Abstract
In this chapter we will begin to transition from microanalysis to macroanalysis. We will leave behind the study of single terms and begin to explore two global measures of lexical variety: mean word frequency and type-token ratios.
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Notes
- 1.
In addition to the two measures of lexical variety offered in this chapter, and another approach offered in the next, readers may wish to consider Yule’s K (see Yule (2014)). Yule attempts to compensate for text length and provide a stable measure of lexical variety in what he called the K characteristic. A function for computing Yule’s characteristic constant K can be found in the languageR R package.
References
Yule CU (2014) The Statistical Study of Literary Vocabulary, 1st edn. Cambridge University Press
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L. Jockers, M., Thalken, R. (2020). Measures of Lexical Variety. In: Text Analysis with R. Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39643-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39643-5_7
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