Linguistic Complexity across Two Early Modern English Scientific Text Types

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20451996
AutoresJesús Romero-Barranco (0000-0001-6263-3872, Universidad de Granada, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen42
Número2
Páginas50-71
Fecha de publicación2020-12-23
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAtlantis Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0210-6124 • E-ISSN: 1989-6840
EditorialAEDEAN (Asociacion Espanola de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.28914/atlantis-2020-42.2.03
OpenAlexW3114991239
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas18

In linguistics the concept of complexity has been analysed from various perspectives, among them language typology and the speech/writing distinction. Within intralinguistic studies, certain key linguistic features associated with reduced or increased complexity have been identified. These features occur in different patterns across various registers and their frequency is an indicator of the level of complexity of different kinds of texts. The concept of complexity has not, to date, been evaluated in early English medical writing, especiallyin terms of different text types. Thus, the present article analyses linguistic complexity in two Early Modern English medical texts, a surgical treatise (ff. 34r-73v) and a collection of medical recipes (ff. 74r-121v) housed as MS Hunter 135 in Glasgow University Library. Since they represent two different types of medical text, they can be productively compared in terms of linguistic complexity. The results obtained confirm that the surgical treatise is more complex than the collection of medical recipes owing to the higher presence of linguistic features denoting increased complexity in the former and of those indicating reduced linguistic complexity in the latter

Linguistic sequence complexity · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Typology · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Psychology