HARNESSING COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS FOR SEMANTIC PATTERN ANALYSIS: A CORPUS-BASED INVESTIGATION OF LANGUAGE COHESION AND CONCORDANCE

Abstract

This paper explores the complex association between cohesion and meaning and attempts to work out potentially complex association between cohesion and meaning using computational methods on a wide range of English literature. In going a step further beyond mere theorizing, the study uses both quantitative and qualitative research to track patterns of certain words and phrases across non-academic and academic genres. The results obtain a vivid discrepancy in the use of such devices as conjunctions and pronouns as constructing an argument and cohesive narrative. Not only does such analysis present empirical evidence of functional variance in language use, it also offers practical insight into the importance of using corpus tools as a means of revealing architecture in texts that are symbolically hidden. The acquired results are useful to the linguistic theory and advanced, more natural language processing applications.