Linguistic DNA.pdf (2.39 MB)
Linguistic DNA: investigating conceptual change in early modern English discourse
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 06:56 authored by Susan Fitzmaurice, Justyna RobinsonJustyna Robinson, Marc Alexander, Iona C Hine, Seth Mehl, Fraser DallachyThis article describes the background and premises of the AHRC-funded project, ‘The Linguistic DNA of Modern Western Thought’. We offer an empirical, encyclopaedic approach to historical semantics regarding ‘conceptual history’, i.e. the history of concepts that shape thought, culture and society in a particular period. We relate the project to traditional work in conceptual and semantic history and define our object of study as the discursive concept, a category of meaning encoded linguistically as a cluster of expressions that co-occur in discourse. We describe our principal data source, EEBO-TCP, and introduce our key research interests, namely, the contexts of conceptual change, the semantic structure of lexical fields and the nature of lexicalisation pressure. We outline our computational processes, which build upon the theoretical definition of discursive concepts, to discover the linguistically encoded forms underpinning the discursive concepts we seek to identify in EEBO-TCP. Finally, we share preliminary results via a worked example, exploring the discursive contexts in which paradigmatic terms of key cultural concepts emerge. We consider the extent to which particular genres, discourses and users in the early modern period make paradigms, and examine the extent to which these contexts determine the characteristics of key concepts.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Published version
Journal
Studia NeophilologicaISSN
0039-3274Publisher
Taylor & FrancisExternal DOI
Issue
sup1Volume
89Page range
21-38Department affiliated with
- English Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Research Group Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2017-06-28First Open Access (FOA) Date
2017-06-29First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2017-06-29Usage metrics
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