Variation in English Multi-Dimensional Studies

Multi-dimensional studies (MD) is a statistical approach to language variation. This book shows how MD studies can be used to investigate research questions in a number of linguistic core subjects, including corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and studies of literary style.

Studies in Language and LinguisticsGeneral Editors- Geoffrey Leech, Department of Modern English Language, Lancaster University and Jenny Thomas, School of English and Linguistics, University of Wales, BangorBroad-ranging and authoritative, Studies in Language and Linguistics is an occasional seriesincorporating major new work in all areas of linguistics. Variation in English- Multi-Dimensional Studies provides both a comprehensive view into a relatively new technique for studying language, and a diverse, exciting collection of studies of variation in English. The first part of the book provides an explanation of multi-dimensional (MD) analysis, a research technique for studying language variation. MD is a corpus-based approach developed by Doug Biber that facilitates large-scale studies of language variation and the investigation of research questions that were previously intractable. The second part of the book contains studies that apply Biber's original MD analysis of English to new domains. These studies cover the historical evolution of English; specialized domains such as medical writing and oral proficiency testing; and dialect variation, including gender and British/American.The third part of the book contains studies that conduct new MD analyses, covering adult/child language differences, 18th century speech and writing, and discourse complexity. Readers of this book will become familiar with the analytical techniques of multi-dimensional analysis, with its applicability to a wide variety of language issues, and with the findings of important studies previously published in diverse journals as well as new studies appearing for the first time.

List of Contributors Publisher's Acknowledgements Part 1 — Introduction to Multi-Dimensional Analysis Part II — Multi-Dimensional Studies Based on the 1988 Model of Variation in Spoken and Written Registers Part III — Other Studies Based on the Multi-Dimensional Approach References Index

Susan Conrad is an assistant professor in the Department of English and Program in Linguistics at Iowa State University. She is the co-author of Corpus Linguistics- Investigating Language Structure and Use (1998) and the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999). Douglas Biber is Regents' Professor of English (Applied Linguistics) at Northern Arizona University. His works include Variation Across Speech and Writing (1988), Dimensions of Register Variation- A Cross-Linguistic Comparison (1995), Corpus Liinguistics- Investigating Language Structure and Use (with Conrad and Reppen, 1998) and the co-authored Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999).