Application of the technologies of corpus linguistics in the study of collocations

Shubina Anna Olegovna PhD in Philology Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Department No.33  (English as a Second Language), Senior Educator; Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, the department of English Language and Professional Communication Senior Educator 125047, Russia, g. Moscow, Bolshaya Sadovaya, 14 anna.shubina.19@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Collocations - "these are characteristic, frequently occurring combinations of words; their joint appearance is based on the regular nature of mutual expectation and is set not by grammatical, but purely semantic factors, ... collocation clarifies and concretizes the meaning of the words that form it." ^{[2, p.19]}.

As criteria for attributing combinations of the studied lexemes with other units of this level to collocations, the following can be used: "fixation of a combination of words in a lexicographic source/sources and/or high frequency of this combination in the national corpus of the corresponding language" ^{[10, p.135]}.

C. Abrudan [14 p.263] notes the following types of collocations – weak phrases – phrases formed from two common words, each of which occurs in many other combinations with other words, for example, "good book", "expensive watch", etc. Middle phrases are phrases that are formed by words such as "do", "force", "hold", "take", etc., for example. "making a living", "doing homework"; unique phrases formed from words that cannot have any other possible combination. Unique phrases are also called strong phrases; their strength is determined not by the frequency of their appearance, but by the fact that they consist of words that do not combine with others.  Another typology of collocations is proposed ^{[3, pp. 440-441]}

The main purpose of studying collocations is to acquire collocation competence, that is, the ability to "correctly, according to the norms of the studied language, combine language units based on knowledge of collocations and speech skills of their use in all types of speech activity" ^{[1, p.9]}

Collocations in corpus linguistics are defined as statistically stable word combinations, in addition, in corpus linguistics there are several ways to calculate the degree of connectivity of parts of a collocation. One of such measures is considered to be "MI, i.e. the coefficient of mutual dependence. This indicator reflects the so-called attraction between two words, or the probability that if one word appears in a line, the word that collocates with it will appear in the nearest neighborhood of the desired word" [11. p.57].

The corpus format also makes it possible to "get away from the "right/wrong" dichotomy in relation to vocabulary in students' English classes and replace this polarity with a spectrum of probable utterance usage based not on feelings, but on quantitative patterns" ^{[4, p.21]}. Based on the use of the linguistic corpus, an algorithm for the development of collocation competence among students has been developed ^{[7, p.18-19]}. In addition, "the presence of authentic textual material used in the linguistic corpus presents it as the most suitable educational technology for the study of collocations" ^{[6, p.78]}. The linguodidactic properties of corpus technologies are also described in ^{[5, p.80]}.

The word credit entered the English linguoculture in the middle of the 16th century:

credit (n.)

«1540s, "belief, faith," from French cr?dit (15c.) "belief, trust," from Italian credito, from Latin creditum "a loan, thing entrusted to another," neuter past participle of credere "to trust, entrust, believe". The commercial sense of "confidence in the ability and intention of a purchaser or borrower to make payment at some future time" was in English by 1570s (creditor is mid-15c.);

hence "sum placed at a person's disposal" by a bank, etc., 1660s. From 1580s as "one who or that which brings honor or reputation to."  Meaning "honor, acknowledgment of merit,"

is from c. 1600. Academic sense of "point awarded for completing a course of study" is by 1904 (short for hour of credit (1892), given for satisfactory completion of one lecture, etc., a week, usually one hour in length). Movie/broadcasting sense "acknowledgement and naming of the individual contributors" (in plural, credits) is by 1914» ^[21].

The word "credit" was borrowed in Russia in the Petrine era from German and French, where "Kredit" "credit" — trust goes back to the Latin creditum "loan" from credere "to lend" < "to believe".  In the historical dictionary of gallicisms of the Russian language, you can find the following definitions of the lexeme "credit":

«1.       Confidence in someone's sincerity, conscientiousness, trust. 

2. in the field of financial relations. 1710.  1842.  

            fin. The possibility of receiving goods, money in debt; deferred payment.  1713-1714. 

3.         Authority, influence, high position.  First, the tsarevna of her great cabinet secret entrusted the key, with an authorized loan, to an all-reliable relative, then a former boyar, Ivan Mikhailovich Miloslavsky. 1683. 

4.         The amount included in the estimate, within which expenses for certain purposes are allowed. Budget loans. BAS-1" ^[15].

It should be noted that unlike many borrowed words in the Russian language, in this case there was no noticeable narrowing of meaning in the process of semantic adaptation of a foreign word ^{[8, p.10]}. For example, in T.F. Efremova's dictionary, the main definitions of the lexeme "credit" have been preserved:

"1) Lending of valuables (goods or money, etc.).

2) a) Commercial trust.

b) peren. Personal trust, authority.

3) in the ledgers, credit is the right page, where it is recorded. consumption; value." ^[18].

With the help of contrastive analysis ^{[12, p.23-24]}, it is possible to establish the relationship between each seme of the lexeme "credit" and the semes of its English translation equivalent "credit", as well as to identify national-specific semes - lacunae, which will subsequently help to determine the corresponding national–specific collocations.

The contrastive analysis used data from the historical dictionary of gallicisms ^[15], the etymological dictionary of the English language ^[21], as well as other dictionaries of the English language.

Sema 1. Rus.: credit — the possibility of obtaining goods, money in debt; deferred payment, trust in the field of financial relations ^[15].

English: credit — confidence in the ability and intention of a buyer or borrower to make payment at some future time ^[21].

LINEAR MATCHING

Sema 2. Rus.: credit confidence in someone's sincerity, integrity, trust ^[15].

English: credit — one who or that which brings honor or reputation to. ^[21].

LINEAR MATCHING

Sema 3. Rus.: credit is money allocated for certain expenses ^[15].

English: credit — sum placed at a person's disposal by a bank ^[21].

LINEAR MATCHING

Sema 4. Rus.: Authority, influence, high position ^[15].

English: credit — praise or special attention that is given to someone for doing something or for making something happen ^[22].

LINEAR MATCHING

English: credit — Academic sense of "point awarded for completing a course of study ^[21].

The LACUNA of the Russian language relative to English

English: credit — a source of honor or pride for someone or something ^[22].

The LACUNA of the Russian language relative to English

 English: credits — movie/broadcasting sense "recognition and naming of the individual contributors" (in plural, credits) is by 1914 ^[21].

The LACUNA of the Russian language relative to English.

Standard combinations of words that are well-known and often found in everyday, business, official and scientific vocabulary will be called universal collocations in this work. Collocations with the "credit" component were studied, discovered by statistical methods calculating the frequency of joint use in the national corpus of the NCR ^[17] and SONA ^[20] in Russian and Anglo-American discourse in the XIX century. As examples of the most frequent universal collocations according to the ADJ (adjective) scheme + NOUN (noun) in the NKRYA (1800-1900), the following can be cited (the numbers of positions by frequency of occurrence in the NKRYA are given in parentheses, their English translated equivalents are on the right, indicating the position number by frequency of occurrence from the SON):

NKRYA: mutual credit (1) — COHA: mutual credit (155)

NKRYA: public credit (2) — COHA: public credit (1)

NKRYA: unlimited credit (3) — COHA: unlimited credit (12)

NKRYA: people's credit (4) — COHA: national credit (3)

NKRYA: cheap credit (5) — COHA: cheap credit (123)

NKRYA: private loan (7)  — COHA: private credit (9)

NKRYA: rural credit (8) — COHA: rural credit (30)

NKRYA: public credit (9) — COHA: social credit (1)

NKRYA: moral credit (10) — COHA: moral credit (84)

NKRYA: bank credit (11) — COHA: bank credit (2)

Due to the fact that conversion is considered one of the most productive ways of derivation in the English language, and the use of nouns as definitions is a common method of composing phrases, in the process of searching for collocations in this area, we also analyzed collocations constructed according to the NOUN scheme + NOUN (noun), for example, bank credit - bank credit.

From this sample it can be seen that in some cases the frequency values of collocations differ significantly:

- the term "mutual credit" was used in the Anglo-American discourse of the XIX century much less often than in Russia, where at that time the "Mutual Credit Society" was popular, about which much was written in literary sources;

- "moral credit" is often translated as simply "credit", since in the Anglo-American language among the lexical meanings of "credit" there are "honor or reputation", "public recognition or praise", "a source of pride", referring to personal qualities and moral and household sphere, whereas in the lexical meanings of "credit" in Russian mainly relate to the business sphere;

- the collocation "bank credit" in the Russian discourse of the XIX century is less common than in the Anglo-American, since at that time the banking system in the USA was more developed.

Examples of national-specific collocations in the Russian language relative to the English language (NKRYA 1800-1900)

National-specific collocations are used only in one linguistic culture and have a unique meaning, when conducting a contrastive analysis, they do not have a semantic identity in another analyzed language. A special place among the national-specific collocations of Russian discourse is occupied by "land credit". It became high-frequency after 1861, when serfdom was abolished in Russia, and land ownership lost its class character. In this regard, "In the first half of the 1880s, a system of state mortgage loans developed in Russia. The landlords either went bankrupt or wanted to get rid of low-income estates. At the same time, the peasants' desire to acquire land increased, but it was restrained by the lack of necessary funds" ^{[9, p. 73]}.

            In the English discourse of the XIX century, this topic is not relevant, since according to L.V.Khodsky: "Farmers cannot conclude land debts, but they undertake the costs of improvements requiring long–term repayment, and in these cases they are assisted by the same credit institutions that serve personal credit - the system of rural banks" ^{[13, p. 26]}.

land loan

Rus.: Purpose The Mutual Land Credit Society is defined by two paragraphs of its charter; Society

land credit in general, he means to issue loans secured by land property, in particular

to issue enhanced loans to those who have in mind to acquire estates in the western provinces. (V. I. Zhukovsky. Speech in defense of Yukhantsev (1879)) // [NKRYA].

The national-specific Russian collocations also include:

land loan

Rus.: The peasants wanted to rent or buy land, but they do not have the means. Therefore, the organization of a small land loan, actually to help the peasants in their purchase of land, would be a true boon for the majority of the population and would warn, perhaps, not a few troubles." (Voice, No. 70. V. A. Goltsev. Internal review [May], Russian Thought, 1880) // [NKRYA].

zemstvo loan

Rus.: G. Sharapov offered to organize a zemstvo loan for artificial fertilizers! The zemstvos have repeatedly raised the issue of organizing a loan to peasants for the purchase of land, of which we have a lot of empty, ... (A. I. Koshelev. Notes of Alexander Ivanovich Koshelev (1812-1883) (1869)) // [NKRYA].

  industrial credit

Russian: A bill of exchange, as an instrument of industrial credit, as a lever of the international monetary exchange rate, as a symbol of loyalty and honesty of the merchant, should be especially protected by law from forgery, since forgery in a bill undermines not only the interest of a private person, but also the whole system of public credit. (V. I. Zhukovsky. Speech in defense of Gulak-Artemovskaya (1878)) // [NKRYA].

Examples of national-specific collocations in the Anglo-American language (SONA 1800-1900):

prostrate credit — destroyed/defeated credit

English: Administration which has been at the head of affairs during the last eight or nine years, which had almost seemed to have exhausted their fury. It is charged with the whole responsibility of the heavy complication of evils which has fallen, with combined action, within the present year, upon the country. We are told to look at the prostrate credit, bankrupt commerce, stagnated business, and worthless currency, which we have seen around us, for the legitimate fruits of those doctrines so triumphantly sustained by the popular majority, in the late Administration, and so strongly asserted by the present. (The Moral of the Crisis. Publication information US Democratic Review: October 1837: 108-123) // [COHA].

The fragment refers to the criticism of the activities of the administration of President Andrew Jackson, who issued Specie Circular, (July 11, 1836), in which the Ministry of Finance, banks and other recipients of public money were ordered to accept only silver and gold coins as payment for public land after August 15, 1836. This marked the beginning of the subsequent credit and economic crisis, called the Panic of 1837.

royal credit — royal credit

English: All the former governments had borrowed and neglected to pay. Henry VIII. robbed monasteries. Elizabeth sold monopolies. Charles I. seized money without law, and sold his promises at church doors to the highest bidder. His restored son became a swindler, and a pensioner of France, adopting any expedient that would supply his wants, and royal credit was utterly destroyed. This credit William restored, and the foundation of the nation's debt was laid. (Stock Markets. Publication information      US Democratic Review: September 1850: 252-262) // [COHA].

In this example, we can observe the unique phenomenon of the overlap of two meanings of the same term credit: "the amount of money borrowed" and "trust". On the one hand, this passage refers to illegally obtained funds, and on the other hand, it also refers to the faith in justice and honesty of people in power lost by the people in connection with this illegal activity.

artificial credit— artificial credit

our state constitution should define the powers and duties of legislators; and, above all other instruments, it should provide the clearest pledge, the safest guarantee of the rights of the people against legislative usurpation against the creation of those vested wrongs, monopolies and against the fostering of a system of artificial credit, calculated to sap all public and private morals, not only placing the advantages of credit within reach of the dishonest... (Fitzwilliam Byrdsall. New York: Clement & Packard. The history of the Loco-foco, or Equal Rights Party : its movements, conventions and proceedings, with short characteristic sketches of its prominent. 1842) // [COHA].

In this excerpt, in particular, the document of the Loco-foco party, which belongs to the type of Equal Rights Party political parties, discusses the requirements for the state constitution, which should define the powers and duties of legislators, and, above all, should give the clearest promise of a truly reliable guarantee of the protection of people's rights from legislative usurpation, from the creation of unlawful offenses monopolies and from the creation of an artificial credit system designed to undermine stability in society, moral values, providing access to benefits in obtaining credit to dishonest people.

immortal honor— undying credit

English: The noble daring of the First Louisiana gained for the black soldiers in our army the praise of all Americans who value Republican institutions. There was one scene, that reflects undying credit upon the bravery of the negro, … and pays but a sorry tribute to the humanity of the white general. (Brown, William Wells. Clotelle; or, the Colored Heroine, a tale of the Southern States; or, the President's Daughter. 1816?-1884) // [COHA]

In this fragment, which tells about an episode of the American Civil War of 1861-1865, we are talking about the heroism of the 1st Guard of Free Colored People from Louisiana (also known as Corps d'Afrique), which was one of the first units consisting entirely of black soldiers in the Union Army. Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, this unit played a prominent role in the siege of Port Hudson. She participated in the first assault on Milliken Bend during the siege of Port Hudson on May 27, 1863, as well as in the second assault on June 14.

Due to the emergence of new realities in the economic sphere, new collocations with the "credit" component have appeared in modern Russian and Anglo-American, as well as the frequency characteristics of previously existing phrases have changed.

As examples of the most frequent universal collocations according to the ADJ (adjective) scheme + NOUN (noun) in the newspaper subcorpus of the NKRJ ^[16] on the time range (2015-2019), the following collocations can be given (in parentheses are the position numbers by frequency of occurrence in the NKRJ, on the right are their English translated equivalents indicating the position number by frequency of occurrence from the newspaper subcorpus of the SOS ^[19] on the time range (2015-2019):

Russian: mortgage loan (1) — English: mortgage credit (30)

Russian: consumer credit (2) — English: consumer credit (2)          

Russian: investment credit (3) — English: investment credit (19)

Russian: housing loan (4) — English: homebuyer credit (6)     

Russian: bank credit (5) — English: bank credit (8)   

Rus.: preferential credit (6) — English subsidized credit (29)

Russian: currency credit (7) — English: currency credit (291)       

Russian: budget credit (8) — English: budget credit (50)         

Rus.: export credit (9) — English: export credit (138)

Russian: non—refundable credit (10) - English: bad credit (12)

It can be noted that in the sample given, the frequency of collocations in Russian and English-American differs significantly. This is explained by the fact that the most frequent collocation in the COCA newspaper subcorpus (2015-2019) was "tax credit" - "tax credit", and in the NKRYA newspaper subcorpus (2015-2019) this lexical unit occupies the 110th position in frequency of occurrence. This fact is due to the fact that the collocation "tax deduction" is more often used in Russian economic discourse.

In English, there is a corresponding translation equivalent - "tax deduction", but its frequency is much lower than that of "tax credit". Without going into details, we can say that these methods of taxation have a different mechanism: "Tax credits directly reduce the amount of tax you owe, ... tax deductions, on the other hand, reduce how much of your income is subject to taxes" ^[23].

298 "tax deduction" collocations and only 2 "tax credit" collocations were found in the newspaper subcorpus of the NKRYA for 2015-2019. In 2019, Russia had the opportunity to receive tax deductions for education, treatment, children, paid sports, purchase of medicines, voluntary life insurance, voluntary pension insurance, charity.

For example, the high-frequency collocation "child credit" or "childcare tax credit" in Russia can be considered as a "child tax deduction". The lexical unit "tax credit" in Russia is mainly used in combination with "investment", or denotes deferred payment of VAT and income tax. In the NCRA (2015-2019), the first position in frequency is occupied by the collocation "mortgage loan", and in the SOSA "mortgage credit" is in 30th place, apparently because often this popular target, long-term loan is designated by the high-frequency lexeme "mortgage".

Since "credit" is a borrowed international word, by definition it cannot have many national—specific collocations in the Russian language. Their examples are the names of credit organizations: Slavic credit, Russian credit, Northern credit, etc. and:

ruble loan

Rus: Rates on loans to individuals have returned to the level that is commonly called pre-crisis (until December 2014), rates on ruble loans to enterprises remain on average still two percentage points higher. (unknown. Indicators // "Expert", 2016.) // [NKRYA].

russian loan

Rus: Belarus does not consider obtaining a loan from Russia as a source of budget financing, the country's Finance Minister Maxim Ermolovich said, as quoted by BelTA. "We have not provided requests to the Russian side. We do not expect to receive a Russian loan," the official said. According to him, Belarus does not need additional sources of budget financing, including "political loans". (Belarus refused Russian money, lenta.ru , 2019.10.25) // [NKRYA].

non-ruble loan

Rus: The new package of US sanctions against Russia came into force at 00: 00 on Monday, August 26. Restrictive measures include a ban on the provision of non-ruble loans to the Russian government and the blocking of financial or technical assistance from international institutions.  (Russia reacted to new US sanctions // lenta.ru , 2019.08.28) //[NKRYA].

As you might have noticed, at the stage of contrastive analysis, it was possible to identify many gaps in the Russian language relative to English. Accordingly, there are many national–specific collocations in the Anglo-American language.

Examples of national-specific collocations of Anglo-American discourse include collocations related to the education system in the United States:

college credit is a conventional unit, usually denoting a student's weekly academic workload, is one of the most frequent collocations in COCA.

Delaware Sussex County: A program enabling high school students to earn college credit by learning manufacturing skills from area employers has been expanded here (NEWS: USA Today 2015 (150605) NEWS; Pg. 4A, News from across the USA, Compiled by Tim Wendel, Nicole Gill and Jonathan Briggs, with Carolyn Cerbin, Linda Dono, Michael Gottschamer, Ben Sheffler and Nichelle Smith. Desi) // [COCA].

The topic of education also includes high – frequency national - specific collocations:

school credit – school grades,

course credit - credit for the course.

The concept of college credit is associated with the concept of dual credit.

English: "Dual credit, as defined by the Texas Higher Education Board (THECB, 2010), is a process that allows high school juniors and seniors to enroll in and receive high school and college credits for completed coursework. States adopted dual credit programs after reviewing statistical data in which dual credit courses, successfully completed while in high school, resulted in increased student self-confidence in college». (Grade Point Average Differences between Dual and Nondual Credit College Students. Urban Studies Research / 2015 /Volume 2015 |Article ID 638417 | https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/638417) // [COCA].

National-specific collocations include lexical units related to the topic of environmental protection, which are given great attention in the Anglo-American discourse. These include the "carbon credit" collocation - a carbon credit, also known as a carbon emissions quota. When a company buys a carbon credit, usually from the government, it gets permission to produce one ton of CO2 emissions.

carbon credit

LaFleur, the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), chair, said the commission wouldn't need to do much to facilitate the carbon credit trading plan because wholesale electricity markets are already equipped to handle that kind of activity. " Where companies are already in a market, it'll be natural that the market will be part of their environmental improvement work… (NEWS: St Louis Post_Dispatch, Jacob Barker. Experts urge regional approach to EPA climate change rules. 2015 (150405), BUSINESS; Pg. E1) // [COCA].

solar energy credit - tax relief on electricity tax is provided

homeowners who make their homes more energy efficient by installing certain equipment. Federal energy tax benefits and state rebates are available to many qualified homeowners.

English: ... more lucrative credit for solar energy equipment is still available. Here's what you need to know to cash in. # Solar energy credit.# You can claim a federal income tax credit equal to 30% of your expenditures to buy and install qualifying energy-saving solar equipment for your home. Since this stuff is expensive, it can generate big credits. (MAG: MarketWatch.  This is one of the sweetest tax breaks around. 2017 (17-05-04)) // [COCA].

The national-specific collocations of the Anglo-American language can also include:

president credit — a tribute to the president

SENATOR-MARCO-RUBIO-: You know, it's a style we've never seen in a presidency before, but it seems to have at least, you know, knocked them off of balance. I can imagine they, after all these years, North Korea has been used to dealing with traditional politicians. I give the President credit  for that. But ultimately, there has got to be a deal. That may be what sets the conditions, but ultimately not only does there have to be a deal, but it has to be verifiable.  (SPOK: ABC News: This Week, 2018 (18-05-27), one-on-one with sen Marco Rubio trump says summit may still happen on june 12) // [COCA].

film credits — filmography

His film credits include The Sailor From Gibraltar (1967), Sinful Davey (1969), 10 Rillington Place (1971), The Osterman Weekend (1983), White Mischief (1987), King Ralph (1991) and Rob Roy (1995). He played a fascist leader of Great Britain in V for Vendetta (2006) and was Professor Oxley in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). # Hurt also was known for his rich, nicotine-toned timbre, which won him many voiceover assignments.

(MAG: Hollywood Reporter, 2017 (17-01-27), John Hurt, Oscar-Nominated Star of 'The Elephant Man,' Dies at 77)//[COCA].

Taking into account the results of the study, it can be concluded that the borrowed word "credit" has deeply embedded itself in the vocabulary of the Russian language. However, if in the XIX century the frequency characteristics of collocations in the corpus of texts of the Russian and Anglo-American languages in some cases coincided, and national-specific collocations mainly related to land ownership, then in the XXI century in many cases high frequencies in the discourse of the USA have national-specific collocations, such as colledge credit, course credit, dual credit, carbon credit, etc. Collocations related to the tax credit system are also often used:  income credit,  homebuyer credit,  child credit.   With the development of mortgage lending in Russia, a significant part of the collocations with the reference word "credit" found in the newspaper corpus of the NKRYA (2015-2019) began to relate to the subject - "mortgage loan", amounting to 26%, and in some cases native speakers use the phrase "housing loan" (6.6%). The phraseological units "political credit" and "people's credit" have been preserved in modern political discourse.

From the point of view of the issue of teaching a foreign language, the special importance of the results obtained in the course of this study is to identify national–specific collocations that characterize the unique features of the linguistic picture of the world of the English-speaking and Russian-speaking population. Familiarity with them allows you to develop intercultural communication skills thanks to linguistic awareness in the field of the historical development of the country of the studied language, its literary, artistic and journalistic works, helps to improve the level of translation training of future specialists.