Project Summaries

1. Michael Anderson & Aiden Nienajadlo: Malapropisms [Paper]

For our project we decided to complete a paper-based empirical study on spelling errors in the English language.  More specifically, we studied malapropisms, which are lexically grounded errors in spelling characterized by the confusion and replacement of a target word with one that shares similar homophonous elements.  Our hypothesis was that the occurrence of malapropisms has less to do with competence errors and more to do with the fact that the malapropisms consist of low frequency words with an academic register.

To test this hypothesis we designed an orthographic survey in the form of ten multiple-choice questions, four of which contained low frequency words with an academic register and their corresponding malapropisms while the other six served as a control.  Seventy-three native English speakers either in college or graduated were surveyed.

After collecting the data, we determined that our hypothesis was correct.  On average, those surveyed tended to choose the malapropisms more often than they would choose misspellings of the control words.  Since this was a small study, however, further research would need to be conducted to determine if our conclusions can be seen across the entire English-speaking world.

2. Evan Bradtke & Yichen Wang: Clipping [Paper]

Our research project examines five clipped forms of words to assess the semantic changes words undergo when reduced in form. Traditionally, clipping has been analyzed in terms of its phonological or morphological characteristics. We argue that clipping is a semantic change used to derogate words and the concepts associated with them. Drawing on Urban Diction, the Oxford English Dictionary, and the Contemporary Corpus of American English, we document how the words homosexual, champion, Democratic, legitimate, and naturally are derogated semantically by association with contaminating concepts and harsher sounds in their clipped form. One questions for further research is whether clipping itself ought to be considered a form of pejoration.

3. Jameson Bastien, Daniel Reilly & Daniella Torres-Ferreira: Sound change [Paper]

Phonological change in language over time is every bit as interesting as lexical change, but perhaps not as apparent. In order to do it justice as a topic, we looked at poetry (Shakespeare's sonnets) from the era of Early Modern English, when spelling and sound change in English was in a very flexible state. The sonnets don't rhyme very well anymore. Looking at literature on the topic of historical sound change in English, people talk about a uniform shift in vowel pronunciations, but little else. If vowels moved universally, then these words that rhymed five hundred years ago ought to still rhyme today, just with a different pronunciation. Our purpose was mainly descriptive, detailing what sounds have diverged since then

What we found is that some vowel just didn't complete a shift or shifted in different directions (and it wasn't our goal to describe conditioning environments) but that in at least two cases this 'uniform' shifting of vowels fails completely to account for rhymes, e.g.: eye – memory as a pair and wind(n.) - find. The next step forward would be to dig deeper into what scholars were writing on language at the time or perhaps larger bodies of work to analyze and pick out any conditioning environments that brought about this divergence in vowel pronunciation.

4: Bridget Dorsey & Aila Bretl: Hashtag [Prezi]

For our project, we investigated the contemporary phenomenon of the “hashtag”, represented by the symbol: #.  We chose this as our topic because we wanted to look into a specific aspect of social media and how it affects language.  Our research involved Twitter feeds and a survey taken by college students.  The survey asked participants to identify the common purpose of hashtags and to provide their own examples of tweets.  The most common tweets involved hashtags of commentary-based phrases rather than phrases that would connect people.  Additionally, we incorporated credible journal articles and Twitter itself.  We discovered that the hashtag is deviating from its original purpose, to connect users tweeting about similar ideas, to more of a medium for social commentary.  The hashtag has made its way onto other social media platforms, as well as spoken language.  The popularity of the hashtag reflects peoples’ desire to communicate efficiently using condensed symbols.

5. Deidre Green, Amanda Rogers & Kristen Blaser: Semantic Change [Podcast]

Our project was on the semantic change of words as they are currently happening. In particular, we studied the words ‘literally’ and ‘cool’. We conducted a survey to get information about what people thought about these semantic changes and if they found them acceptable or not. We found that most people accepted the original meaning of the word ‘literally’. People found it more acceptable to use the figurative meaning of the word in formal settings rather than in informal settings. For the word ‘cool’, there was a unanimous acceptance of both the literal and figurative meaning of the word. We also interviewed some English Professors to get their expert opinion on these semantic changes. We found that they were divided on the informal use of the figurative meaning of the word ‘literally’ but they all agreed that the formal use was not acceptable. They agreed that all forms of the word ‘cool’ were acceptable. All of our data along with the expert perspectives, we concluded that language is a living thing that changes over time.

6. Chelsea Peterson, Kayla Halderson & Diana Santullano: Britishisms [Paper]

For our project, we wanted to study the difference between American English and British English. At first, we were interested in the random differences in spelling, however, our focus moved to Britishisms and their invasion into American culture. To study this, we chose popular British phrases and used Google Ngram to track their progression and use in American writing. We looked for patterns or news events that significantly increased their prominence in our culture. We also assessed different linguistic blogs and the opinions of both professional writers and the general public. We found that we were correct: the use of Britishisms is continually increasing in our country, with data to prove it. We assessed the words ‘to go missing’, ‘ginger’, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On,’ and ‘Gobsmacked,’ We ran into trouble when we figured out that some of our phrases were only spoken or found in specific types of media (i.e. not in books). To remedy that, we used Google Trends, which tracks how often a word or phrase is searched. In all, it is impossible to deny the fact that Britishisms are steadily creeping into American English.

7. Mollie Olsem & Shannon Reader: Comparative [Podcast}

For our project, we researched the understanding and use of the comparative in English. We conducted a survey with two different sections. The first asked our participants to choose the best answer to complete the sentence. For example, one question was “It’s really gloomy outside today. It’s definitely_______ than yesterday” with “more gloomy” and “gloomier” as the options. The second section gave sentences with the comparative phrase in bold and asked the participants to rate how acceptable the phrase was on a scale of 1(never acceptable) to 3 (always acceptable). These sentences included the phrases “most bestest,” “more proud,” and “expensiver.” We noticed that less common words, like gloomy, proved a little more difficult than words that are more common, like using “better” rather than “gooder.” In the second section, we had a slight divide about “more proud” but nearly all participants said “most bestest” and “expensiver” were never acceptable, stating mainly that the two are not words. Through our survey, we found that, in general, people know how to use the comparative even if they are unaware of the specific rules; they have the natural linguistic instinct when forming phrases.

8: Rebecca Manis:The Scales of Justice: Balancing Vagueness and Precision in Legal Language  [Lit Review]

The law attempts to articulate and codify internalized social norms, as well as provide for the regulation of bureaucratic institutions.  In doing this, there is the expectation that the law will be clear for the people it governs and flexible enough to account for different contexts.  My paper examined the issue of vagueness vs. precision in legal discourse, and some of the consequences that improper application of vagueness and precision in law can have.  I found that the appropriate level of vagueness versus precision in law is governed by the function of the law: it should be more vague where we have an internalized shared understanding regarding social norms (e.g., negligence), and should be more precise where there is no expectation that such a shared understanding exists (e.g., tax law).  Negotiating the boundary between vagueness and precision on this continuum can be a complicated task, but finding the balance between the two is necessary for the preservation of justice.

9. Ben Heins & Ian Erickson: Clippings [Podcast]

In our project, we assessed the incorporation of modern, informal clippings originating in spoken and social media contexts into more formal contexts, such as magazines or non-fiction books. We looked at a select group of twentieth-century clippings (fridge, exam, math, lab, flu, vet) in COHA (Corpus of Historical American English) to determine the process of incorporation. We then looked at a group of contemporary clippings (sups, awks, totes, perf, def, abbrevs, jell/jelly, obvi, cray, forevs, peeps, ridic, vacay, adorbs, fav/fave) in COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English). Of these fifteen clippings, only six had a significant presence on COCA (awks, def, cray, vacay, fav/fave). We found a similar pattern of incorporation between contemporary and historical clippings, with fav/fave, vacay, and def being the most advanced in their use in formal contexts (predominately magazines). We drew some conclusions between historical and contemporary clippings: clippings should reduce the number of syllables dramatically (typically 4+ syllables to 1 or 2), and the three most advanced clippings did that (3+ syllables reduced to 1 or 2). Historical clippings were typically coined in niche groups and moved to the general lexicon, where contemporary clippings were familiar words shortened for economy. We concluded that these words haven't been around long enough for a convincing analysis of their incorporation, but are nonetheless gaining acceptance at an increasing rate.

10. Mandy Ezell, Paige Berge & Wonju Kim: New words [Podcast]

Our project was focused on new words; specifically, ‘ratchet’ and ‘the cloud’. Both of these words have multiple meanings, and we were interested in their current, newer usages. We examined their usage by interviewing different people in our lives from various age groups. To do this, we used Audacity to record our personal interviews with them, and then created a podcast that compiled all of their responses and examples. We predicted that the older participants would not know these words or would use them incorrectly. This is because ‘ratchet’ is a very new, slang term, and ‘the cloud’ is highly technological, and not all of the older participants may be familiar with it. However, we were surprised to find that our older participants did actually know what the cloud was, and some used it and the term. This taught us that computers and technology are even more prevalent than we realize, and that technology is an aspect in many people’s lives.  We found that the older participants did know the word ‘ratchet’, but not in the slang form. Those who were younger interviewees did usually know the word ratchet and could sometimes explain it mostly correctly. This pointed out to us that we are in a fast paced world, and are very open to new words. Because we are changing and growing, the words we use change often with us, and we are not strangers to being exposed to slang.

11. Daniel Dissing: Word Formation World English - Indian English [Literature Review]

Word formation processes in Indian English were compared to Standard American/British English word formation processes. Some examples of these include upgradation, using a different affixing to form the nominal form of upgrade (v.), filmi, the world film with a Hindi affix to change the lexical class from N > V. This is used to describe film art that is Hindi and fulfills a communicative need that didn't have a vocabulary in either Hindi or English and the suffix adds a slang element. Clipping is prominently used with words such as sentimental becoming senti. The review found that corpus work is important to make the distinction between innovation salience vs. whether or not they are actually part of the standard variety of English in India.

12. Amy (Rong) Cheng & Isaac Huben: Acronyms [Prezi]

Ø TOPIC: Phenomenon- acronyms commonly used in social media and the pronunciation patterns of these acronyms. (I.E., is LOL pronounced lahl, lohl, lol, or L.O.L., etc.)
Ø  OBJECTIVE: to find patterns of pronunciation of acronyms appearing in social media.
Ø  ACRONYMS: LOL (laugh out loud), BTW (by the way), BRB (be right back),
ASAP (as soon as possible) FYI (for your information) YOLO( you only live once) TLDR( too long, didn’t read) FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), HAND( Have a nice day)
MOOC(massive open online course)
Ø RESULTS:
1.) Most acronyms are pronounced by naming the letters. These acronyms are considered typical. Examples include DVD and FYI.
2.) Pronouncing acronyms like “words,” logically following, is atypical. This explains why LOL has multiple pronunciations, although the clear  “typical” pronunciation is naming the letters.
3.) Studies have shown that naming letters is considered the most unambiguous method of pronouncing acronyms that are not following English phonotactics. One example is CNN.
4.) All the acronyms that follow the phonotactics of English have a potential to have a word-like pronunciation, but the potential is not fulfilled for all acronyms. Both the acronyms HAND (“have a nice day”) and FOMO (“fear of missing out”) had the potential to have word-like pronunciations, but only FOMO succeed in most cases.

13. Sandy Thao & Liz Xiong: Semantici Change [Podcast]

We were looking at how the word ‘gay’ has transformed into today’s current meaning, specifically in the phrase “that’s so gay.” We supplemented our findings with additional words that we believed underwent a pejorative semantic meaning change, such as ‘fairy’, ‘retard’, and ‘lame.’ We used the OED to find formal definitions of original meaning and more recent meanings, as well as other websites for the first use of the words. ‘Gay,’ ‘lame,’ and ‘retard’ all fell into a pejorative class but we believed that ‘fairy’ reclaimed its original meaning. We conducted an interview with a queer studies professor here at UW-Madison, Ramzi Fawaz. His work focuses on queer and feminist theory, and how underrepresented groups interact with American politics. In the interview, Professor Fawaz also touches on the word ‘queer’ and his thoughts about the word, and although it was not a main focus of our project, it has important connections to the word ‘gay.’ In addition to Professor Fawaz, we found audio clips on the Internet. We found that some words that represent underrepresented groups may have entered a pejorative class change. In the future, we’d like to see how words for other underrepresented groups will change, and whether they will entail such a change as well.

14. Madeleine Wasek, Sean Dickinson & Jun Song: Swearing [Podcast]

Our podcast focuses on the roles of curse words in print media, television, music, and everyday situations. We primarily focused on the word “fuck”, although that was not our original intent. Curse words proved to provide a plethora of information to analyze, so we had to narrow it down to one word. We discuss how certain curse words we once considered to be the most offensive are now viewed as less offensive. For instance, “bastard” was once very offensive because society placed a lot of value on parents and one’s lineage. But we now use that word a little more loosely because less value is placed on one’s family standing. Therefore, we can conclude that society gives the vulgar connotations to a word based on what society deems vulgar. The word “fuck” is still very offensive and viewed as obscene because it represents explicit sexual themes, and our society is still very offended by overt sexuality. Perhaps in another century, “fuck” will be less censored in written and verbal language.

15. Megan Bucher, Anne Werner & Jane Wierdsma: Idioms [Podcast]

Because the three of us noticed and were bothered its misuse, our project focused around the idiom couldn’t care less. We were curious to find out how and why we had heard (what seemed like many) people say could care less. We first looked to linguistic blogs (such as languagelog.com) and found we definitely weren’t the only ones peeved by this switch-up of “could” and “couldn’t.” We turned to Google n-grams, but found that couldn’t care less is almost always used in written form. With this in mind, we conducted a survey through PowerPoint of 30 fill-in-the-blank idioms, and each recorded ten participants (mostly UW undergrads) reading out loud through each slide, filling in the blank as they went. The idiom of interest read: “After hearing the reviews, I __________ care less about seeing the movie.” We hoped that by the time our participants got to this slide, they would have been in the habit of responding with their first reaction, thus giving us a more accurate piece of data. After each survey, we had each participant revisit our idiom and asked them three things: if they had heard people use couldn’t care less and could care less; if either of the two bothered them; and why they responded with what they did.

After gathering our data in an excel sheet, we found a surprisingly high figure of 19 participants answering “could” in the blank, seven answering “couldn’t,” and four participants saying they did not know. To make some sense of these findings, we consulted their follow-up responses with Steven Pinker’s article “Words and Rules.” In the follow-up, many of our participants admitted to realizing that could care less didn’t make logical sense but said that they hardly ever notice when they say or hear it that way. This finding was further justified in Pinker’s model of language acquisition, as he says that irregular forms of language are stored and retrieved in the mental dictionary as a chunk of information (rather than by a learned rule). And since, by definition, an idiom’s meaning is understood as a chunk (rather than its parts making up the meaning,) our main findings stand valid: couldn’t care less and could care less carry the same meaning when used by and heard from the speaker.