Register variation remains stable across 60 languages
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This paper measures the stability of cross-linguistic register variation. A register is a variety of a language that is associated with extra-linguistic context. The relationship between a register and its context is functional: the linguistic features that make up a register are motivated by the needs and constraints of the communicative situation. This view hypothesizes that register should be universal, so that we expect a stable relationship between the extra-linguistic context that defines a register and the sets of linguistic features which the register contains. In this paper, the universality and robustness of register variation is tested by comparing variation within versus between register-specific corpora in 60 languages using corpora produced in comparable communicative situations: tweets and Wikipedia articles. Our findings confirm the prediction that register variation is, in fact, universal.
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1702 Cognitive Sciences
2004 Linguistics
Fields of Research::47 - Language, communication and culture::4704 - Linguistics::470404 - Corpus linguistics
Fields of Research::47 - Language, communication and culture::4704 - Linguistics::470406 - Historical, comparative and typological linguistics
Fields of Research::47 - Language, communication and culture::4704 - Linguistics::470411 - Sociolinguistics