Patterns in the academic language of engineering. A corpus-based construction grammar analysis

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Fandrych, since 2/2020
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2016 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 290777355

The project aims at systematically registering and describing patterns in the academic language of engineering, taking automotive engineering as an example. In the first step, an electronic corpus of approx. 4,500 scientific essays published in two renowned specialized journals will be established. Three selected characteristics form the focus of the following analysis: different non-agentive structures, nominalization (especially in context with the verbalization of semantic relations) and the utilization of figurative verbs as an example of the so-called ordinary scientific language. By employing various statistical methods (e.g. analysis of co-occurrence, distinctive collexeme analysis), linguistic patterns as an expression of usage-based language use are gathered, systematized and described. This serves two aims: Since there is a lack of empirical evidence, firstly, the characteristics of the scientific languages of engineering and technical disciplines will be tested. If needed, they will be updated. Secondly, the registered patterns will be analyzed from a construction grammar approach, thus contributing to the composition of a construction grammar of the German language.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professorin Dr. Agnes Koschmider; Professor Dr. Andreas Oberweis
• Ehemalige Antragstellerin: Professorin Dr. Antje Heine, until 1/2020