Can do – but able to? The occurrence patterns in informal communication corpora and what learners can learn from them.

Can do – but able to? The occurrence patterns in informal communication corpora and what learners can learn from them.

FINSSE Joensuu 18-20 th Oct. 2012

Dr Michael Pace-Sigge University of East Finland (UEF)

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Overview

ABLE & CAN in informal speech and CMC use

ABLE & CAN as stance markers

The corpora

ABLE usage

CAN usage

Some preliminary conclusions

Usage of ABLE & CAN in more detail

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Learners need to be aware: Levels of Informality

Traditional written texts have been seen as representing genre-specific levels of formality.

Informality or “casual speech” used to be the preserve of casual spoken conversation

Along came first e-mail, then SMS then Windows messenger, then social media ….

The different purposes would indicate a cline of informality from business-email, via spoken conversations and fake-familiarity of SPAM to teenage SMS exchanges.

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Focus on the specific, not the frequent

While a look at the most frequent words in a spoken a blog (cf. Beers Fägersten: 2008) shows a high level of overlap, this study looks a stance markers –

comparing the rare word able as a lexical item

with

the more frequent word can as a lexical item.

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ABLE and CAN: Stance Markers

Unlike Faccinetti (2000), this study attempts a corpus-driven study, looking at the two terms in spoken, semi-formal and informal written corpora.

According to Biber (2004:112)

Modal and semi-modal verbs:

• possibility / permission / ability: can, could, may, might

According to Biber (2004:108f):

“be able to meets only one criterion for semi-modal status [it expresses] meaning related to modality”

Biber wonders why this should have been seen as sufficient to “privilege be able to with semi-modal status previously”

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ABLE and CAN as Stance Markers

This research looks at two dimensions:

(1) ABLE and CAN – are there marked collocational & colligational differences how they occur in different corpora?

(2) ABLE and CAN - do they express possibility / permission / ability equally in different corpora?

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Introduction to the Corpora

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Distribution ABLE to CAN in the Corpora

Following Facchinetti (2000:118) Be able to is more formal than can. This seems to be supported by the data: the less “formal” the source is perceived to be, the fewer instances of able (proportionally) do we find. Learners must be aware that these two terms are not synomyms

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A first look at ABLE spoken usage

ABLE appears very stable in the way it occurs across the spoken corpora.

BE ABLE TO is almost a default usage, while this is not true for TO BE ABLE TO

key verbs (do, get) are common collocates and set formulaic phrases

Similarly, the negation WON’T BE ABLE TO

This, however, is not true for the SCO, Havering Elderly (and SEC) corpora

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A first look at ABLE CMC usage

Both BE ABLE TO and TO BE ABLE TO clearly lower than Spoken Usage

WON’T BE ABLE TO occurs proportionally less, too

Instead, we find usage of different time frames (was/been/will be)

a number of corpora are too small to have sufficiently high frequencies for ABLE clusters

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A first look at CAN Spoken usage

Like ABLE highly formulaic in the majority of its uses

Preference for Personal Pronouns

Highly conversational & relational – involving the second party before the first in both statements and interrogatives

Preference for statements over interrogatives

Note, however, individual relative frequencies (in coloured frames)

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A first look at CAN CMC usage

YOU CAN here, too preferred use. Enron Corpus reflects formality: CAN BE SPAM corpora reflect offerings: YOU CAN higher frequencies. SMS corpora show requests for help: interrogatives.

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Some preliminary conclusions

ABLE and CAN are, in their grammatical use (colligations) very different: ABLE uses to Inf clauses, CAN personal pronouns (1st & 2nd sing & pl). The latter (cf. Holtgraves 2010) is associated with liking and closeness. The grammatical constraints also indicate that one, rather than the other term is to be used.

ABLE in spoken use uses a number of verbs frequently, while in CMC use auxiliaries are used to refer to a time frame more.

WON’T BE ABLE TO occurrence seems to indicate actual constraint (cf. Sealey 2012).

CAN usage in the different corpora reflects different types of speech acts. Hence You can being frequent in spoken and SMS corpora, less so in the e-mail corpora.

Requests for help – CAN YOU - seem to be low in all e-mail corpora.

THEY CAN appears to be indicating distance to other groups and is specific to some corpora (London speakers, Radio, ENRON e-mails)

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Distribution of ABLE in the Corpora: example data

WON'T BE ABLE TO – Spoken corpora

Won’t be able to / not be able to occur around 4% in the e-mail and SMS corpora. Far higher however in SCO e-mail (15%) and personal BrEng SMS (33.3%). These figures highlight differing usage of low-confidence marked ABLE.

These figures show ABLE + a pro-active verb do not appear in the CNMC Data. BEING ABLE TO, however, appears in the ENRON, CSDMC and SCO e-mail corpora.

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Distribution of CAN in the Corpora: example data

Unlike ABLE, CAN has no prominent usage of the negation form

ABLE TO GET is mirrored by YOU CAN GET but with far lower frequencies & width of use

Clear divergence between Spoken and CMC corpora

YOU CAN SEE & I CAN REMEMBER are corpus-specific formulaic expressions.

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ABLE & CAN + modulation

CAN has only one form of modulation: adding the conditional IF I CAN. This, again, is marker of can’s grammatical constrictions.

In Spoken Corpora we find Possibility presented through YOU CAN HAVE or the request CAN I HAVE.

BE ABLE TO can be found with the modal auxiliaries MAY/MIGHT/SHOULD/ WOULD BE ABLE TO.

Advise is clearly given in the CSDMC e-mail and the NUS-SMS corpus where there is a a higher frequency of YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO than in other corpora.

Overall, numbers for these forms of usage are low.

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ABLE & CAN + modulation data – see handout

Total and proportional figures are very low

IF I CAN & IF WE CAN are corpus specific

WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO amongst SE Young People markedly high.

Combined figure.

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Conclusions

While all corpora are showing a certain degree of similarity – and informal use – the differences between spoken English, E-Mail English and SMS English are salient.

Both ABLE and CAN appear to carry very clearly defined primings how they occur collocationally and colligationally. A learner should know these clear distinctions.

ABLE seems to occur often in more formal contexts: hence it is a) lower in total frequency b) use of more modulation (would , should) and c) carry more formal address (.ie. U CAN but not ABLE 2 in SMS).

There is also indication of pragmatic marking - SMS corpora: SPAM corpus is different from giving advise to clients or friends ; I CAN REMEMBER amongst older speakers.

YOU CAN HAVE occurs fairly frequent in all Spoken but not in the CMC corpora. It does not appear to reflect a can do attitude.

Using WON'T BE ABLE TO instead of ABLE TO DO can be seen as indicating lack of confidence, found, in particular, amongst young SE & Scouse users.

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Thank you very much! [email protected]

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References

Beers Fägersten, K. 2008. ‘A corpus approach to discursive constructions of a hip-hop identity’. In: Ädel & Reppen (eds) Corpora and Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Berman, R.A. , H. Ragnarsdóttir, & S. Strömqvist. 2002. Discourse stance. Written Languages and Literacy, Volume 5:2, 1-43

Biber, D., S. Conrad, and R. Reppen. 1998. Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Biber, D. 2004. Historical patterns forthe grammatical marking of stance. A cross-register comparison. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 5:1, 107–136

Crystal, D.2008. Txtng. The gr8 db8. Oxford: OUP

Crystal, D.2010. Internet Linguistics. A student guide. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge

Facchinetti, R. 2000. ‘Be able to in Present-day British English’. In: Language and Computer. Vol. 33, pp 117-130

Holtgraves, T. 2010. ’Text messaging, personality, and the social context’. In: Journal of Research in Personality. Vol. 45, pp 92-99.

Hoey, M. 2005. Lexical Priming. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge

Oxford English Dictionary. 3rd Editon September 2009. Online version March 2012, oed.com, accessed 04 May 2012. An entry for able (v). was first included in the “New English Dictionary¨ 1884.

Precht, K. 2003. ‘Stance moods in spoken English: Evidentiality and affect in British & American Conversation’. In: Text Vol. 23. Issue 2, pp. 239-257

Sealy, A. 2012. ‘I just couldn’t do it: representation of constraint in an oral history corpus’. In: Critical Discourse Studies. Vol 1, Issue 16.

Tiggelaar, B. 2007. Can Do! : How to Achieve Real Personal Change and Growth. Singapore, SGP: Marshall Cavendish

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Additional Data 1 – Total raw figures from the corpora

Spoken Corpora Total Tokens Occ. ABLE % ABLE in texts/total texts % of texts Occ. CAN % CAN in texts % of texts

BNC-CS 6,141,809 1,895 0.031 298/351 84.9 23,416 0.381 351 100.0

COLT-SPOKEN 441,063 77 0.017 51/377 13.5 1,829 0.414 289 76.7

Hackney Elderly 109,314 20 0.018 6/1O 60.0 216 0.198 10 100.0

Hackney Young 593,367 58 0.009 28//48 58.3 1,326 0.223 48 100.0

Havering Elderly 145,222 33 0.023 7//9 77.7 206 0.142 9 100.0

Havering Young 527,682 41 0.008 29/44 65.9 1,076 0.203 44 100.0

SCO 94,045 7 0.007 7//37 18.9 232 0.246 36 97.3

Wellington 1,083,116 351 0.032 208/550 37.8 2,757 0.254 487 88.5

(SEC) 54,081 13 0.024 7//53 13.2 97 0.179 34 64.2

Email Corpora

BC3 35,224 13 0.037 n/a 1356 3.849

CSDMC 5,373,478 775 0.014 574/17,240 3.33 7,078 0.131 3,206 18.6

ENRON Sel 1,902,627 468 0.025 204/3,403 5.99 2,689 0.141 608 17.9

SCO email 39,432 13 0.033 13/193 6.74 157 0.398 100 51.81

SCO fb 1,069 0 0 0/5 0 4 0.374 3 60

SMS Corpora

BR Eng SMS 15,986 3 0.018 n/a 47 0.294

SMS - NUS 1,391,245 336 0.024 n/a 8,476 0.609

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Additional Data 2– Total raw figures modifiers

BNC-CS tot % COLT % HckY % HckE % HaY % HaE % WELLL % (SEC) %

MIGHT BE ABLE TO 122 6.5 2 3.4 2 4.9 18 5.1

SHOULD BE ABLE TO 84 4.4 5 6.5 2 3.4 2 10.0 3 7.6 11 3.1

WOULD BE ABLE TO 41 2.2 3 5.1 1 2.4 1 3.2 7 2.0

WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO 48 2.5 3 5.1 5 12.2 2 6.5 18 5.1 2 15.4

ENRON Sel tot % CSDMC % SCO email % BC3 % NUS %

WOULD BE ABLE TO 22 4.7 13 1.7 1 7.7

MAY/MIGHT/SHOULD BE ABLE TO 18 3.8 54/52 6.7 1 7.7 9 2.7

MAY BE ABLE 18 3.8 18 2.4

YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO 30 3.8 14 4.2

BNC-CS tot % COLT % HckY % HckE % HaY % HaE % WELLL %

IF YOU CAN 401 1.7 29 1.5 14 1.1 5 2.3 23.0 2.2 6 3.3 42.0 1.5

ENRON Sel tot % CSDMC % SCO email % BC3 % NUS %

IF YOU CAN 14 0.5 79 1.1 3 1.9 8 5.9 61 0.7

If I CAN 63 0.7

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Additional data – BNC e-mails

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