英语口语一次词增长模式研究

On the hapax legomena growth pattern in spoken English

一次词增长模式是计量语言学研究中的一个重要领域。目前对书面语中一次词的研究已经取得了一些初步成果,但对口语中的一次词尚鲜有研究。本文基于英国国家语料库(BNC)口语语料,采用计量语言学方法,研究英语口语一次词的增长模式。研究发现,英语口语一次词与词汇量的比率呈下斜的L形状,随着文本长度的增加,一次词数量增长变缓,一次词与词汇量的比率逐渐下降,可称为“L模型”。通过重新定义参数的Tuldava模型,描述英语口语一次词与词汇量的比率同文本长度之间的关系、比率的理论模型及其预测值95%双向置信区间,此幂函数模型同所观察的一次词与词汇量的比率曲线有很好的拟合度。本研究加深了我们对口语中一次词的认识。

The hapax legomena growth pattern is an important field in quantitative linguistics.There have been some initial findings about the hapax legomena growth pattern in written English;however,an examination of literature shows that there are few studies on it in spoken English.Based on the BNC spoken corpus,this study applied the quantitative linguistics method to investigate the hapax legomena growth pattern in spoken English.The result reveals that the hapax/vocabulary ratio forms a downward-sloping "L."As the size of the text increases,the number of hapax legomena increases slowly,and correspondingly,the hapax/vocabulary ratio decreases gradually;thus,it follows an L-shaped pattern.The reparametrized Tuldava's model captures the relationship between the hapax/vocabulary ratio and text length,the theoretical pattern of ratios,and the respective 95%lower and upper bound values of the estimates.This power model provides a reasonably good fit for the observed hapax/vocabulary ratio curve.The present study provides a deeper understanding of hapax legomena in spoken English.