Empirical evaluation:Towards an automated index of lexical variety

Viana, Vander, Giordani, A. and Zyngier, Sonia (2008) Empirical evaluation:Towards an automated index of lexical variety. In: Directions in empirical literary studies. Linguistic Approaches to Literature . UNSPECIFIED, Amsterdam, pp. 271-282. ISBN 9789027233370

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Abstract

This chapter proposes an objective approach to the formal analysis of literary prose in English in order to investigate the relation between lexical density and judgments of canonicity. Based on the concepts of literariness proposed by the Russian Formalists and lexical variety, a mathematical index is designed, relating three variables which take the materiality of text into consideration: (a) relative frequency of lexical bundles, (b) lexical bundle type/token ratio, and (c) word type/token ratio. The index is described and illustrated with 46 canonical and non-canonical literary works. Statistical analysis shows no significant relation between lexical richness and decisions of what has been classified as canonical, indicating that these judgments may be influenced by factors other than the text itself.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	lexical variety,corpus linguistics,literary discourse,lexical bundles,empirical study,canonicity
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Related URLs:	https://benjamins.com/catalog/lal.5.22vi...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	16 Sep 2019 12:30
Last Modified:	10 May 2022 00:04
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/72237
DOI:	10.1075/lal.5.22via

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