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Examining Regional Variation Through Online Geotagged Corpora

Russ, Robert Brice
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1385420187

Abstract Details

2013, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Linguistics.
Large-scale dialect surveys have long been a fundamental component of sociolinguistics and variation studies, but they have traditionally required significant investments of time and resources to collect relatively small amounts of data. In this study, I examine whether textual corpora collected from the Internet, particularly the social-networking website Twitter, can be used to conduct such surveys more quickly with less effort. I discuss the utility of Twitter as a linguistic data source, explain the computational and linguistic methods necessary to collect and process worthwhile data, and use corpora from Twitter to plot the distribution of three regional variables in American English: soft drink terminology, the use of `hella’ as an intensifier, and the morphosyntactic construction `needs X-ed’. I find that these corpora can replicate the findings of previous surveys (as seen with soft drink terms), reveal the existence of previously undocumented regional divides (as seen with `hella’), and highlight possible examples of ongoing linguistic diffusion (as seen with `needs X-ed’). I conclude that, although this method has issues with tracking certain types of sociolinguistic variables, it is still a promising source of data for conducting rapid studies in many areas of regional linguistic variation.
Kathryn Campbell-Kibler (Advisor)
Brian Joseph (Committee Member)
51 p.
Computer Science; Linguistics; Sociolinguistics
linguistics; dialects; twitter; corpus; sociolinguistics; dialect mapping; geotagging; computer-mediated communication; collocates; lexical variation; language; American English; regional variation; dialect atlas; linguistic geography

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Russ, R. B. (2013). Examining Regional Variation Through Online Geotagged Corpora [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1385420187

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Russ, Robert. Examining Regional Variation Through Online Geotagged Corpora. 2013. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1385420187.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Russ, Robert. "Examining Regional Variation Through Online Geotagged Corpora." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1385420187

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1385420187
1,786
© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.