37.3674, Reviews: Affixes and Derivatives across the Humanities and Social Sciences: Piotr Twardzisz (2026)

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Subject: 37.3674, Reviews: Affixes and Derivatives across the Humanities and Social Sciences: Piotr Twardzisz (2026)

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Date: 06-Nov-2026
From: Holly Quinlan [quinlanhr at cardiff.ac.uk]
Subject: Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics, Morphology, Syntax: Piotr Twardzisz (2026)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/37-1527

Title: Affixes and Derivatives across the Humanities and Social
Sciences
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/affixes-and-derivatives-across-the-humanities-and-social-sciences-9781350569003/

Author(s): Piotr Twardzisz

Reviewer: Holly Quinlan

SUMMARY
Piotr Twardzisz’s “Affixes and Derivatives across the Humanities and
Social Sciences” addresses the question of whether academic writing in
English can exist separately from derived words. Specifically,
Twardzisz focusses on humanities and social science disciplines to
examine patterns and increase the representation of these disciplines
in the literature. The analysis is situated in the context of research
and publication through the medium of written academic English. In
this context, another gap is addressed: that of the role of
derivational morphology in disciplinary variation.
Twardzisz’s text covers a broad range of topics and methodologies,
making it appealing to corpus linguists, applied linguists,
morphologists, academics, and those involved in pedagogy. The text
could serve as a point of reference for humanities-based teaching and
learning at undergraduate and postgraduate level, as well as in
academic professional development.
The book includes eight chapters, with the first two serving to
introduce the reader to the concepts of written academic English and
contemporary English’s derivational system. In Chapter 1, those who
are unfamiliar with applied linguistics have the opportunity to
understand how written academic English can be investigated in applied
contexts such as through linguistic study (pp. 2-3). This chapter
establishes a gap in existing research of written academic English by
asserting that the humanities and social sciences have “not received
sufficient attention” despite being a “vast scholarly territory” (p.
7). By reviewing previous research, Twardzisz develops a narrow field
of focus for the rest of the book. Research into written academic
English has traditionally covered academic discourse, English for
research and publication purposes, the linguistic aspects of academic
English (including lexical bundles, noun density and derivation, and
syntax). The disciplines that have previously received the most
attention in research are medicine, chemistry, mathematics,
engineering, and law (pp. 13-15). Meanwhile, history has previously
been “only touched upon, vis-à-vis biology” (p. 15).
In Chapter 2, audiences who are not morphologists by specialism are
introduced to the patterns that contemporary English follows to create
derivation (p. 3). As Chapter 1 establishes, affixes have not been
widely researched as potential characteristics of disciplinary writing
contexts (p. 27). Thus, Twardzisz reviews the English derivational
system in Chapter 2. The derivational categories that are outlined
include prefixes and suffixes. Other affixal effects are possible, but
it is noted that they are “mostly marginal in English” (p. 28). The
chapter distinguishes the nuance of the area by providing several
examples of the most productive and usual affixes in derived nouns,
adjectives, and verbs. Twardzisz then outlines examples of residual
affixes and derivational categories, where the same affix might be
part of several different complicated words across “all major
syntactic categories” (p. 38). For example, prefixes such as after-
and arch- are said to contribute to creating “both literal and
figurative senses” (p. 39). The focus of the chapter then narrows to
discuss disciplinary affixal patterns within the humanities and social
sciences, particularly the abnormalities that emerge.
Chapters 3-5 present analytical findings from the Corpus of
Contemporary American English (COCA). Chapter 3 presents a range of
affixal statistics from engagement with the COCA database. First,
Twardzisz outlines the methodological approach that was taken to
analyse data from COCA. The approach combines corpus linguistics and
genre research in an attempt to mitigate the “one-sided”,
statistics-driven results that are generated from corpus research (pp.
47-48). By combining discipline-based and corpus-based research
approaches, Twardzisz establishes an aim of contextualising the
statistical outputs within the humanities and social sciences (p. 48).
In COCA academic, there are ten disciplinary subcorpora, including
humanities and social science disciplines as well as disciplines such
as medicine and science (p. 49). Forty-six prefixes are exemplified
and stated as being “under initial consideration”, with some common
affixes being excluded due to an overrepresentation in “general
discourse” (pp. 49-50). The five sections from COCA which cover soft
disciplines form the analytical focus. These sections are: education;
history; geography and social science (geo/socsci); law and political
science (law/polsci), and philosophy and religion (phil/rel) (p. 51).
Then, in Chapter 4, the focus shifts to estbalish lists of derivatives
from the findings of the COCA analysis. Establishing a focus of “word
types which constitute unique items on disciplinary wordlists”, the
chapter contains analysis of forty affixes that were “handpicked”
based on the above criterion (p. 79). Inclusion criteria also included
significant frequencies, meaning that only words with frequencies over
0.01 per million were included (p. 79). The lists of words are
organised by affix, which creates cohesion throughout the chapter and
establishes affixal patterns. Furthermore, the lists are broken down
by disciplinary area, thus demonstrating which words and affixes are
typical of specific disciplines. Conclusions are not drawn from the
analytical content of this chapter. Instead, the analysis contributes
to the conclusions that are later drawn in Chapter 5.
As Chapter 4 established the disciplinary wordlists for each affix,
Chapter 5 contains a synthesis of “the behaviour of the forty affixes”
by examining both individual affixes and their presence in different
disciplinary areas (p. 151). This discursive chapter sets the aim of
creating a “succinct overview” of how the forty affixes of focus
collaborate with “individual academic areas (geo[graphy], edu[cation],
hist[ory]) or area clusters (geo & hist, edu & geo, edu & hist and
edu, geo & hist)” (p. 151). As was the case with Chapter 4, the lists
also include analysis of the individual patterns within each list.
Thus, the chapter presents the disciplinary patterns that are observed
in affixal behaviour, establishing a character profile for each
academic area and area cluster.
Departing from the methodological approaches in Chapters 3-5, Chapter
6 discusses the close reading approach that Twardzisz undertook to
analyse the text fragments that constitute the COCA database. The
analysed texts were “carefully handpicked and pre-read” to ensure that
they maintained relevance to the overarching focus (p. 169). In the
close reading analysis, seven humanities and social science
disciplines were considered: “education, religion, international
(int’l) relations, psychology, geography, history and economics” (p.
169). Five academic books with thirty-five titles were included in the
close reading analytical activity (pp. 169-170). The chapter is
organised by discipline, with the relevant affixes and their
accompanying words listed under each disciplinary heading. Similarly
to Chapter 5, this chapter highlights the disciplinary patterns that
emerge from observed affix usage.
The discussion of the close reading results presented in Chapter 6
takes place in Chapter 7. In this chapter, affixes are analysed in
disciplinary contexts, and then a morphological profiling activity is
completed using a total of ninety-five affixes for the seven
disciplines of focus (p. 217). Affixes are discussed in terms of a
hierarchy of importance, with the suffixes -ation and –(ic)al cited as
“the most stable elements across the seven disciplines”, as well as
being situated in high positions relative to other affixes and word
types (p. 218). Meanwhile, the suffixes -able/-ible, -ity, and -ous
are said to occupy moderate positions with “a certain degree of
affixal stability”; the suffixes -ance, -ate, and -ful are said to
demonstrate affixal stability even though they are positioned somewhat
lower than other affixes and “reach low word-type numbers” (pp.
219-223). The chapter then compares the seven individual disciplines
to other fields (pp. 243-248). Finally, Chapter 8 brings together both
analyses in a summary of the findings.
EVALUATION
Twardzisz situates the research in the context of previous
disciplinary and corpus-based research. Many of the sources that are
referenced in this text demonstrate the uniqueness of the research
area. For example, previous research has investigated linguistic
patterns in medical, agriculture, and mathematics (e.g., Muñoz 2015;
ten Hacken & Panocová 2015; Cunningham 2017). Furthermore, previous
linguistic foci have been word formation, vocabulary, dispersions,
phraseology, lexical bundles, and formality (e.g., Hyland & Tse 2007;
Hyland 2008; Gries 2010; Brezina & Gablasova 2015; Muñoz 2015; ten
Hacken & Panocová 2015; Cunningham 2017; Hyland & Jiang 2017).
Overall, this book makes a unique contribution to the area of applied
linguistics. It successfully addresses several gaps in previous
research by exploring humanities and social science disciplines from
the perspective of affixal behaviours, and also by using a combination
of corpus linguistics and genre-based methodologies. The text
successfully identifies disciplinary patterns, the frequencies of
different affix and derivative usages, and typical patterns for
different disciplinary groupings. The approach used by Twardzisz
addresses the potential shortcomings of approaching this research from
a purely corpus linguistics perspective by applying another
methodological approach to fill those gaps. The database used, COCA,
has limitations; those setbacks are mitigated through sustained and
diverse engagement with the material. Twardzisz successfully achieves
the goals set out in the book and creates a resource that may be
referred to in future identification of disciplinary patterns.
Twardzisz identifies some shortcomings in the research, which invites
the opportunity for future exploration in this area. For example,
findings are inconclusive due to the somewhat limited sample size,
although the sample was analysed from three different angles to
extract as much analytical content as possible. The texts were also
similar in theme and genre; perhaps future research may consider a
broader range of texts and themes. Although the content may certainly
be of interest to those working in pedagogical contexts, the complex
subject matter may be slightly difficult for a non-specialist to
navigate at times. Nevertheless, the rich bank of affixes which has
been created helps identify written behaviours that are typical of
specific disciplines.
The text opens some interesting questions, such as:
 - Where does this analysis sit in the wider context of disciplinary
studies and applied linguistics?
 - How does this text contribute methodologically to traditional
corpus linguistic approaches?
 - Why were some common affixes omitted?
Twardzisz’s analyses contribute greater understanding of disciplinary
patterns related to affixes and derivatives. The use of different
methodological approaches means that the data were analysed from
several different angles, making the research robust, comprehensive,
and replicable. Analyses are presented in list form, and lists cohere
throughout each chapter, which creates a series of banks to refer back
to.
REFERENCES
Brezina, Vaclav & Gablasova, Dana. 2015. Is There a Core General
Vocabulary? Introducing the New General Service List. Applied
Linguistics. 36(1), pp. 1-22. Available at: OP-APPL130018 1..22
Cunningham, Kelly. 2017. A phraseological exploration of recent
mathematics research articles through key phrase frames. Journal of
English for Academic Purposes. 25, pp. 71-83. Available at:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2016.11.005
Gries, Stefan. 2010. Dispersions and Adjusted Frequencies in Corpora:
Further Explorations. In: Gries, Stefan, Wulff, Stefanie & Davies,
Mark (eds). Corpus-linguistic Applications: Current Studies, New
Directions. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 197-212
Hyland, Ken & Tse, Polly. 2007. Is There an “Academic Vocabulary”?
TESOL Quarterly. 41(2), pp. 235-253. Available at:
https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.cardiff.idm.oclc.org/doi/epdf/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2007.tb00058.x
Hyland, Ken. 2008. As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary
variation. English for Specific Purposes. 27, pp. 4-21. Available at:
doi:10.1016/j.esp.2007.06.001
Hyland, Ken & Jiang, Feng (Kevin). 2017. Is academic writing becoming
more informal? English for Specific Purposes. 45, pp. 40-51. Available
at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2016.09.001
Muñoz, Verónica. 2015. The vocabulary of agriculture
semi-popularization articles in English: A corpus-based study. English
for Specific Purposes. 39, pp. 26-44. Available at:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2015.04.001
ten Hacken, Pius & Panocová, Renáta (eds.). 2015. Word Formation and
Transparency in Medical English. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing
Twardzisz, Piotr. 2026. Affixes and Derivatives across the Humanities
and Social Sciences. Great Britain: Bloomsbury Academic
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Holly Quinlan is a second-year postgraduate researcher at Cardiff
University. Her research project is funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC) and focusses on the academic transition from
secondary to university education. In particular, she is investigating
the reading and writing practices that Arts and Humanities students
engage with in secondary schools in Wales and universities across the
UK. She approaches the research from an academic literacies
perspective, which places emphasis on the individual experiences of
staff and students at both levels of education.


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