• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.31-60
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• 2020

This paper investigates changes in relativization in Singapore English broadsheet newspapers from 1993 to 2016. One of the first diachronic studies in Singapore English (SgE), it also explores corresponding data from the diachronic Siena-Bologna (SiBol) news corpus. As SgE is in the endonormative stabilization phase in Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model of postcolonial Englishes, divergence from British English (BrE) is to be expected. In this study, the dataset is a new Singapore English Newspaper (SEN) corpus compiled from local news articles in 1993, 2005 and 2016, and the corpus tool employed is Sketch Engine. The results reveal changes in relativization practices in SEN over the given period, many of which occur in a similar pattern as those identified in SiBol, albeit at varying rates of change. Most significant of these include a sharp decline in the which relativizer in restrictive relative clauses with non-animate antecedents, complemented by a rise in that. The change has been so rapid that although which relative clauses were more common than that clauses in 1993, that has subsequently overtaken which for both the corpora. One shift in SEN that is different from SiBol is the increase in frequency of non-restrictive relative clauses in SgE. The likely motivators for the changes in the two varieties are identified as colloquialization, densification and prescriptivism. The effect each of these factors could have had on the varieties are discussed, as well as the implications that the findings have on our understanding of the evolutionary status of SgE as a postcolonial variety.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.31-41
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• 2021

This paper makes a quantitative analysis of the diachronic evolution of ancient Chinese vocabulary by constructing and counting a large-scale rough annotated corpus. The texts from Si Ku Quan Shu (a collection of Chinese ancient books) are automatically segmented to obtain ancient Chinese vocabulary with time information, which is used to the statistics on word frequency, standardized type/token ratio and proportion of monosyllabic words and dissyllabic words. Through data analysis, this study has the following four findings. Firstly, the high-frequency words in ancient Chinese are stable to a certain extent. Secondly, there is no obvious dissyllabic trend in ancient Chinese vocabulary. Moreover, the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589 AD) and Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 AD) are probably the two periods with the most abundant vocabulary in ancient Chinese. Finally, the unique words with high frequency in each dynasty are mainly official titles with real power. These findings break away from qualitative methods used in traditional researches on Chinese language history and instead uses quantitative methods to draw macroscopic conclusions from large-scale corpus.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.27-39
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• 2020

This paper examines the frequency and distribution of the so-called "non-discourse marker functions" of so in essay writings produced by 200 L1 English speakers and 1,300 EFL learners in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Based on the data drawn from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English, this study compares EFL learners and L1 English speakers' uses of so, identifying four grammatical uses, as (1) an adverb, (2) part of a fixed phrase, (3) a pro-form, and (4) a conjunction phrase specifying purpose. This study aims to show the wide variability among EFL learners with different L1s, identifying the tendency of usage both common among and specific to the sub-groups of EFL learners. The findings suggest that the learners demonstrate patterns distinctively different from those of L1 English speakers, indicating an underuse of so as a marker expressing "purpose" and an overuse as part of fixed phrases. Compared to L1 English speakers, the learners also tend to overuse so in the discourse marker functions, regardless of their L1s. The study proposes pedagogical implications focusing on discourse flow and diachronic aspects of so in order to understand its multifunctionality, although the latter is primarily suggested for advanced learners.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2022

As a milestone progression in China's space exploration history, Chang'e Project has attracted a lot of media attention since its first launching. This study aims to examine and compare the similarities and differences between the Chinese media and the British media in using nouns, verbs, and adjectives to report the Chang'e Project. After categorising the documents based on specific project phases, we created two diachronic corpora to explore the linguistic shifts and similarities and differences of diction employed by the Chinese and British media on the Chang'e Project ideology. This longitudinal study was performed with Lancsbox and the CLAWS web tagger through critical discourse analysis as the theoretical framework. The findings of the current study showed that the Chang'e Project coverage in both media increased on an annual basis, especially after 2019. In contrast to the objectivity and positivity in the Chinese Media, the British Media seemed to be more subjective with more appraisal adjectives in the news reports. Nonetheless, both countries were trying to be objective and formal in choosing nouns and verbs. Ideology-wise, the Chinese news media reports portrayed more positivity on domestic circumstances while the British counterpart was typically more critical. Notably, the study outcomes could catalyse future research on the Chang'e Project and facilitate diplomatic policies.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2023

The Japanese language, as a typical agglutinating language, permits large noun phrases (NP) containing ten or more morphemes. In this paper, we argue that the nature of the NP in Japanese is changing. Our data are drawn from the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese. We conduct a series of apparent-time studies of ongoing changes in complex NPs. We first examine the length of compound nouns, followed by the usage of bound suffixes. We then examine ongoing changes in complex NPs that contain genitive case markers. Finally, we examine noun incorporation. All of our studies show a trend towards shorter, less complex NPs. Furthermore, our results suggest that the usage rate of phrases that modify the noun inside the NP (compound nouns, bound nouns, NPs containing genitive case, noun incorporation) appears to be decreasing over time. On the other hand, the usage rate of modifying material outside of the NP (positional phrases, relative clauses) appears to be increasing over time. We conclude by suggesting that our results reflect a diachronic change of decreasing synthetic morphology and increasing analytic morphology. We end by pointing out the implications of this work on our understanding syntheticity and analyticity.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.112-116
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• 2021

The aim of this study is to analyze the complementizer that-deletion in embedded complement clauses in English. This paper is concerned with the alternation between the overt that-complementizer and the zero complementizer by the complementizer deletion (C-deletion or that-deletion) in constructions with a nominal complement that-clause, i.e. [VP Verb [CP that-TP]]. In this paper, we compare that-complementation and zero-complementation in a diachronic grammaticalization and corpus, and show that the complementizer that has its origin in pronouns diachronically and finally becomes to form a C-head of the functional category CP. We provide the syntactic and semantic explanation on the optionality of that-deletion while answering the question why and how that-deletion is getting increasing in use especially with the verb, think, in the informal contexts. With the major causes for the currently increasing use of that-deletion, we are concerned with the contexts in which the overt complementizers or the covert complementizers are preferred.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.331-341
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• 2017

This paper aims to analyze English vocabulary of the North Korean textbooks diachronically using the constructed English textbook corpus. The North Korea English textbooks attained from Information Center on North Korea of the Ministry of Unification are divided into before and after Kim Jong-Il era for the year of 1996 in which the curriculum revision has been conducted. They are stored as text files to analyse vocabularies using WordSmith Tools 7.0. The vocabulary size of the revised textbooks increased after the curriculum reorganization, but the number of vocabulary types and vocabulary diversity decreased. After the curriculum revision, it was found that lots of vocabulary related to the establishment of the Kim Jong-Il system appeared as the keyword. It was also found that some vocabularies reflected the economic and social life of North Korea. In addition, through comparison of the 100 high-frequency word list and keywords, it can be concluded that the vocabulary of the English textbooks of North Korea is gradually changing into communicative contents from contents related with written language.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.25
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• pp.627-648
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• 2011

The study analyzed a diachronic distribution, social meanings and social evaluations of ROOJIN. 'Headline Database of Newspaper Articles' and 'Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese' by KOKKEN were used as research data. There were 305 newspaper articles (About 0.2%) which contained the word ROOJIN at 'Headline Database of Newspaper Articles'. The number of newspaper articles related to ROOJIN started to increase in a rapid rate in 1972 and 1973. They were also increased in 1976, from 1981 to 1987, 1992 and 1993. The reasons of increasing of newspaper articles related to ROOJIN on those 4 periods of time could be summarized as follows. Firstly, there was a increasement of ROOJIN who are lonely, are not able to move about freely or live alone. Secondly, the understanding of a symptom of aging called BOKE was necessary. Thirdly, there were negative evaluations in a society towards ROOJIN. There were 453 cases which contained the word ROOJIN at 'Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese' on the data since 2000. The most frequently used words were ones that are related to senior care facilities. There were 109 cases (24%) which contain those words. '~SISETSU', '~SENTA-', '~HO-MU' were presented as words related to senior care facilities. Among them, 78 cases contained the word '~HO-MU' which was similar to a home with family members. The second most frequently used words were ones that are related to 'welfare for the aged' and they are led by 'medical care for the aged'. They occupied about 8%. Institutionalization of medical care for the aged, medical expenses, nursing were presented as words related to 'medical care for the aged'. Words that were related to 'welfare for the aged' led by 'senior care facilities' and 'medical care for the aged' occupied about 32% of research data. As mentioned above, problems of the aged in Modern Japan such as negative evaluations in a society towards ROOJIN, ROOJIN who are lonely, are not able to move about freely or live alone, BOKE could be identified by analyzing the data. Also, The frequent usage of words such as 'Home for the aged', 'medical care for the aged' and 'nursing' could be identified. The outcome of analysis suggested that a family traditionally had a function of solving problems of the aged but that function was reduced in modern Japan. It also suggested that there was a tendency to outsource problems of the aged as much as possible.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.309-317
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• 2023

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Japan tried to dominate Chosen through educational policies by analyzing three official English texts published by the Japanese Government-General of Korea: the First Chosen Educational Ordinance declared in 1911, the Manual of Education of Koreans(1913), and the Manual of Education in Chosen 1920(1920). In order to pursue this purpose, the present study carried a corpus-based diachronic analysis, rather then a qualitative analysis. Facilitating text analytics such as Word Cloud and CONCOR, this paper derived the following results: First, the first Chosen Educational Ordinance(1911) includes overall educational regulations, curriculum, and operations of schools. Second, the Manual of Education of Koreans(1913) contains the educational medium and contents on how to educate. Finally, it can be proposed that the Manual of Education in Chosen 1920(1920) contains specific implementation of education and the subject of education.