Abstract
This paper introduces growth curve modeling for the analysis of language change in corpus linguistics. In addition to describing growth curve modeling, which is a regression-based method for studying the dynamics of a set of variables measured over time, we demonstrate the technique through an analysis of the relative frequencies of words that are increasing or decreasing over time in a multi-billion word diachronic corpus of Twitter. This analysis finds that increasing words tend to follow a trajectory similar to the s-curve of language change, whereas decreasing words tend to follow a decelerated trajectory, thereby showing how growth curve modeling can be used to uncover and describe underlying patterns of language change in diachronic corpora.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 102-125 |
Journal | Language Dynamics and Change |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Keywords
- corpus linguistics
- language change
- word frequency
- regression
- growth curve modeling
- time series
- diachronic corpus
- s-curve of language change