STAFF
a) Keyness
The
lemma ‘staff’ was the six hundred and sixty-eighth most
significant key word in the BEC corpus.
|
N |
Word |
Freq. |
bec.lst % |
Freq. |
bnc.lst % |
Keyness |
P |
|
668 |
STAFF |
419 |
0.04 |
535 |
0.03 |
37.9 |
0.000000 |
b) Semantic Prosody
Left:
Four groups discerned.
|
semantic prosody |
frequency/388 & % |
example |
|
numbers,
amounts or % of staff |
44
- 11.34 % |
nearly
11,000 staff ...
employs 62
staff .... the
vast majority of staff twenty per cent of the staff |
|
type
of staff (titles, functions, company) |
55-
14.17% |
administration staff strategic planning staff |
|
status
of staff |
21
- 5.41% |
full time permanent member of staff senior staff junior staff core staff |
|
positive |
12
- 3.09% |
proven staff the
right staff highly skilled staff |
Right:
No groups identified but see colligation section below.
c) Three-word clusters
|
N |
cluster |
Freq. |
|
1 |
member
of staff |
8 |
|
2 |
of
the staff |
8 |
|
3 |
all
the staff |
6 |
|
4 |
to
the staff |
6 |
|
5 |
available
to staff |
5 |
|
6 |
staff
and the |
5 |
|
7 |
staff
forum # |
5 |
|
8 |
the
staff and |
5 |
|
9 |
a
staff of |
4 |
|
10 |
from
the junior |
4 |
|
11 |
in
the hotel |
4 |
|
12 |
management
and staff |
4 |
|
13 |
of
staff and |
4 |
|
14 |
staff
# # |
4 |
|
15 |
staff
at the |
4 |
|
16 |
staff
in the |
4 |
|
17 |
the
junior staff |
4 |
|
18 |
the
staff who |
4 |
d) Macro-generic distribution
e) Colligation
COBUILD
Sense 1 (people who work for an organisation)
331
instances - 85.3% of sample
Patterns:
Count noun
member
of staff, our friendly helpful staff are waiting for your call
COBUILD
Sense 2 (people part of a particular staff - correlates to semantic prosody
category 2 above)
55
instances - 14.17% of sample
Patterns:
Plural noun
IT staff, corporate management resources
staff
COBUILD
Sense 3 (verb - to staff an organisation)
2
instances - 0.51% of sample
Patterns:
most commonly passive (is staffed, was staffed, but this item is here excluded,
only the infinitive form found)
how
to staff, staff technical specialists to address the unique ...
Other
patterns:
i) Overwhelmingly used as a
noun rather than a verb :
386
instances - out of 388, 99.48% of sample.
ii)
Used in both pre- and post-modified compound nouns/noun phrases:
agency
staff, service staff, staff discount, staff forum, staff levels, staff
performance, staff recruiting, staff training
iii) Staff of + number:
5
instances - 1.28% of sample
a
staff of just 150 inspectors
iv) prepositional use: (says where the staff works)
18
instances - 4.63% of sample
staff
at the Samsung Group, staff from other countries, staff in the hotel, staff of
the
v) noun + of + staff:
27
instances - 6.95% of sample
member
of staff, number of staff, calibre of staff, development of staff, the drift of
staff away
f) Associates
|
N |
WORD |
NO. OF FILES |
AS % |
|
1 |
STAFF |
10 |
100.00 |
|
2 |
TRAINING |
5 |
50.00 |