analysis of 100 million words reveals what Brits talk about most

Fairly local weather proper this second, isn’t it? Time for a cuppa? The way in which during which someone talks, and the phrases they use, inform us pretty a bit in regards to the place someone is from, their social background and even their age. Language every shows and shapes society – as a linguist, it’s my job to study the best way.

A way to do this is by analysing large collections of language, which linguists identify corpora (or “our our bodies”). By measuring the frequency of phrases, we’re in a position to determine what a particular society or group prioritises and values.

In evaluation for a model new frequency dictionary of British English, my colleague Dana Gablasova and I, every at Lancaster Faculty, analysed every phrase inside the British Nationwide Corpus 2014.

The corpus is a 100 million-word sample of current language. It covers language utilized in informal speech, fiction, newspapers, magazines, tutorial writing and on-line sources between 2010 and 2020. It is free and publicly accessible at #LancsBox and LancsLex. Listed under are 5 ceaselessly talked about topics and among the many phrases that define them, along with what variety of events they appeared per million phrases.

1. Time and punctuality

In response to our analysis, “12 months” and “time” are the two most frequent nouns in British English, occurring 1,963 and 1,898 per million phrases, respectively. People communicate and write about all of them 12 months spherical, time (and time) as soon as extra. The idea of time is intently associated with punctuality – one factor extraordinarily valued in Britain.

The expressions “on time” and “in time” occur with the combined frequency of 47 per million phrases. As soon as we take a look at preferences of specific individual time-related phrases, summer time season (144 per million) is hottest over winter (63 per million). Sunday (114 per million) and Saturday (104 per million) are spoken and written about better than any of the other days. Morning (206 per million) is twice as frequent as night time (103 per million) and just about 3 occasions as frequent as afternoon (70 per million). The popular month is December (149 per million), adopted by March and May (145 and 142 per million respectively).

2. Local weather and native climate

Cultural stereotypes – and a great deal of polling – advocate that Brits ceaselessly communicate regarding the local weather. Our language data helps this.

The phrase “local weather” occurs with the frequency of 60 per million, alongside phrases corresponding to “pub” and “restaurant”, which occur with associated frequencies. “Local weather” is most ceaselessly utilized in on-line language (primarily emails and textual content material messages) adopted by newspapers (local weather opinions).

Proper right here is an occasion from the corpus of a casual alternate of textual content material messages exhibiting a typical local weather small communicate:

specific local weather phrases, people additional ceaselessly communicate regarding the photo voltaic (91 per million) than the rain (51 per million as a noun, and 15 per million as a verb). Storms (32 per million), clouds (39 per million), floods (19 per million) and even snow (37 per million) receive their due share of consideration in texts and conversations. Primary storms are typically referred to by their names, corresponding to Desmond, which introduced on intensive flooding in 2015.

Native climate change (29 per million), emissions (43 per million) and renewable vitality (6 per million) moreover now dominate most of the people discourse, indicating a rising take care of longer-term modifications, not merely current local weather conditions. There was a 21% enhance inside the combined relative frequencies of these phrases between 2010-2015 and 2016-2020.

3. Meals and drinks

This class shows consuming and consuming habits along with dietary preferences. “Dinner” appears 68 events per million phrases, “lunch” 51 events and “breakfast” 43 events per million. Basically essentially the most ceaselessly talked about meals objects embody eggs, fish, cake, apples, chocolate, cream, hen, meat, fruit and cheese. And a cultural sweet tooth is obvious: cake is spoken about 3 occasions additional ceaselessly than salad.

Basically essentially the most usually talked about drinks embody: tea, wine, espresso, beer, milk, juice and champagne. The quintessentially British beverage, tea, is almost six events additional frequent than champagne.

The graph underneath displays what phrases are prominently associated to the verb “to eat”. We measured these to point how strongly the phrases are associated in textual content material and speech. The nearer the phrase appears to the node inside the middle, the stronger the affiliation – and the size of the circle shows the frequency of these phrases exhibiting collectively in texts and speech.

4. Emotions

Maintain calm and stick with it? Whereas the British disposition is regarded as composed and barely reserved, the data displays that in all probability essentially the most frequent adjective expressing an emotion is “happy”. It occurs 208 events per million, sometimes utilized in phrases expressing contentment, corresponding to “I’m pretty happy to stay at residence”.

In distinction, in all probability essentially the most frequent adjective expressing a unfavorable emotion is “sorry” (204 per million), sometimes utilized in apologies or effectively mannered refusals. Completely different adjectives expressing emotions embody proud, sad (every 54 per million), pleased (53 per million), afraid (47 per million) and glad (46 per million).

5. Our our our bodies

The consider of the British Nationwide Corpus 2014 moreover displays that people spend pretty a bit little bit of time talking about their our our bodies. Significantly, hand, head, eye, foot and coronary coronary heart are the best 5 most ceaselessly used phrases referring to our physique.

Many makes use of of phrases on this class are metaphors or a part of fixed expressions. About one third of makes use of of the time interval “head” are metaphorical or have one different which means, corresponding to a job title: “head of selling”. Expressions corresponding to “on the one hand”, “inside the public eye”, “put one’s foot down” and “break anybody’s coronary coronary heart” are all examples of how our bodily experience of the world is present in uncommon language as we apply it to each day foundation.