INTEREST RATES
a) Keyness
‘Interest rates’ was
the seventy-first most significant two-word cluster in the BEC corpus.
|
N |
Word |
bec freq. |
bec.lst % |
bnc freq. |
bnc.lst % |
Keyness |
P |
|
71 |
INTEREST
RATES |
127 |
0.01 |
37 |
- |
127.9 |
0.000000 |
b) Semantic Prosody
Left: Five groups identified. An
interesting, though not surprising factor, is the semantic prosody concerning
the upward and downward movement of interest
rates. Where higher interest rates are mentioned they are often accompanied
by very negative language:
Conversely, where lower interest rates are mentioned these
examples are often accompanied by positive co-text:
A third semantic group contains the lexis of containment:
Thus, interest rates can be seen as an evil to be contained:
feared on the rise and celebrated on the fall.
|
semantic prosody |
frequency/ 127
& % |
example |
|
movement upwards/ high level |
46 - 36.22%* |
higher interest
rates rise in interest
rates Russia raised
interest rates |
|
movement downwards/ low level |
18- 14.17% |
if it reduces
interest rates it is the decline
in interest rates falling interest
rates |
|
time |
10 - 7.87% |
long-term
interest rates short-term
interest rates |
|
containment/control |
7 - 5.51% |
set interest
rates peg interest
rates |
|
decisions |
7 - 5.51% |
The decision to
raise interest rates from 7pc to 7.25pc |
* Included here are two instances of right of the node
lexis, e.g. forced interest rates up
sharply.
Right: No groups identified.
c) Three-word
clusters
|
N |
cluster |
Freq. |
|
1 |
higher interest rates |
12 |
|
2 |
in interest rates |
11 |
|
3 |
low interest rates |
11 |
|
4 |
term interest rates |
10 |
|
5 |
high interest rates |
9 |
|
6 |
interest rates and |
9 |
|
7 |
of interest rates |
8 |
|
8 |
interest rates are |
7 |
|
9 |
on interest rates |
6 |
|
10 |
interest rates by |
5 |
|
11 |
interest rates in |
5 |
|
12 |
raise interest rates |
5 |
|
13 |
interest rates have |
4 |
|
14 |
interest rates to |
4 |
|
15 |
interest rates up |
4 |
|
16 |
interest rates will |
4 |
|
17 |
rise in interest |
4 |
d) Macro-generic
distribution
e) Colligation
i) noun + in + interest rates: (the nouns show movement -
mostly upwards)
11 instances - 8.66% of sample (upwards movement verbs 8/11)
f) Associates
‘Interest rates’ was key in 12 files. The only associate of
frequency > =5 was ‘interest rates’ itself.
Comments
1. The semantic prosody category decisions was gained using
a 10:10 span concordance search. It has typical patterns: noun-on-noun or
noun-to-inf-noun:
