Update on N-grams

Posted in Articles, Resources by WordstoDeeds

For those who were interested in yesterday’s post, this dynamic presentation by two Harvard researchers offers a further insight into the subject (and a few smiles too): What we learned from 5 million books…

The video is part of the TED project, “a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world“. The website has a mine of interesting videos, and many have been subtitled as part of the Open Translation Project – a fascinating way to gain experience for new translators.

You may also be interested in the original post here.

2Dec2011

Google N-grams, tracking word use

Posted in Articles, Resources by WordstoDeeds

This fascinating post by Dr Carol O’Sullivan at the University of Portsmouth may be of interest to translators and lawyers alike – sharing an interest in how words are used.
http://matsnews.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-n-grams-and-translation.html

It describes how collections of texts from 1500 to 2008, in several languages (Englishes, simplified Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Spanish and Russian), can be used to examine synonyms, neologisms, and even to compare ‘competing words’.

I did a little test following Carol’s instructions, to compare “claimant” and “plaintiff”. Here are the results, for American English and for British English between 1800 and 2008. Note that the y-axis scales differ.

We can clearly see the jump in the use of “claimant” in the UK following the entering into force of the Civil Procedure Rules in April 1999. Continue reading →