33.312, Review: English; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Laporte (2021)

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Subject: 33.312, Review: English; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Laporte (2021)

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Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 09:05:29
From: Ding Huang [ding.huang at stud.uni-heidelberg.de]
Subject: Corpora, Constructions, New Englishes

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36754537


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-2627.html

AUTHOR: Samantha  Laporte
TITLE: Corpora, Constructions, New Englishes
SUBTITLE: A constructional and variationist approach to verb patterning
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Corpus Linguistics 100
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Ding Huang, Heidelberg University, Germany

SUMMARY

The present book thoroughly examines verb patterning in British English (BrE)
and New Englishes (NEs), with a corpus-based approach under the theoretical
framework of Construction Grammar. The book contains eight chapters, six of
which, other than the “Introduction” and the “General conclusion” chapters,
can be divided into two halves. The first half, from Chapter 2 to Chapter 4,
deals with essential terminologies and the theoretical and methodological
frameworks which the book adopts. The second half, Chapter 5 to Chapter 7,
forms the main body of the book. This part systematically investigates the
patterning of the highly-frequent verb ‘make’ in BrE and NEs.

More specifically, as the introduction to the whole book, Chapter 1 starts by
providing general background information on various topics, including key
concepts such as the plural use of “English”, i.e. “Englishes”, structural
nativization, the lexis-grammar interface, Construction Grammar, Argument
Structure Constructions, Lexically-Bound Constructions, and the Dynamic Model
of the evolution of postcolonial Englishes. The author briefly but appreciably
points out the interlinking factors among these concepts. The book has two
goals, as stated in the scope and objectives section. One is to describe the
patterning of ‘make’ in BrE, which is expected to “further our understanding
of the role of and relation between verb-independent and verb-specific
constructions”; the other is to identify the features in constructions of
‘make’ at different levels of abstraction, and to “assess the impact of the
degree of institutionalization of New Englishes on actual linguistic
behaviour” (Laporte 2021: 5). Regarding the theoretical and methodological
framework, the author states that the study adopts an approach combining
Construction Grammar and Corpus Pattern Analysis.    

Chapter 2 establishes profiles for all NEs under examination: Hong Kong
English (HKE), Indian English (IndE), and Singapore English (SinE). The author
starts by introducing Kachru’s (1985) Three Concentric Circles model of
varieties of English. The author then summarises defining characteristics of
NEs, followed by a detailed account of Schneider’s (2003, 2007) Dynamic Model.
This model posits a five-phase process of the evolution of postcolonial
Englishes: Foundation, Exonormative stabilization, Nativization, Endonormative
stabilization, and Differentiation (Laporte 2021: 23-24). The three NEs are
selected based on their degree of institutionalization in the Dynamic Model.
Their sociolinguistic profiles are described individually from six aspects,
i.e., the historical backgrounds, the numbers of speakers and their language
backgrounds, the range of use in the country or region, language policies in
the country or region, speakers’ attitude towards English and the local form
of English, and the degree of nativization (26). The profiles reveal that the
NEs are situated at different stages in the Dynamic Model, where HKE only
reaches the third stage, SinE already begins the final stage, and IndE crosses
the third and fourth stages. 

As another introductory and theoretical chapter of the book, Chapter 3 focuses
on the formal aspect of NEs, more specifically, structural nativization in
lexico-grammar. The chapter begins by clarifying the definition of “feature”
(Laporte 2021: 46) and goes on to compare a few pairs of relevant concepts,
such as the structural dimension and the conceptual dimension of features,
quantitative and qualitative features, and the narrow and broad approaches to
features. The second section of the chapter explains why the lexis-grammar
interface, i.e. verb patterning, is chosen as the object of study. It then
spends more space reviewing quantitative and qualitative features of
lexico-grammatical nativization across three levels of abstraction. Notably,
focusing on verb patterning and high-frequency verbs in varieties of English,
features such as the frequency of verbs, their semantic profile, and their
lexical patterns are discussed. The author closes the chapter with a
subsection about previous empirical studies on structural nativization from a
social perspective under the Dynamic Model and then exemplifies how the
Dynamic Model can be accounted for by Construction Grammar. 

Chapter 4 discusses Construction Grammar and the Theory of Norms and
Exploitations (TNE) in its first two sections, which, as the author says,
“form the theoretical and methodological backbone” of the book (Laporte 2021:
79). Laporte states that Construction Grammar is ideal for describing verb
patterning of ‘make’ across levels of abstraction; however, it lacks a
methodological framework to identify systematically constructions based on
corpus data. In Section 4.1, the author defines and explains several key
concepts, such as constructions, constructs, multiple inheritance, Argument
Structure Constructions (ASCs), and Lexically-Bound Constructions (LBCs). At
the end of the section, the author joins the Corpus Linguistics and
Construction Grammar approaches by stating the similarities between them and
the strengths of each approach. Section 4.2 clarifies concepts, including
meaning potential and meaning components, lexical sets and semantic types,
contextual roles, and norms and exploitations. These are critical to
identifying ASCs and LBCs in Chapter 5 and the analysis of ASCs and LBCs in
BrE and NEs in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. Another key point made in the second
section is the Corpus Pattern Analysis (CPA) method based on TNE. In this
regard, the author lists and defines all components of verb norms and then
describes the procedure of CPA. The last section compares Construction Grammar
and TNE. Laporte concludes that the two theories are similar in form-meaning
mappings and the cognitive representation of language, hence highly
compatible. More importantly, the weaknesses of each theory can be
complemented by the strengths of the other. 

Chapter 5 contains three parts. The first part states that the data source
consists of four components of the International Corpus of English (ICE),
covering BrE, HKE, IndE, and SinE. The second part introduces data preparation
and extraction techniques, including tagging the corpora with part-of-speech
and semantic tagsets, cleaning the corpora, extracting all instances of the
lemma ‘make’, excluding non-verbal uses of ‘make’, etc. Laporte also states
how words and lexical verbs are counted for each corpus. In the third part,
the author spends considerable effort describing the procedures to identify
ASCs and LBCs of ‘make. Firstly, she defines the term “argument” and provides
a series of methods and rules to identify which constituents are complements
and which are adjuncts. Secondly, she explains the procedures for annotating
ASCs and provides a list of ASCs instantiated by ‘make’. Lastly, she explains
how LBCs are identified with an adapted version of the five-step CPA
procedure.

Chapter 6 aims to establish the native norm. For this purpose, the author
examines the ASCs and LBCs of ‘make’ in BrE in the first two sections and then
maps LBCs onto ASCs in the last. Section 6.1 reports the distribution of
‘make’ across nine ASCs identified by following the general principle of
formal and semantic congruence, plus two additional categories:
“idiosyncratic” and “other” (Laporte 2021: 165). The three most frequent ASCs
are CREATION, RESULTATIVE, and CAUSATIVE, accounting for nearly 90% of all
data points (166). Each ASC is discussed regarding its syntax, semantics, and
other general properties such as semantic uses and “collexemes”, defined in
the book as lexemes that are associated with a particular construction (103).
Findings suggest that ‘make’, though versatile regarding types of ASCs, has an
explicit preference over a small set of ASCs. Section 6.2 reports 83 LBCs of
‘make’ in BrE. Statistics reveal a strong correlation between the frequency of
an LBC and its degree of schematicity (191). The section then discusses the
LBCs by focusing on the valency slots, and the main findings show that the
specific meanings and uses of a verb are determined mainly by the object or
complement slots (204-209). Section 6.3 maps LBCs onto ASCs based on the
formal and semantic features that LBCs share and inherit from one or more
ASCs. Several findings are reported, for example: (i) most LBCs are subsumed
under three out of nine ASCs in BrE, (ii) some LBCs inherit features from
different ASCs, and (iii) LBCs under the same or different ASCs reflect
different levels of semantic schematicity and centrality (213-228). Moreover,
Laporte implements Goldberg’s (1995: 109) network of constructions by adding
ASCs that ‘make’ enters and states that the boundaries between ASCs can be
transcended (Laporte 2021: 229). Lastly, she discusses a so-called “lexical
constructional polysemy network” (232), which connects Cognitive Linguistics’s
lexical polysemy networks (Geeraerts 2010) with Construction Grammar’s
constructional polysemy networks (Goldberg 1995). 

The first part of Chapter 7 identifies the features of NEs across levels of
abstraction. It starts by examining the frequency of ‘make’ in the four ICE
components. Results are compared with other high-frequency verbs such as
‘give’, ‘take’, and ‘get’ in the same corpora reported in the literature. At
the high level of abstraction, the author compares ASCs across the four
varieties. Analysis observes similar use in all varieties in general, but the
argument omission phenomenon in ASC realizations differentiates IndE and SinE
from HKE (Laporte 2021: 248). At the intermediate level, frequencies and
distributions of LBCs and indeterminate patterns in all four ICE components
are compared, and similar distribution trends are found among them (257). The
author focuses on the LIGHT VERB CONSTRUCTION (LVC) at the lowest level and
observes that the three NEs exhibit systematic syntactic, lexical, and
semantic idiosyncrasies in their use of LVC compared to BrE (258-296). The
second part of Chapter 7 describes the cognitive representation of NEs based
on a study by Hoffmann (2014). Analyses are conducted on the top three most
frequent ASCs in NEs, i.e. CREATION, RESULTATIVE, and CAUSATIVE, from three
perspectives, including variations in LBC realization, allostructional
realization, and lexical realization. Results largely confirm Hoffmann’s
(2014) prediction that the more advanced a NE is in the Dynamic Model, the
closer its linguistic behaviour is to BrE; however, analyses at different
levels of abstraction reveal different trends regarding the relationship
between the more advanced varieties and the degree of variation in
instantiations of constructions (Laporte 2021: 320-321).

The book concludes with Chapter 8. In addition to answering the research
questions, it makes three main contributions. First, Construction Grammar and
the Dynamic Model are well suited to investigate verb patterning in NEs with
usage data. Second, the book joins Construction Grammar with Corpus
Linguistics, particularly in combining the strengths of both Construction
Grammar and TNE. Third, the book contributes to research on NEs by providing
Construction Grammar accounts across levels of abstraction, rather than simply
describing features of NEs. The author closes the chapter, and the book, by
offering several suggestions for further research, for example, taking into
account other factors that may be involved in patterns of NEs. 

EVALUATION

The present book is an excellent work for linguists who intend to gain new
insights into NEs and how the Construction Grammar and Corpus Linguistics
approaches could be combined to address research questions concerning patterns
in NEs. It is also an easy and good read for those who are new to the topic or
any of the theories involved in the study.

The book is well structured. Firstly, the author informatively and critically
reviews theories on which the present study is based. More importantly, she
has done an excellent job in comparing and bridging different theories and
approaches. For instance, Section 4.3 talks about how Construction Grammar and
TNE complement each other’s weaknesses and how they join together into a
theoretically backed and practically feasible approach for studying verb
patterning. Secondly, procedures for identifying ASCs and LBCs are easy to
follow. Specific rules regarding how particular data shall be treated are also
clearly stated, for example, in Section 5.3.1.1 about noun phrase
constituency. When needed, Laporte also provides checklists, with definitions
and examples, for instance, in Section 5.3.3.3 about semantic types used to
annotate CPAs. By doing so, it is guaranteed that other researchers can
replicate the study. Thirdly, analyses are conducted systematically from both
quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Theories and models introduced in
the first half of the book are constantly consulted, ensuring that analyses
are well guided. Relevant literature is also reviewed when necessary to
support the interpretation of data. It is appreciated that the author often
compares her findings with those in other studies on NEs, either to confirm
the validity of previous research or to provide new insights into the field.
In some instances, the present study compares different, or even
contradictory, results against former studies. For example, an examination of
the cognitive representation of NEs in Section 7.2 is used to test two
predictions based on Hoffmann (2014). 

Another merit of the book is that Laporte properly points out some limitations
of her study. For example, she admits that all corpora used in the study are
small in size, but convincingly justifies the choice. However, some
potentially interesting patterns and constructions of ‘make’ could not be
observed due to the small size of corpora. Even when differences among the
four English varieties are observed, they might be insignificant or, in the
case of LVCs, the decline of the proportion of significant collexemes of LVCs
along the stages of the Dynamic Model is significant but with a very small
effect size (Laporte 2021: 317). 

In addition to this limitation stated by the author, a second limitation (in
the opinion of this reviewer) is that the interpretation of the shaping of
verb patterning in NEs does not place sufficient consideration on the native
languages and cultures of the speakers of NEs. Because the Dynamic Model
considers the social dimension of the structural nativization of NEs and
Construction Grammar has a solid cognitive basis, social and cognitive factors
should be given more attention in data analysis. However, Laporte only
incidentally mentions the native languages of speakers of each NE and does not
include much literature on the native language’s impact on NEs either. On the
one hand, for example, in Section 7.1.2.2, the author briefly mentions native
languages like Chinese and Hindi and attempts to explain argument omission in
ASC realizations in IndE and SinE, but does not go too much into details. On
the other hand, if the author would include native languages in explaining the
differences between NEs and BrE regarding verb patterning, it might be
repetitive to choose both HKE and SinE because the majority of their speakers
have Chinese cultural background and speak at least one variety of Chinese.
This might be the reason for the similar distribution of some ASCs (such as
the CAUSATIVE construction in Section 7.1.2.1) and LBCs (such as the third and
fourth LBCs in Table 32 in Section 7.1.3.1). 

Nevertheless, the current analyses from syntactic, semantic, and lexical
perspectives have already produced enough evidence to support the author’s
conclusions and motivate further studies. In particular, linguists from
various fields such as NEs, Construction Grammar, Corpus Linguistics, and
potentially even English teaching and learning as a foreign/second language
could be inspired and benefit theoretically and methodologically from the
present work.

REFERENCES

Geeraerts, D. 2010. Theories of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Goldberg, A. E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to
Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hoffmann, T. 2014. “The cognitive evolution of Englishes: The role of
constructions in the Dynamic Model”. The Evolution of Englishes: The Dynamic
Model and Beyond. Ed. by S. Buschfeld, T. Hoffmann, M. Huber and A. Kautzsch,
160-180. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g49.10hof

Kachru, B. B. 1985. “Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The
English language in the Outer Circle”. English in the World: Teaching and
Learning the Language and Literatures. Ed. by R. Quirk and H. G. Widdowson,
11-30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Laporte, Samantha. 2021. Corpora, Constructions, New Englishes: A
constructional and variationist approach to verb patterning.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Schneider, E. W. 2003. “The Dynamics of New Englishes: From identity
construction to dialect birth”. Language 79(2): 233-281.
https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2003.0136

Schneider, E. W. 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties around the World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511618901


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ding HUANG is currently writing her PhD dissertation at the
Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet Heidelberg, in Germany. She is holding a MA degree
in Linguistics and Web Technology from Philipps-Universitaet Marburg in
Germany, and a second MA in Language Learning and Education from the
University of York, UK. Huang's current research interests include English
pragmatics, critical discourse analysis, formulaic language, metaphorical
language. During her PhD, she investigates the functions of formulaic
sequences in Early Modern communications texts, with Construction Grammar as
the theoretical framework and a corpus-driven approach. Huang's main research
goal is to apply the Construction Grammar approach and the Corpus Linguistics
approach to broader areas that can be investigated interdisciplinarily via
language.





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