Dear All,
First of all, many many thanks for responding.
I am wondering about the sentences being de-contextualized, because to me,
even one single sentence or phrase I overhear can get me thinking. But I
guess I just constantly think about it, whereas to the "unsuspecting"
respondents it may not tell much indeed. I will try to find it again in my
notes from the books, how long IS the "span" for semantic prosody to show,
although I should have known it by now. Thank you, that is something else to
think about.
As to the respondents, well, I just sent the questionnaire to a friend in
Hampshire, England, who then distributed it among their friends and
relatives. No particular age or education group, and none with any kind of
academic linguistic knowledge. I didn't think it would be necessary, I had
assumed that most native speakers would just "feel" it AND be able to tell!
On the contrary, I chose my fellow students as the non-native speaker part
because those would be one of the most "aware" groups, I thought.
Here is the introduction (instructions) and 3 sets of sentences by way of
example.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * *
"Grammatically, all of the sentences below are correct. Yet, please tick off
all sentences that are likely to be used in English and are "perfectly OK".
Leave blank those that sound unnatural or "weird". You may tick off as many
sentences as you like in each set, or all of them if appropriate. It isn't
about "right" or "wrong" answers, just your personal feeling."
Engineering of these goods will favourably affect the market.
Engineering of these goods will positively affect the market.
Engineering of these goods will seriously affect the market.
Engineering of these goods will badly affect the market.
She caused me a lot of misery.
She caused me a lot of happiness.
She caused me a lot of joy.
She caused me a lot of trouble
Overdrafting the account provides extra work for the bank staff.
The organization provides accommodation for the young.
This kind of behaviour provides us all with a lot of problems.
This provides security for those who need it most.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * *
Some sets indeed contained sentences that were ALL acceptable in terms of
semantic prosody, as with the word "create" that can occur with both
positive and negative meanings. Like I said, I tried to make "the"
collocations prominent, but I also did 2 sets out of all by putting together
different sentences (in form), just to see if it would matter. It didn't,
and there is no consensus with respect to those sets either.
Thanks very much for the suggestion to use a learner's corpus, I'm ashamed
to say I had never used one before. And I think I've already found what I
needed! (PICLE ;)
It seems to me now that unless there is something in the instructions that
was really misleading, I guess my "semantic prosody questionnaire" is a
perfect oxymoron. :)
Thank you again very very much, and I would of course appreciate any other
replies.
Irena
(MA Student of Linguistics, University of Latvia)
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