Corpus Linguistics and 17th-Century Prostitution Computational Linguistics and History
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Professor Anthony McEnery is a corpus linguist working at the University of Lancaster, UK
Helen Baker is Part-time Newby Research Fellow, County South, Lancaster University, UK
This book impressively proves: (historical) corpus linguistics and historical science can no longer work in splendid isolation. I am fascinated by this informed, critical and data-driven investigation of prostitution in multifaceted public discourses of eventful 17th-century Britain, with its intelligent, respectful and mutually beneficial integration of the respective methods, tools, concepts and knowledge from both disciplines. This book will serve as a model of interdisciplinary research where, for example, quantification and learned statistical testing of linguistic findings on semantic and lexical change are seen as indispensable, but never sufficient to replace contextualisation. Reinhart Koselleck would have loved to read how his concept of the history of ideas is enhanced by modern, state-of-the-art of interdisciplinary studies of big historical language data like EEBO really looked at on the inside.
- Beatrix Busse, Professor of English Linguistics, Heidelberg University, Germany,
This fascinating book provides a welcome guide to the use of big data (EEBO) for interdisciplinary study. It applies corpus linguistic methods for historical pragmatic and sociolinguistic research questions on attitudes and culture. It successfully combines the quantitative approach with qualitative contextual assessment, something that until recently seemed almost impossible.
- Irma Taavitsainen, Professor emerita, University of Helsinki, Finland,
Corpus linguistics has much to offer history, being as both disciplines engage so heavily in analysis of large amounts of textual material.
This open access book demonstrates the opportunities for exploring corpus linguistics as a method in historiography and the humanities and social sciences more generally. Focussing on the topic of prostitution in 17th-century England, it shows how corpus methods can assist in social research, and can be used to deepen our understanding and comprehension.
McEnery and Baker draw principally on two sources – the newsbook Mercurius Fumigosis and the Early English Books Online Corpus. This scholarship on prostitution and the sex trade offers insight into the social position of women in history.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Knowledge Unlatched.
1. Corpus Linguistics and History
Part I: Historical Context
2. Prostitution in England
3. Attitudes to Prostitution in the Seventeenth Century
Part II: Corpus Investigation
4. Representation
5. Society
6. Words
Part III: Synthesis
7. The Corpus Insight
8. The Utility of Corpus Data in History and the Humanities
Bibliography
Index
Language is ubiquitous. As never before, it is now commonly understood how crucial language is for human interaction, for negotiating and shaping our material and ideational reality. In the digital age, the speed, scale and diversity of forms of communication and language use have grown rapidly. The increasing amount of language data that influences attitudes, decision-making and relationships highlights how the methodology of corpus linguistics together with the explanatory power of discourse analysis are indispensable for deciphering the world around us.
Situated at the interface of corpus linguistics and discourse studies, the Corpus and Discourse series publishes innovative research where humanities and social sciences come together to understand the relationship between discourse and society in an increasingly digital world.
Series Editors: Michaela Mahlberg (University of Birmingham, UK) and Gavin Brookes (Lancaster University, UK)
Consulting Editor: Wolfgang Teubert (University of Birmingham, UK)
Editorial Board
Paul Baker, Lancaster University, UK
Frantisek Cermák, Charles University, Prague
Susan Conrad, Portland State University, USA
Matteo Fuoli, University of Birmingham, UK
Maristella Gatto, University of Bari, Italy
Dominique Maingueneau, Université de Paris XII, France
Christian Mair, University of Freiburg, Germany
Alan Partington, University of Bologna, Italy
Charlotte Taylor, University of Sussex, UK
Elena Tognini-Bonelli, University of Siena, Italy
Ruth Wodak, Lancaster University, UK
Ruihua Zhang, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China
Feng Zhiwei, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Beijing, China
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Professor Anthony McEnery is a corpus linguist working at the University of Lancaster, UK
Helen Baker is Part-time Newby Research Fellow, County South, Lancaster University, UK