Chapter published in:
Lexical Priming: Applications and advances
Edited by Michael Pace-Sigge and Katie J. Patterson
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 79] 2017
► pp. 122–140

Lexical priming and the selection and sequencing of synonyms

Detailed corpus-based research has identified factors that describe various reasons for the preference of one synonymous lexical item over another (or others). This paper continues along these descriptive lines while presenting the versatility of synonyms and their functions. In addition to statistical results, we also investigate the psychological reasons for our choices by exploring what is referred to in psycholinguistic priming tasks as the frequency effect. We will find that this psychological, subliminal effect can importantly add explanation to description for corpus-based studies, which finely dovetails with Hoey’s theory of Lexical Priming.
Published online: 14 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.79.05baw
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