Understanding U.S. regional linguistic variation with Twitter data analysis

We analyze a Big Data set of geo-tagged tweets for a year (Oct. 2013–Oct. 2014) to understand the regional linguistic variation in the U.S. Prior work on regional linguistic variations usually took a long time to collect data and focused on either rural or urban areas. Geo-tagged Twitter data offers an unprecedented database with rich linguistic representation of fine spatiotemporal resolution and continuity. From the one-year Twitter corpus, we extract lexical characteristics for twitter users by summarizing the frequencies of a set of lexical alternations that each user has used. We spatially aggregate and smooth each lexical characteristic to derive county-based linguistic variables, from which orthogonal dimensions are extracted using the principal component analysis (PCA). Finally a regionalization method is used to discover hierarchical dialect regions using the PCA components. The regionalization results reveal interesting linguistic regional variations in the U.S. The discovered regions not only confirm past research findings in the literature but also provide new insights and a more detailed understanding of very recent linguistic patterns in the U.S.

A linguistic and semantic approach to the theory and practice of literary translation

This work explores the relevance of semantic and linguistic description to translation, theory and practice. It is aimed towards a practical model of approach to texts to translate. As literary texts [poetry mainly] are the focus of attention, so are stylistic matters. Note, however, that 'style', and, to some extent, the conclusions of the work, are not limited to so-called literary texts. The study of semantic description reveals that most translation problems do not stem from the cognitive (langue-related), but rather from the contextual (parole-related) aspects of meaning. Thus, any linguistic model that fails to account for the latter is bound to fall short. T.G.G. does, whereas Systemics, concerned with both the 'Iangue' and 'parole' (stylistic and sociolinguistic mainly) aspects of meaning, provides a useful framework of approach to texts to translate. Two essential semantic principles for translation are: that meaning is the property of a language (Firth); and the 'relativity of meaning assignments' (Tymoczko). Both imply that meaning can only be assessed, correctly, in the relevant socio-cultural background. Translation is seen as a restricted creation, and the translator's encroach as a three-dimensional critical one. To encompass the most technical to the most literary text, and account for variations in emphasis in any text, translation theory must be based on typology of function Halliday's ideational, interpersonal and textual, or, Buhler's symbol, signal, symptom, Functions3. Function Coverall and specific] will dictate aims and method, and also provide the critic with criteria to assess translation Faithfulness. Translation can never be reduced to purely objective methods, however. Intuitive procedures intervene, in textual interpretation and analysis, in the choice of equivalents, and in the reception of a translation. Ultimately, translation, theory and practice, may perhaps constitute the touchstone as regards the validity of linguistic and semantic theories.