Download This workshop will very briefly look at a number of language issues

Lexical Priming - how corpus linguistics can assist in the
understanding of texts
Dr Michael Pace-Sigge, University of East Finland
Katie Patterson, University of Liverpool
This workshop will very briefly look at a number of language issues that have been
brought to light through corpus-led investigations (Sinclair, Louw, Stubbs, Hoey).
The major aim of the workshop is to introduce the Theory of Lexical Priming
(LPT), and to discuss in how far the theory can be explored through corpus studies.
This theory explores the relationships between lexical items and grammatical
patterns and argues for a psychological association of such patterns that prime the
reader/listener into understanding them.
The workshop will also provide a framework for employing LPT within Stylistics,
focussing on 19th century British Literature (Dickens and Hardy). It will be discussed
in how far LPT allows for a social and cognitive based analysis of metaphorical
language, focusing on frequency of real-world usage and reader/listener
expectations when in contact with particular types of metaphors.
Finally, the session will provide a ‘hands-on’ laboratory, using the corpus
software WordSmith 5 (Scott, 2010): Starting with creating Wordlists, participants will
look into a number of concordances and will be asked to create keyword lists and
key clusters lists in order to investigate in how far their results can be seen to
support the Lexical Priming Theory.