<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The aims of this paper are twofold: i) to present the motivation and design of a sociohistorical corpus derived from the popular BBC Radio show, <italic>Desert Island Discs</italic> (<italic>DID</italic>); and ii) to illustrate the potential of the DID corpus (DIDC) with a case study. In an era of ever-increasing digital resources and scholarly interest in recent language change, there remains an enormous disparity between available written and spoken corpora. We describe how a corpus derived from DID contributes to redressing the balance. Treating DID as an example of a specialized register, namely, a ‘biographical chat show’, we review its attendant situational characteristics, and explain the affordances and design features of a sociolinguistic corpus sampling of the show. Finally, to illustrate the potential of DIDC for linguistic exploration of recent change, we conduct a case study on two pronouns with generic, impersonal reference, namely <italic>you</italic> and <italic>one</italic>.</p></abstract>

The aims of this paper are twofold: i) to present the motivation and design of a sociohistorical corpus derived from the popular BBC Radio show, Desert Island Discs (DID); and ii) to illustrate the potential of the DID corpus (DIDC) with a case study. In an era of ever-increasing digital resources and scholarly interest in recent language change, there remains an enormous disparity between available written and spoken corpora. We describe how a corpus derived from DID contributes to redressing the balance. Treating DID as an example of a specialized register, namely, a ‘biographical chat show’, we review its attendant situational characteristics, and explain the affordances and design features of a sociolinguistic corpus sampling of the show. Finally, to illustrate the potential of DIDC for linguistic exploration of recent change, we conduct a case study on two pronouns with generic, impersonal reference, namely you and one.

From broadcast archive to language corpus: Designing and investigating a sociohistorical corpus from <italic>Desert Island Discs</italic>

ICAME Journal

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

From broadcast archive to language corpus: Designing and investigating a sociohistorical corpus from 

The aims of this paper are twofold: i) to present the motivation and design of a sociohistorical corpus derived from the popular BBC Radio show, Desert Island...

From broadcast archive to language corpus: Designing and investigating a sociohistorical corpus from Desert Island Discs

Published Online: Apr 10, 2018

Page range: 167 - 190

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/icame-2018-0008

© 2018 Nicholas Smith et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.