Site-restricted web searches for data collection in regional dialectology

Jack Grieve, Constanza Asnaghi, Tom Ruette

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article presents a new method for data collection in regional dialec- tology based on site-restricted web searches. the method measures the usage and determines the distribution of lexical variants across a region of interest using com- mon web search engines, such as Google or Bing. the method involves estimating the proportions of the variants of a lexical alternation variable over a series of cities by counting the number of webpages that contain the variants on newspaper web- sites originating from these cities through site-restricted web searches. the method is evaluated by mapping the 26 variants of 10 lexical variables with known distribu- tions in American english. in almost all cases, the maps based on site-restricted web searches align closely with traditional dialect maps based on data gathered through questionnaires, demonstrating the accuracy of this method for the observation of regional linguistic variation. however, unlike collecting dialect data using traditional methods, which is a relatively slow process, the use of site-restricted web searches allows for dialect data to be collected from across a region as large as the united States in a matter of days.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)413-440
JournalAmerican Speech
Volume88
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2013

Bibliographical note

Note this paper was actually not published online or in print until 2014, despite being officially published in the last volume of 2013 of the journal, which was delayed. It therefore could not be submitted to the 2014 REF and should be valid for the 2021 REF if needed.

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