Which Words Matter Most? Operationalizing Lexical Prevalence For Rank-Ordered Word Lists

Dados Bibliográficos

ID22870943
AutoresJamie Egbert (0000-0002-3751-2865, Northern Arizona University, autor correspondente), Jesse Egbert (Northern Arizona University), Brent D Burch (Northern Arizona University), Brent Burch (Northern Arizona University)
Ano2023
Volume44
Fascículo1
Páginas103-126
Data de publicação2023-03-22
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoApplied Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0142-6001 • E-ISSN: 1477-450X
EditoraOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/applin/amac030
OpenAlexW4297850916
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7
Referências citadas25

The words in a language or language variety are often rank ordered in lists that are meant to reflect the relative importance of those words to language users and learners of a language. This rank ordering is done on the basis of the relative prevalence of words in a corpus. Lexical prevalence is often operationalized as measures of frequency, dispersion, or adjusted frequency. Yet, to date, there is no consensus on best practices for identifying and ranking prevalent words in a corpus, or for evaluating the degree to which a word’s importance is reflected through its prevalence. We begin this paper by introducing and describing a wide range of corpus-based measures for quantifying lexical prevalence. We then carry out two case studies on the Duolingo University Textbook Corpus to evaluate the methods for their ability to identify and appropriately rank words in terms of their importance. We conclude with recommendations for word list creators and researchers and practitioners interested in word importance.

Linguistics · Natural language processing · Operationalization · Rank (graph theory) · Ranking (information retrieval) · Variety (cybernetics) · Word (group theory) · Word lists by frequency · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Lexicography and Language Studies · Mathematics · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning