it was announced yesterday michael hoey and matthew brook o’donnell

It was announced yesterday

Michael Hoey and

Matthew Brook O’Donnell

Oldham riots boosted race hate crimes by 25%

(1) Yesterday it was announced that racially motivated crimes have increased by more than a quarter in a county which witnessed the worst street riots in more than a decade.

(2) Almost a third of the racist crime recorded during a 12-month period in Greater Manchester occurred in and around Oldham. (3) The statistics, the Greater Manchester police said, reflected the impact of the Oldham riots, with 1,133 more incidents of racist crime than the previous year.

(4) Of the 4,567 hate crimes reported between April 2001 and March 2002, 82.1% were racially motivated. (5) This was an increase in race hate crime of 26.8% on the previous year. (6) The force published these findings in its ethnic monitoring and hate crime annual report.

TEXT A: An odd text?

T

P

N

P

paragraph

N

sentence

text

T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

P1 P2

N1 N2

Second half of sentence

First half of sentence

Once upon a time…

once upon a time in N2 position

T1 T2

P1 P2

word word word word ONCE UPON A TIME.

N2 position: at the end of a sentence which does not begin a paragraph

once upon a time in N1 position

T1 T2

P1 P2

ONCE UPON A TIME word word word word.

N1 position: at the beginning of a sentence which does not begin a paragraph

once upon a time in P2 position

N1 N2


T1 T2

P2 position: at the end of the first sentence of a paragraph which does not begin a text

once upon a time in P1 position

N1 N2


T1 T2

P1 position: at the beginning of the first sentence of a paragraph which does not begin a text

once upon a time in T2 position

P1 P2

N1 N2


T2 position: at the end of the first sentence of a text

once upon a time in T1 position

P1 P2

N1 N2


T1 position: at the beginning of the first sentence of a text

For once upon a time the canonical position is T1

P1 P2

N1 N2


• This is an association between a lexical item and a textual position, which we call TEXTUAL COLLIGATION

• This particular instance operates within the specific genre of narrative-fairy tale

The underlying claim is that when we learn a word or phrase we at the same time learn the words or phrases it co-occurs with (its collocations),

the semantics it co-occurs with (its semantic associations),

the pragmatics it associates with (its pragmatic associations),

and the grammatical patterns it appears in and with (its colligations).

We are PRIMED by our repeated experiences of a word or phrase, so that we characteristically reproduce the collocations, semantic and pragmatic associations and the colligations that are part of our priming

The same things are true at the textual level…

Textual colligation

We are primed from childhood to expect that

1. Once upon a time will occur in sentence initial position

2. Once upon a time will occur in text initial position

So, at least for this expression, we have evidence that when we use a lexical item we are aware (subconsciously) not only of the grammatical context in which it is used but also of the textual POSITION in which it is used.

The big question is: Is this true of any other lexical items?

Let’s return to TEXT A



(2) Almost a third of the racist crime recorded during a 12-month period in Greater Manchester occurred in and around Oldham. (3) Greater Manchester police said the impact of the Oldham riots was reflected in its statistics, with 1,133 more incidents of racist crime than the previous year.


yesterday it was announced that

• In newspaper text, where would you expected this phrase to occur?

T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

yesterday it was announced that • Looking in a corpus of The Guardian Home News

section for 1998-2004• There are only 5 occurrences of yesterday it was

announced that (excluding single sentence paragraphs)

T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

0 0

2 0

2 1

it was announced that


T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

it was announced that • Looking in a corpus of The Guardian Home News

section for 1998-2004• There are only 55 occurrences of it was announced that

(excluding single sentence paragraphs)

T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

0 9 (16%)

25 (45%) 10 (18%)

6 (11%) 5 (9%)

it was announced yesterday


T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

it was announced yesterday• Looking in a corpus of The Guardian Home News

section for 1998-2004• There are 215 occurrences of it was announced

yesterday (excluding single sentence paragraphs)

T

P

N

185 (86.0%)

12 (5.6%)

18 (8.4%)




T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

6 (3%) 179 (83%)

10 (5%)

3 (1%) 15 (7%)

2 (1%)




T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

1 30

1 5

1 5

ratios

1 : 19

it was announced• Looking in a corpus of The Guardian Home News

section for 1998-2004• There are 388 occurrences of it was announced (excluding

single sentence paragraphs)

T

P

N

241 (62.0%)

72 (19%)

75 (19%)




T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

12 (3%) 229 (59%)

45 (12%) 27 (7%)

50 (13%) 25 (6%)




T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

1 19

3 2

2 1

ratios

3

1

1

yesterday• Looking in a corpus of The Guardian Home

News section for 1998-2004• There are 67414 occurrences of yesterday

(excluding single sentence paragraphs)

T

P

N

34646 (51%)

19405 (29%)

13363 (20%)

yesterday• Looking in a corpus of The Guardian Home News

section for 1998-2004• There are 67414 occurrences of yesterday (excluding


T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

17552 (26%) 17721 (26%)

12752 (19%) 7092 (11%)

8029 (12%) 5624 (8%)

yesterday• Looking in a corpus of The Guardian Home News

section for 1998-2004• There are 67414 occurrences of yesterday (excluding


T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

1 1

2 1

3 2

ratios





TEXT A



(1) Racially motivated crimes have increased by more than a quarter in a county which witnessed the worst street riots in more than a decade, it was announced yesterday.




(2) Greater Manchester police said the impact of the Oldham riots was reflected in its statistics, with 1,133 more incidents of racist crime than the previous year. (3) Almost a third of the racist crime recorded during the 12-month period in Greater Manchester occurred in and around Oldham.

(4) The force published the findings of its ethnic monitoring and hate crime annual report. (5) Of the 4,567 hate crimes reported between April 2001 and March 2002, 82.1% were racially motivated. (6) This was an increase in race hate crime of 26.8% on the previous year.

TEXT B

How do we know?

• AHRC Project – explore the extent and behaviour of text and paragraph initial words in hard news– M. Hoey, M. Scott, M. Mahlberg & M.

O’Donnell– The Guardian Home News 1998-2004

Method: Classify sentences in corpus

• Classify sentences in each article according to where they occur:– TISC first sentence of first paragraph– PISC first sentence of subsequent paragraph– NISC any non-initial sentence

Method: Anatomy of a news article





TISC

text initial sentence

PISC

paragraph initial sentence

PISC

NISC

non-initial sentence

NISC

The Guardian, 29 October 2002

NISC

Method: Key Word procedure to identify text-initial items

• Key Word procedure– Take a wordlist of items from TISC (Text-initial

sentences)– And compare with one from NISC (Non-initial

sentences)

• Some examples….– yesterday, last night– announced, suffered, stressed– plans, report– over, a, under, after, against– fresh, branded



(2) Greater Manchester police said the impact of the Oldham riots was reflected in its statistics, with 1,133 more incidents of racist crime than the previous year. (3) Almost a third of the racist crime recorded during the 12-month period in Greater Manchester occurred in and around Oldham.

(4) The force published the findings of its ethnic monitoring and hate crime annual report. (5) Of the 4,567 hate crimes reported between April 2001 and March 2002, 82.1% were racially motivated. (6) This was an increase in race hate crime of 26.8% on the previous year.

TEXT B

TISC PISC NISC

racially 33.3 10.8 11.0

crimes 103.5 74.0 66.6

by more than 30.1 14.6 15.5

the worst 120.4 87.2 79.1

announced 648.9 205.1 131.1

yesterday 11097.2 1549.7 691.0frequency per million words

yesterday: Sentence Position

TISC PISC NISC

First word 0.2% 13.4% 13.5%Last word 25.7% 15.4% 19.9%

(1) George Bush yesterday suffered a blow to his argument… (P1S1, Sept 27, 2006)

(2) Bulgaria and Romania yesterday received the green light to join the EU in January

(P1S1, Sept 27, 2006)

(3) Yesterday, the paper shelved its plan to give… (P2S2, Apr 3, 1998)

(4) Yesterday the prime minister was taunted by Iain Duncan Smith.

(P8S2, Apr 25, 2002)

It was V-ed…

TISC PISC NISCit was 3004 13469 28236

REVEALED 274 121 118

ANNOUNCED 245 161 83

CLAIMED 111 43 92

DISCLOSED 111 21 22

REPORTED 102 87 92

CONFIRMED 78 28 25

ALLEGED 25 36 65

946 497 497

31.49% 3.60% 1.76%

it was VREPORTED

• Looking in a corpus of The Guardian Home News section for 1998-2004

• There are 1878 occurrences of it was {revealed, announced, claimed, disclosed, reported, confirmed, alleged}

T

P

N

952 (50.7%)

422 (22.5%)

504 (26.8%)

it was VREPORTED



T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

96 (5.1%)

856 (45.6%)

297 (15.8%)

125 (6.7%)

332 (17.7%)

172 (9.2%)

it was VREPORTED



T1 T2

P1 P2

N1 N2

1 9

5 2

2 1

TIME + it was VREPORTED

• Yesterday, it was reported that local police aided by FBI agents arrested a man believed to be an important member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. [PISC]

• Early today it was announced that Tom Ridge, the governor of Pennsylvania, would be director of homeland security. [NISC]

TISC (952) PISC (422) NISC (504)

0 (0%) 62 (14.7%) 73 (14.5%)

after/when/as + it was VREPORTED

• The latest actions - which threaten to undermine the fragile US coalition in the 'war on terrorism' - came as it was announced that Israeli forces had taken over the main police station in the West Bank town of Kalkilya. [PISC]

• The museum's stewardship was also criticised recently when it was disclosed that corporate clients and individuals were allowed to host theme parties in the marbles room. [NISC]

TISC (952) PISC (422) NISC (504)

123 (12.9%) 108 (25.6%) 86 (17.1%)

it was VREPORTED + TIME

• The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prevent western media from seeing highly accurate civilian satellite pictures of the effects of bombing in Afghanistan, it was revealed yesterday. [TISC]

• It was confirmed yesterday that Cabinet-level negotiations are under way over transforming the Ministry of Agriculture into a Rural Affairs Department. [PISC]

TISC (952) PISC (422) NISC (504)

816 (85.7%) 99 (23.6%) 97 (19.2%)

*, it was VREPORTED

• THE Church in Wales is to drop its ban on

remarrying divorced people in church, it was announced yesterday. [TISC]

• On one occasion, it was alleged, he told French: "Take this horrible little creature. [PISC]

TISC (952) PISC (422) NISC (504)

790 (83.0%) 135 (32.0%) 88 (17.5%)

it was VREPORTED + that

• Yesterday it was announced that the town's civic Christmas is effectively turning into Noel. [PISC]

• But in the hours before that, it was alleged that 28 people disappeared, were tortured and executed. [NISC]

TISC (952) PISC (422) NISC (504)

103 (10.8%) 211 (50.0%) 220 (43.7%)

<s>It was VREPORTED [first words of sentence]

• It was disclosed last week that Sheik Hamad has since paid pounds 6m to the Jersey authorities for any 'damage perceived to have been sustained in the events that have happened' as part of the deal that led to the probe being dropped. [PISC]

• It was reported that the 30-year-old woman had become so depressed, after her own attempt to become pregnant with the remaining egg failed, that she tried to kill herself this year. [NISC]

TISC (952) PISC (422) NISC (504)

2 (0.2%) 85 (20.1%) 135 (26.8%)

TISC PISC NISC

it was VREPORTED + TIME 85.7% 23.6% 19.2%

*, it was VREPORTED83.0% 32.0% 17.5%

after/when/as + it was VREPORTED12.9% 25.6% 17.1%

it was VREPORTED + that 10.8% 50.0% 43.7%

<s>It was VREPORTED 0.2% 20.1% 26.8%

TIME + it was VREPORTED0% 14.7% 14.5%

Some patterns for it was VREPORTED

% indicate the proportion of instances within subcorpus that match pattern

How close to the surface are your primings?

Item Textual position Position within (TISC, PISC or NISC) sentence

government yesterday announced A B C 1 2

at first glance A B C 1 2

it was almost A B C 1 2

according to a A B C 1 2

a third A B C 1 2

move A B C 1 2

in a move A B C 1 2

such a move A B C 1 2

first A B C 1 2

first it was A B C 1 2

at first A B C 1 2


Item Textual position Position within (TISC, PISC or NISC) sentence

government yesterday announced A B C 1 2


it was almost A B C 1 2

according to a A B C 1 2

a third A B C 1 2

move A B C 1 2

in a move A B C 1 2

such a move A B C 1 2

first A B C 1 2

first it was A B C 1 2

at first A B C 1 2

What pedagogical questions are raised by this phenomenon of

textual colligation?

• Learning a word or phrase includes learning its characteristic textual positioning, or else a learner’s text will read awkwardly

• Fabricated texts are unlikely to preserve the natural textual colligations of the language if the intention of these texts is to illustrate other features

• Textual colligation is where discourse analysis and dictionaries meet.

it was announced yesterday michael hoey and matthew brook o’donnell

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