COMPETITIVE

 

 

a) Keyness

 

The lemma ‘competitive’ was the one hundred and eighty-sixth most significant key word in the BEC corpus.

 

N

Word

bec freq.

bec.lst %

bnc freq.

bnc.lst %

Keyness

P

186

COMPETITIVE

196

0.02

86

-

145

0.000000

 

b) Semantic Prosody

 

Left: Two groups identified.

 

semantic prosody

frequency/ 195 & %

example

extremes

31 - 15.89%

extremely competitive

highly competitive

competitive characteristics

9 - 4.61%

globally competitive

drop-dead competitive

 

Right: Four groups identified.

 

semantic prosody

frequency/ 195 & %

example

advantage/disadvantage

35 - 17.94%

competitive advantage

competitive edge

place and positioning

22 - 11.28%

competitive market

competitive sector

money/finance

15 - 7.69%

competitive prices

competitive remuneration packages

competitive salary

atmosphere

9 - 4.61%

competitive climate

competitive environment

 

 

 

c) Three-word clusters

 

N

cluster

Freq.

1

competitive position in

5

2

your competitive edge

5

3

a competitive edge

4

4

a competitive market

4

5

a highly competitive

4

6

a very competitive

4

7

at a competitive

4

8

competitive position the

4

9

drop dead competitive

4

10

position the competitive

4

11

the competitive position

4

 

d) Macro-generic distribution

 

 

e) Colligation

 

COBUILD Sense 1 (situation or activities where people or firms compete with each other)

183 instances - 93.84% of sample

Patterns: Adjective

In today’s competitive business climate

we need to be competitive in the next century

 

COBUILD Sense 2 (a competitive person)

1 instance - 0.51% of sample

Patterns: Graded adjective

A formidable woman and she was and is very competitive

 

COBUILD Sense 3 (goods and services at a competitive price)

11 instances - 5.64% of sample

Patterns: Graded adjective

France’s nuclear power plants generate electricity at competitive prices

Are they reliable and do they have competitive prices?

 

Other patterns:

 

i) adverb + competitive + noun (group): (all denote extremes)

12 instances - 6.15%   

extremely competitive market place, highly competitive US market

 

f) Associates

 

N

WORD

NO. OF FILES

AS %

1

COMPETITIVE

8

100.00

2

BUSINESS

7

87.50

3

CUSTOMER

6

75.00

4

CUSTOMERS

5

62.50

 

Comments

 

1. As with the word ‘low’, the collocating words to the left of competitive noted here are mainly concerned with extremes, e.g. highly, intensely, very.