{"title":"1923 年至 2008 年美国书面英语中数字使用的异时变化","authors":"Gui Wang , Jing Shu , Li Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2024.101656","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study examines diachronic changes in number use in written American English from 1923 to 2008 in TIME magazine, analyzing a 170-million-token corpus. We investigate the effects of magnitudes, roundness, and representational formats on number frequency, along with the evolution of culturally salient numbers reflecting societal shifts. Utilizing Bayesian negative binomial regression for in-depth corpus analysis, our findings demonstrate a consistent influence of magnitudes and roundness, with smaller magnitudes and rounder numbers appearing more frequently. We observe a significant standardization in portraying large numbers, marked by a shift from numerical to mixed forms (e.g., “6,000,000,000” to “6 billion”) around 1940s. This reflects changes in both formal writing conventions and editorial practices of numerical representation. Our research further identifies distinct culturally significant numbers for each decade, linked to social, economic, and technological trends, underscoring the role of numerical analysis in media to decode complex cultural and societal patterns. This study contributes significantly to understanding the dynamic interplay between language, culture, and media in the context of numerical representations.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Diachronic changes of number use in written American English from 1923 to 2008\",\"authors\":\"Gui Wang , Jing Shu , Li Wang\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.langsci.2024.101656\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><p>This study examines diachronic changes in number use in written American English from 1923 to 2008 in TIME magazine, analyzing a 170-million-token corpus. We investigate the effects of magnitudes, roundness, and representational formats on number frequency, along with the evolution of culturally salient numbers reflecting societal shifts. Utilizing Bayesian negative binomial regression for in-depth corpus analysis, our findings demonstrate a consistent influence of magnitudes and roundness, with smaller magnitudes and rounder numbers appearing more frequently. We observe a significant standardization in portraying large numbers, marked by a shift from numerical to mixed forms (e.g., “6,000,000,000” to “6 billion”) around 1940s. This reflects changes in both formal writing conventions and editorial practices of numerical representation. Our research further identifies distinct culturally significant numbers for each decade, linked to social, economic, and technological trends, underscoring the role of numerical analysis in media to decode complex cultural and societal patterns. This study contributes significantly to understanding the dynamic interplay between language, culture, and media in the context of numerical representations.</p></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":51592,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Language Sciences\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.7000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-06-21\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Language Sciences\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"98\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0388000124000457\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Language Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0388000124000457","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
Diachronic changes of number use in written American English from 1923 to 2008
This study examines diachronic changes in number use in written American English from 1923 to 2008 in TIME magazine, analyzing a 170-million-token corpus. We investigate the effects of magnitudes, roundness, and representational formats on number frequency, along with the evolution of culturally salient numbers reflecting societal shifts. Utilizing Bayesian negative binomial regression for in-depth corpus analysis, our findings demonstrate a consistent influence of magnitudes and roundness, with smaller magnitudes and rounder numbers appearing more frequently. We observe a significant standardization in portraying large numbers, marked by a shift from numerical to mixed forms (e.g., “6,000,000,000” to “6 billion”) around 1940s. This reflects changes in both formal writing conventions and editorial practices of numerical representation. Our research further identifies distinct culturally significant numbers for each decade, linked to social, economic, and technological trends, underscoring the role of numerical analysis in media to decode complex cultural and societal patterns. This study contributes significantly to understanding the dynamic interplay between language, culture, and media in the context of numerical representations.
期刊介绍:
Language Sciences is a forum for debate, conducted so as to be of interest to the widest possible audience, on conceptual and theoretical issues in the various branches of general linguistics. The journal is also concerned with bringing to linguists attention current thinking about language within disciplines other than linguistics itself; relevant contributions from anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists and sociologists, among others, will be warmly received. In addition, the Editor is particularly keen to encourage the submission of essays on topics in the history and philosophy of language studies, and review articles discussing the import of significant recent works on language and linguistics.