karin, and Bengt Altenberg. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004. 403-419.
Renouf, Antoinette. 'WebCorp: Providing a Renewable Data Source for Corpus Linguists.' Extending the Scope of Corpus-based Research: New Applications, New Challenges. Eds. Sylviane Granger, and Stephanie Petch-Tyson. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003. 39-58.
[1] For examples see the Association of Internet Researchers (
www.aoir.org) and the PEW Internet and American Life Project (
http://www.pewinternet.org/).
