Overview of methodology in the Multi-Dimensional approach

The four languages compared in the present book have each been analyzed using the MD approach, following the same methodological steps:

1. Texts were collected, transcribed (in the case of spoken texts), and input into computer. The situational characteristics of each spoken and written register were noted during data collection.

2. Grammatical research was conducted to identify the range of linguistic features to be included in the analysis, together with functional associations of individual features.

3. Computer programs were developed for automated grammatical analysis, to ‘tag’ all relevant linguistic features in texts.

4. The entire corpus of texts was tagged automatically by computer, and all texts were post-edited interactively to insure that the linguistic features were accurately identified.

5. Additional computer programs were developed and run to compute frequency counts of each linguistic feature in each text of the corpus.

6. The co-occurrence patterns among linguistic features were analyzed, using a factor analysis of the frequency counts.

7. The ‘factors’ from the factor analysis were interpreted functionally as underlying dimensions of variation.

8. Dimension scores for each text with respect to each dimension were computed; the mean dimension scores for each register were then compared to analyze the salient linguistic similarities and differences among spoken and written registers.

In the present chapter, I discuss each of these methodological steps for each of the four languages. I first briefly describe the text corpora, linguistic features, and computational/statistical techniques used in the MD analysis of each language.