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JOURNAL OF CORPORA AND DISCOURSE STUDIES 2018, 7(1):77–100
E-ISSN 2515-0251
DANIELE POLIZZI,
SILVIA BERNARDINI,
ADRIANO FERRARESI
EVALUATION IN A CROSS-
LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE:
INVESTIGATING SEMANTIC
PROSODY ACROSS ENGLISH AND
GERMAN NEAR-SYNONYMS
CITATION
Polizzi, D., Bernardini, S., & Ferraresi, A.
(2024). Evaluation in a cross-linguistic
perspective: Investigating semantic
prosody across English and German near-
synonyms.
! , "(1):77–100
ABSTRACT
The present study follows in the path of previous research on semantic prosody, shifting
its focus to the domain of near-synonymy analysed from a cross-linguistic perspective.
The targeted items are English and German near-synonymous schemata expressing a
sense of persuasion. The aim is to assess whether there are notable differences and/or
overlaps in their evaluative behaviour and pragmatic function. Results highlight an
“evaluative gap” existing between the English and German patterns, reflected in subtle
differences in meaning nuances not always picked up by dictionary definitions. These
results are discussed in the light of their relevance for translation and contrastive studies,
as well as their practical implications for corpus-assisted lexicography.
KEYWORDS
contrastive studies, corpus-assisted
lexicography , evaluation, near-synonyms,
semantic prosody
CONTACT
Daniele Polizzi, Department of Interpreting and Translation, University of Bologna,
Forli, 47121, Italy. daniele.polizzi2@unibo.it
DOI
10.18573/jcads.1
20
ORCID
—
ISSUE DOI
10.18573/jcads.v7
LICENSE
© The authors. Available under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license
Manuscript accepted 2024-01-07
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Evaluation in a cross-linguistic perspective:
Investigating semantic prosody across English and
German near-synonyms
Daniele Polizzi
& !'(
Silvia Bernardini
& !'(
Adriano Ferraresi
& !'(
1. Introduction
Semantic prosody1 is a key component of the holistic approach to language production
and understanding favoured by scholars following in the wake of the neo-Firthian school
of corpus linguistics. Originally encapsulated by Sinclair (1991, 1999) in his discussion of
the semantic environment, or preference, of English verbs like SET IN and HAPPEN, it has
grown out of two seemingly unrelated concepts: evaluative meanings and discourse func-
tions. The terminological ambiguity stemming from such apparent dichotomy has led to
considerable inconsistency: from ‘semantic’ or ‘discourse prosody’ (Louw, 1993; Stubbs,
1995) to ‘evaluative prosody’ (Partington, 2004) and ‘semantic association’2 (Hoey, 2005).
In this contribution, we use the term ‘semantic prosody’ to refer to the non-obvious
evaluative force (either positive or negative) which linguistic items may acquire by virtue
of the habitual patterns they participate in (McEnery & Hardie, 2012, pp. 135–41). This
essentially binary system could be further expressed in terms of a more complex tax-
onomy. In other words, ‘the goodness and the badness can […] come in many forms’
(Morley & Partington, 2009, p. 141) and reflect something that is either beneficial or det-
rimental, pleasurable or dangerous, in our control or not (Partington, 2018, p. 1). At the
discourse level of pragmatic function, semantic prosody (more or less) implicitly reveals
‘the speaker or writer’s attitude or stance towards, viewpoint or feeling about the entities
and propositions’ that they are talking about (Hunston & Thompson, 2000, p. 5). The two
perspectives (encompassing the lexical priming of evaluative meanings and their manifes-
ted illocutionary force; see Hoey 2005) are inherently intertwined, since ‘the potential of
an item for engaging in the expression of favourable or unfavourable evaluation is part of
its basic communicative function’ (Partington, 2004, p. 152).
Prosodic expectations regularly escape introspection and are ‘mainly engaged at the
subconscious level’ (Tognini-Bonelli, 2001, p. 141). Hence, they are typically not easy to
recollect and become more apparent when they are violated due to a collocational or
1 In this contribution we adopt the better-established term ‘semantic prosody’, though Partington’s term
‘evaluative prosody’ would arguably better encapsulate the idea of semantic prosody that we adopt in this
contribution, referring to ‘the evaluative intent of the speaker, that is, the attitude s/he has to his/her topic’
(Morley & Partington, 2009, p. 147).
2 Hoey’s use of the term is somewhat broader than the others, as it covers so-called ‘secondary meanings’ –
including association, connotation and evaluation – that contribute to ‘how [something] means what it
does’ (Philip, 2009, p. 4).
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‘evaluative clash’3 (cf. Partington 2017) occurring between the established meaning and
the one that seems to be conveyed: irony, insincerity, or humour can be explained as
cases where semantic prosody is (un)voluntarily switched off (Louw, 1993, p. 173).
One area of lexicogrammar where semantic prosody proves particularly interesting is
that of semantic similarity, that is, near-synonymy. Near-synonyms are partially overlap-
ping items displaying ‘very similar cognitive meanings, but widely differing prosodic be-
haviours’ (Partington, 1998, p. 77). An awareness of the existence of these subtle nuances,
uncovering the basic reason why sequential strings are co-selected in native-like dis-
course (Sinclair, 2004, p. 34), is invaluable both for translators and learners. Non-native
speakers are indeed less likely to have benefited from ‘exposure to the priming processes
of language’ (Frank !., 2020, p. B4), hence resulting in potential ‘misunderstandings
with respect to tone or content of the original message’ (Berber Sardinha, 2000, p. 96).
Corpus-assisted techniques are invaluable in this respect, allowing for abstractions ‘across
multiple, different contexts of usage’ (McEnery & Hardie, 2012, pp. 136, 141) to be identi-
fied via data-driven inductive reasoning.
Following in the wake of previous contrastive corpus-assisted research (Tognini-
Bonelli, 2001; Partington, 2004; Xiao & McEnery, 2006; Kenny, 2006; Shao, 2017; Frank
!., 2020), this study attempts to highlight intra- and interlinguistic differences between
near-synonyms and their equivalents, analysed through the lens of semantic prosody. If,
as Xiao and McEnery (2006, pp. 124–125) suggest, there exists sufficient evidence for a
certain degree of cross-linguistic comparability between prosodic behaviours, the com-
parability remains unpredictable, and is often undermined by restrictions related to a spe-
cific language variety, style (Greenbaum, 1974, p. 81), or register (Berber Sardinha, 2017).
A case in point is represented by Italian CONTAMINAZIONE and French CONTAMINATION
(‘contamination’), discussed by Frank !. (2020). Both seem to share the same unfavour-
able evaluative prosody when they are used in their literal sense and are associated with
the semantic fields of ‘environmental hazard’ and ‘microbiology’ (Frank !., 2020, pp.
B15–B20). However, CONTAMINAZIONE features a further context of use: namely that of
culture, including literature, arts and music. Here, the item is used metaphorically with a
positive intent to denote enhancing cultural influence and interpenetration.
The effect of culture is also investigated by Wang (2022), who locates prosodies
within the wider context of cultural psychology, arguing that cross-linguistic differences
and similarities are shaped by the harmonizing effect of culture on the lexical primings
that one develops within a given speech community. Examples include the differing
meaning nuances exhibited by English WORLD and Mandarin 世界 (shìjiè ‘world, uni-
3 A widely-cited example is Louw’s discussion of a passage from a novel by David Lodge where people are
described as ‘bent on self-improvement’. A reversal of evaluation occurs due to the clash between ‘bent on’,
typically followed by negative items, and the favourable evaluation associated with self-improvement
(Louw, 1993, p. 164).
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verse’) as well as their most common clusters, which the author ties to the opposition
between (Western) individualism and analytic thinking and (East-Asian) collectivism and
holistic thinking.
Broadening the scope of our research to encompass long-distance collocations (Siep-
mann, 2006, pp. 2–3)4, in this contribution we describe a working and learning method
that all translators should adopt to improve their ability to recognise and convey subtle
shades of meaning across languages. The observation that ‘you cannot simply put any old
bunch of words together’ (Morley & Partington, 2009:144) is especially relevant to the
situation in which one needs to convey someone else’s evaluative intent in another lan-
guage, as is the rule for translators. For this reason, Alan Partington’s theoretical reflec-
tions and methodological breakthroughs provide invaluable input in the education of fu -
ture translators. Indeed, this study grew out of his teaching and is greatly influenced by it.
We continue to teach his ideas to our students, and to expose them to his writings, as epi-
tomes of rigour, scholarship, and originality. Our specific aims, and the overall rationale
for the study, are presented in the following section.
2. Evaluative prosody and near synonymy: an English/German
comparison
2.1. Aims and research questions
The aim of this case study is twofold. On the one hand, it draws on corpus evidence to es-
tablish whether English near-synonymous expressions conveying a sense of persuasion
display subtly but distinctly separable evaluative meanings. More specifically, the focus is
placed on a notional group comprising ‘ways of reporting utterances which perform the
speech act of “directive” (Searle, 1979; Leech, 1983), and of describing non-verbal ways of
influencing what someone does’ (Hunston & Francis, 2000, p. 114).
Among the items listed in the relevant literature, we selected verbs participating in
the pattern & 233!04!& (Hunston & Francis, 2000, p. 116), which share the
general sense ‘causing someone to do something’. These verbs include ENCOURAGE,
INDUCE, and URGE along with several other more infrequent ones (for a full list, see Hun-
ston & Francis, 2000, p. 114). The inherent deontic modality of these verbs may be revel-
atory of the speaker’s attitude towards both the activity being described and the subjects
involved; yet lexicographic evidence provides only marginal indication that each pattern
is allocated a specific pragmatic function.
As for ENCOURAGE 33!04!& , both monolingual and learners’ dictionaries
highlight the idea of making someone more likely to do something (Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2024; Encyclopedia Britannica Inc, 2024). Occasionally, this meaning is integ-
4 That is, cases where collocations extend to encompass longer syntagms and phrasemes together with their
peculiar semantic-pragmatic features (Siepmann, 2006, p. 2–3, 12)
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rated with a more explicit sense of ‘stimulate by approval or help in the sense of urge’
(HarperCollins, 2024a).
The construction URGE33!04!& is associated with severity (‘to try to per-
suade (someone) in a serious way to do something’, Encyclopedia Britannica Inc, 2024),
pleading (‘if you urge someone to do something, you try hard to persuade them to do it;
to plead with or press someone to do something’, HarperCollins, 2024a) or unspecified
persuasion (‘to try to persuade someone to do something’, Cambridge University Press,
2024). Notice that the least specific definition is provided where it would be needed the
most, namely in a learners’ dictionary.
Finally, no clear evidence of favourable or unfavourable prosody seems to be gained
at first glance from the dictionary profile of INDUCE 33 !04!& . In this case
definitions include ‘to persuade’ (Cambridge University Press, 2024) or ‘influence
someone to do something’ (HarperCollins, 2024a) and ‘cause someone (or something) to
do something’ (Encyclopedia Britannica Inc, 2024).
Besides shedding light on evaluative differences across English near-synonyms, a fur-
ther objective of this study is to determine whether the corresponding German near-syn-
onyms, referred to in relevant entries of bilingual dictionaries, feature any potential eval-
uative discrepancies with respect to their English counterparts. This choice is motivated
by the fact that research into semantic/evaluative prosodies of words in German is lim-
ited (cf. Dodd, 2006; Kenny, 2001, 2006), and that such cross-linguistic information can
be of great relevance for contrastive and translation studies, as well as bilingual lexico-
graphy.
The present analysis focuses on the verbs ANSPORNEN (‘encourage’), BRINGEN (‘in-
duce’) and DRÄNGEN (‘urge’) in the syntactic pattern 5 6 #*% !7*!
(HarperCollins, 2024b; K Dictionaries, 2014; Oxford University Press, 2012). These equi-
valents were identified on a one-to-one basis following two selection criteria. First, each
German verb had to be listed as a possible candidate for the translation of the corres-
ponding English predicate in more than one dictionary. Second, each German verb had to
enter a pattern analogous to the English one, explicitly referenced as its adequate equival-
ent (cf. Section 2.2. for further discussion on patterns’ operationalisation). For instance,
both BRINGEN and BEWEGEN were listed as translation candidates for INDUCE, but the pat-
tern INDUCE33!04!& was explicitly associated with 5 6 #*%BRINGEN
!7*!. Similarly, while both ANSPORNEN and ERMUTIGEN appeared as equivalents
for ENCOURAGE, only the former was associated with the relevant pattern.
With reference to these sets of synonyms in English and German, the study aims to
answer, through a thorough collocation-via-concordance analysis of comparable corpora,
the following research questions:
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1. Do the English near-synonymous patterns expressing a sense of persuasion
(ENCOURAGE|INDUCE|URGE)33!04!& display discernibly different
semantic prosodies?
2. Are the same subtle meaning differences found to characterise the German
expressions offered as equivalents by bilingual German/English dictionaries?
The method followed in the analysis is outlined in the following section.
2.2. Data and methodology
Two roughly comparable web corpora are employed for the analysis, one for English and
one for German: the Araneum Anglicum Maius corpus and the Araneum Germanicum
Maius corpus, both part of the Aranea family of comparable corpora compiled by web
crawling to be used ‘for teaching purposes, but also in linguistic research (contrastive
studies) and in lexicography (both mono- and bilingual)’ (Benko, 2014, p. 248). They are
a valuable source of data for contrastive analysis since they feature text types, genres and
registers collected in the same time period and following a similar method. Furthermore,
they are fairly similar in terms of size, as illustrated in Table 1.
Araneum Anglicum Maius Araneum Germanicum Maius
Language English German
Words 888 466 066 875 465 845
Texts 1 159 878 2 321 308
Reference date 2015 2013
Table 11!2!!8 62 (8 6 !8 !'
Patterns in the respective languages were identified by exploiting Part-of-Speech (POS)
and lemma annotation through the Corpus Query Language (CQL) on the SketchEngine
platform2. The queries that were generated are listed in Table 2.
Queries were carefully designed considering the behaviour of the verb found at the
core of each pattern. The queries for ENCOURAGE 3 3 ! and INDUCE 33!
match any instance in which a noun or pronoun follow encourage or INDUCE and are fol-
lowed by to, including an optional slot for a determiner between the verb and the noun/
pronoun. For URGE 33!, it was further specified that only instances in which it is
used as verb and not as a noun should be extracted. As for DRÄNGEN and ANSPORNEN, op-
tional elements, ranging from one to five, were placed between the verb and the preposi-
tion to allow for complex noun phrases, prepositional phrases or modifiers to be found
(hence reflecting the vagueness of 5 6 (‘someone’) and !7 (‘something’) expressed
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in the pattern). Since a potentially high number of optional slots may result in sentence-
crossing, queries were delimited by sentence boundaries.
Pattern CQL query
ENCOURAGE 33!04!& [lemma=“encourage”] []? [tag=“N.*|PP.?” ]
[word=“to”]
URGE 33!04!& [lemma=“urge” & tag=“V.* ”] []? [tag=“N.*|
PP.?”] [word=”to”]
INDUCE 33!04!& [lemma=“induce”] []? [tag=“N.*|PP.?”]
[word=“to”]
5 6 #*%ANSPORNEN+ !7*! [lemma=“anspornen”] []{1,5} [word=“zu”]
within <s/>
5 6 #*%DRÄNGEN+ !7*! [word!= “Rand”] [lemma=“drängen”] []{1,5}
[word=“zu”] [tag=“V.*”] within <s/>
5 6 *BRINGEN+ !79*! [word=“dazu”] [lemma=“bringen”]
Table 21)!! ' (: ;
Still, the query for DRÄNGEN required further adjustments. First, it was necessary to expli-
citly omit ‘Rand’, as part of the idiom ‘an den Rand drängen’ (‘to isolate, marginalise’). At
the same time, the corresponding tag for a verb was placed immediately after the preposi-
tion ‘zu’ to discard instances where DRÄNGEN functions as a motion verb. The peculiar
behaviour of the fixed sequence *2( needed no such precautions. While any at-
tempt at retrieving all and only the relevant patterns through CQL queries is bound to
fail, by providing the exact queries we aim to favour replicability and allow readers to
evaluate the soundness of our data retrieval procedures for themselves.
In order to better grasp the semantic prosody associated with each pattern, a thor-
ough concordance analysis was carried out by the first author (a non-native speaker of
both languages in focus), taking into account both the meaning of the items participating
in the predefined pattern, and the meaning conveyed by the wider co-text. Simply gener-
ating a collocate list and highlighting good or bad companies would indeed have been
counter-productive, since their relationship with the node could be one of opposition or
detraction (Partington, 2004, pp. 154–5), embedding or contagion (Partington, 2017, p.
196)5.
5 Opposition and detraction are exemplified by phrasings such as ‘the relief of pain’ or ‘easing the pain’
(Partington, 2004, p. 155). An example of embedding can be found in ‘global poverty is falling rapidly’,
whereas contagion concerns the evaluative colouring of textual blocks based on prosodic clues (Partington,
2017, p. 196)
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Due the overwhelming amount of data returned by the queries (see Section 3.3. be-
low), a decision was made to generate samples of 100 lines randomly selected from all
parts of the corpus. While analysing a larger sample would no doubt have added to the
reliability of our conclusions, a compromise had to be struck between the number of ex-
amples and the depth of the analysis. In a contrastive analysis of evaluative semantic pros-
ody, we would suggest that the balance between the quantitative and the qualitative
should be tipped in favour of the latter. Concordance lines that escaped the targeted pat-
tern and did not conform to the meaning of persuasion were discarded, together with any
duplicates.
Following this filtering phase, prosodies in the remaining extracts were evaluated as
either favourable, unfavourable or neutral, and their corresponding discourse functions
listed in a table. Any evidence of register variation was thus arrived at via a careful cor-
pus-driven process of bottom-up inference. The findings of the six analyses are reported
in the next section.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. English near-synonyms: ENCOURAGE, URGE, INDUCE
The pattern ENCOURAGE33!04!& is mostly associated with a prosody of per-
suasion for the good (72 out of 98 sampled lines),6 either prompting the addressee to pur-
sue something they have already committed to doing (the focus being on the state of
mind of the recipient and their eventual benefit, as in Excerpt 1), or evoking a sense of
commonality between those who encourage and the encouraged that is opposed to a
third party (as in Excerpt 2):
(1) We encourage you to not procrastinate when you are on the path to change the outcome of some of
your choices.
(2) Ghandi encouraged everyone to sit down and spin when they had a free moment and did so himself.
This spinning would be done in public and hopefully in the presence of the British.
The overall favourable prosody associated with ENCOURAGE33!04!& may be
exploited for the sake of creativity and cohesion, depicting a contrastive perspective in
negative contexts. This can be achieved through contagion, a process whereby items are
‘subsumed into the prevailing evaluative “mood”, the evaluative polarity of the segment of
text they find themselves in’ (Partington, 2017, p. 196). A case in point is the following
passage containing a citation from another speaker:
6 Two lines were discarded because they reflected a meaning closer to that of INCREASE, for example, ‘he
other sites are more remote and more difficult to access, but we want to encourage woodcutting there to
reduce encroaching juniper‘
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(3) On September 11, 2001, Fischer praised the terrorist attacks in New York as “wonderful”, and hoped it
would encourage America to imprison the Jews.
From Fischer’s perspective, the imprisonment of ‘the Jews’ is something to be hoped for,
hence the choice of encourage that maintains a favourable evaluative harmony with the
‘wonderful’ attack previously cited. The overall picture depicted through the report of
this external viewpoint, however, is one to be condemned. Notice that while the word
‘wonderful’ is in inverted commas, signalling that it is a direct citation and explicitly dis-
tancing it from the reporter’s position, ‘encourage’ is not. This is possible because the
positive evaluation of ENCOURAGE is conveyed through evaluative prosody and harmony,
rather than being part of the meaning of the word.
A fairly neutral semantic prosody can be observed instead when the pattern is used in
formal or semi-formal environments as an alternative to ‘ask’, ‘suggest’ or ‘lead to’:
(4) We also encourage users to upload their photos to Boris’ Board and videos to Little Fireface Project
YouTube Channel
Perhaps more interestingly, ENCOURAGE 3 3!04!& clearly displays an unfa-
vourable prosody when the encouragement itself is not volitional, that is to say, when it
stems from external circumstances or state of affairs mostly imposed by inanimate entit-
ies:
(5) ‘Me too’ or ‘more of the same’ will not work in branding. Saying… or even implying… that you are ‘just
like the leading brand’ does nothing but encourage people to go with the top brand. The more you try
to be like others, the farther you’ll blend into the crowd.
(6) it would be unfortunate if government regulations encouraged community banks to abandon what
they are good at in favor of riskier lines of business. […] It is difficult to understand with precision the
degree to which Dodd-Frank affects community banks and their potential to survive and thrive, but it
is clear that the regulatory burden is weighing heavily on.
In Excerpt 5, although the (involuntary) encouragement here may lead to thinking highly
of the proposed solution, the effect conjured up by today’s market conditions will inevit-
ably be that of a negative jump-on-the-bandwagon effect. Likewise, the regulatory bur-
den imposed by the government to limit weak administration practices (the Dodd-Frank
act) is perceived as potentially affecting the development of community banks.
It is this non-obvious meaning nuance of coercion that may bring ENCOURAGE closer
to URGE33!04!& , especially in unfavourable contexts (21 occurrences out of
98; two lines were discarded because they did not represent the pattern under analysis),
although the latter frequently involves animate beings and explicit acts of persuasion.
Perhaps more crucially, URGE 3 3 !04!& presupposes that the person being
urged had no prior intention of performing the action in question, while the person ur-
ging the other feels justified in so doing. The clash between the reaction those urged and
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the agent’s (or urger’s) intention conjures up an unpleasing feeling, reinforced by the se-
mantic preference for immediacy (Excerpt 7). Furthermore, there would seem to be no
indication that the urger will participate in the activity they urge on others (Excerpt 8):
(7) Most people I know considered me nuts for cooking throughout both trips taken within that vacation.
Like my mom, who constantly urges me to relax. Get out of the kitchen. I tell her cooking for me “does
it.”
(8) You don't see Bush giving speeches in which he urges Americans to fight in his war. </s><s> The
wealthy aren't asked to give up their tax breaks in order to help fund Bush's war.
Most notably, however, URGE33!04!& refers to protest and criticism with the
purpose of stressing topicality. It is associated with a pragmatic function for resolute calls,
raising awareness on critical issues or metaphorically pushing the urged towards a desired
outcome. As opposed to non-field-specific ENCOURAGE33!04!& , URGE is asso-
ciated with the political register:
(9) America’s competitive position in the world now faces greater challenges and that research
investments are even more critical. The report urges Congress to reauthorize COMPETES which
expired on September 30th.
(10) In fact, the Canadian Government (Consular Services, Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Canada) urges all Canadians to purchase supplemental health insurance when leaving the country.
Overall, co-textual clues do not seem to suggest any clear tendency towards either end of
the good–bad spectrum (39 occurrences with a neutral prosody out of 98 total concord-
ance lines). Like ENCOURAGE33!04!& , URGE33!04!& exhibits a
neutral semantic prosody when used to paraphrase a formal request, for example in a
public speech, the difference being that it also conveys a sense of urgency. That is, imme-
diate necessity advocated by a pressing force directly translates into greater intensity, a
quasi-deontic modality which becomes evident when compared to the milder effect con-
jured up by ENCOURAGE:
(11) Growing marine revenues have allowed us to increase the fund by five per cent and I urge projects to
get their bids ready for round three when it opens next year.
Additionally, people may also be motivated to improve or change something for the bet-
ter. In similar instances, URGE could be replaced by ENCOURAGE or PROMPT and the over-
all meaning conveyed would be approximately the same:
(12) Mr. Abdalla Hamdok, urged African countries to transform the structure of their economies to
effectively address development challenges.
(13) Stress-management strategies urge you to reframe negatives into positives by creating a kinder story
out of the facts in order to release all that anger and disappointment.
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As for INDUCE33!04!& , it is overwhelmingly found in unfavourable contexts
(52 times out of 99 sampled occurrences), to depict subtle coercion by either animate or
inanimate agents that, differently from the prototypical use of URGE, does not necessarily
result in physical damage (see Excerpt 8). However, similar to URGE33!04!& ,
the underlying assumption is that the person being induced to do something had no prior
intention to perform that action:
(14) God admitted that Satan was right; he recognised that the devil did not deceive Adam and Eve
in promising them knowledge and liberty as a reward for the act of disobedience which he had
induced them to commit.
(15) Prosecutors said Albanses convinced several firms to submit invoices for phantom services and
induced others to inflate their bills to the company.
The behaviour of INDUCE33!04!& partially overlaps with that of INCITE 3
3 !04!& (‘to deliberately encourage people to fight, argue’, Pearson English
Language Teaching, 2014), although it is more subtle in that the effect triggered is an in-
direct consequence of the agent’s act of persuasion for the bad, and the resulting damage,
again, is not necessarily physical nor is it normally caused by human actants. The focus is
usually placed on both the devious action and its underlying cause, rather than on the re-
cipient’s state of mind:
(16) Former Texas Fish and Wildlife Administrator Sam Hamilton, lamenting the fact that the threat of
ESA listing induces property owners to destroy endangered bird habitat, added that “we’ve got to turn
it around to make the landowner want the bird on his property.”
(17) Update of February 9, 2009: American Eagle Outfitters sued Citigroup and accused it of fraudulently
inducing it to buy $258 million worth of auction rate securities that it now can sell only at a significant
loss, if at all.
This aura emerges with such consistency as to call for a negative reading of the text even
when its immediate co-textual environment does not at first seem to provide clear indic-
ations to this effect:
(18) There’s also funny woman Kristin Wiig from Saturday Night Live, the last person to induce me to
see a movie twice in the same week.
(19) Being desirous his sons should pursue that innocent, entertaining course of agriculture in which he
himself had been engaged all his life, made use of this expedient to induce them to it.
In Excerpt 18, the implicit (perhaps ironic) suggestion conjured up by INDUCE is that see-
ing a movie twice in a week is a deplorable action, or at least one that the speaker
strongly resists to. In Excerpt 19, INDUCE arguably concurs in implicitly highlighting one
of the possible meaning nuances of ‘expedient’, namely that of describing something as
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morally questionable. The resulting evaluative harmony between the two conveys a sense
of manipulation, of the father intending to get his children to do something they may not
be fully aware of or happy about.
The function of persuasion for the good in non-specialized contexts is marginal and
tied to appeals directed towards entities or people in authority roles. In Excerpt 20, for
instance, INDUCE could be replaced by ENCOURAGE or PROMPT while still achieving a sim-
ilar effect, given the general tentativeness of the attempt:
(20) The law in New York was an effort to induce states to provide for the disposal of low-level
radioactive waste, which no state wanted to do on its own.
Unlike its near-synonyms, INDUCE33!04!& shows a greater degree of interde-
pendence between semantic prosody and register variation. The pattern appears in reli-
gious prose to denote both a positive form of spiritual guidance and perilous tendencies
towards unethical conduct:
(21) will become agents of the great adversary of souls and will leave no means untried to draw them
away from their allegiance to God and induce them to leave the narrow path of holiness.
(22) However, Christian charity induces me to believe and hope the best; I will therefore, in the language
of those who afterwards encouraged Bartimeus, say unto you, Arise, take comfort for, I trust, Jesus is
calling you;
The unfavourable prosody of implicit coercion is reproduced in court settings and se-
mantic frames of legal proceedings, where it occasionally alternates with a more neutral
sense of contractual obligation:
(23) To achieve this objective, while protecting the conservation organization’s interest in having
promises that it can rely upon, the donation document should recite facts that explain why donor’s
voluntary promise will induce conservation organization to take action in reliance upon it and that it is
this reliance that makes the promise legally binding.
Finally, while ENCOURAGE33!04!& and URGE33!04!& point to re-
quests or suggestions (in formal contexts like business-to-consumer communications and
user’s manuals, or in emphatic political exchanges, respectively), INDUCE33!040
!& features in scientific and literary prose as either a technical term for ‘lead to, determ-
ine’ or as a neutral/positive synonym for ‘convince’. Interestingly, in Excerpt 27 the
meaning nuances pointing to an unintentional course of events still persists:
(24) At the time of their establishment, 3T3 cells were different than most other cell lines in regard to the
fact they did not induce tumors to develop when injected into murine species.
(25) I was glad he had not gone. I hoped Jane would like him a great deal, perhaps induce him to remain a
fortnight.
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3.2. German near-synonyms
Evidence from the Araneum Germanicum Maius corpus shows that 5 6 #*%
ANSPORNEN+ !7*! occurs in overwhelmingly positive textual environments (81 oc-
currences out of 98 concordance lines; two lines were deleted as they were duplicates),
where it contributes to depicting people being animated, inspired and led toward per-
sonal development or amelioration. The verb usually conveys a similar meaning to that
of ‘ermutigen’, that is, ‘in Positiver Weise in seinen Absichten bestärken’ (‘to reinforce in
a positive way one's intentions’, Dudenredaktion, 2020). ANSPORNEN indeed overlaps
with ENCOURAGE in pointing to an overall persuasion for the good.
In what follows, glosses for German extracts were also provided to capture the gist of
their meaning in context, based on evidence from both monolingual (Dudenredaktion,
2020; Goldhahn !., 2012) and multilingual (LEO Dictionary Team, 2006–2024) re-
sources. In order to avoid any potential bias, in the excerpts below the targeted verbs are
substituted by a low line ‘ ’, leaving their interpretation to the reader’s intuition:⸏
(26) Was mich anspornt, in jedem Mandat mein Bestes zu geben, sind die Interessen meiner
Mandantinnen und Mandanten.
‘what me to give my best in every mandate are the interests of my clients’⸏
(27) Während der Film also gedreht wird, kann man mit Emmy Rossums Charakter sprechen. Man wird
dazu angespornt, ihr zu helfen und sich mögliche Fluchtwege für sie zu überlegen.
‘So while the film is being shot, you can talk to Emmy Rossum’s character. You are to help her and ⸏
think of possible escape routes for her.’
There seems to be no indication in Excerpts 26–27 as to whether the addressees had
already committed themselves to that activity, and ANSPORNEN does not systematically
appear in unfavourable scenarios conjured up by external forces, as is the case with
ENCOURAGE33!04!& . On the contrary, the encouragement may precisely arise
from an unpleasant state of affairs:
(28) Unterschiede können die Kinder auch anspornen, sich Anforderungen zu stellen und sie zu meistern,
die kindliche Entwicklung also voranbringen.
‘Differences can also kids to face and overcome challenges, thus advancing their development'⸏
(29) Mahfouz wurde von der anhaltenden Verfolgung von Journalisten durch das Regime von Hosni
Mubarak und der tunesischen Freiheitsbewegung angespornt, ihre eigenen Proteste zu organisieren.
‘Mahfouz was by the ongoing persecution of journalists under Hosni Mubarak’s regime and by the ⸏
Tunisian freedom movement to organise their own protests.’
In similar cases, concordance lines prove especially helpful in bringing to light the evalu-
ative behaviour of the item: if ANFORDERUNG (‘claim, demand, challenge’, LEO Diction-
ary Team, 2006–2024) and Protest (‘protest, reclamation’, LEO Dictionary Team, 2006–
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2024) were to be found among the collocates of ANSPORNEN, we could indeed mistakenly
conclude that the verb is associated with an unfavourable prosody as we discussed in Sec-
tion 2.2.
The overarching favourable evaluation of ANSPORNEN may come into play to trigger
irony or comical effects, depicting as positive something that the reader may not consider
so:
(30) Die Grabpreise steigen, damit wir gesund leben. Um uns anzuspornen und glücklich zu machen, tut
die chinesische Regierung wirklich alles!“
Grave prices are going up so that we live healthy lives. The Chinese government is really doing
everything to us and make us happy!”⸏
The pattern 5 6 #*%DRÄNGEN+ !7*!, on the other hand, normally interacts
with items carrying a negative evaluative force (44 occurrences out in a sample of 92
lines; eight lines were deleted as duplicates or representing an irrelevant sense). These in-
clude animate beings and inanimate entities forcing someone against their will to coun-
terproductive and detrimental results (Excerpt 31), or pressing conditions that occasion-
ally incite people to commit despicable acts, with a semantic preference for violence and
illegal actions (Excerpt 32). Unlike the case of URGE33!04!& , there is no ne-
cessary implication of urgency:
(31) Häufig scheitert das Unterfangen dann, wenn zwar der Wille da ist, aber der Körper aufgrund der
Entzugserscheinungen den Raucher dazu drängt weiter zu rauchen.
‘Often the effort fails when the will is there, but the body the smoker to continue smoking due to ⸏
withdrawal symptoms.’
(32) Nein, denn „von allen Leidenschaften ist Angst diejenige, die die Menschen am wenigsten dazu
drängt, das Gesetz zu übertreten“
‘No, because “of all the passions, fear is the one that least men to transgress the law”’⸏
Both DRÄNGEN and ANSPORNEN are instantiated in religious prose in a way comparable to
that of INDUCE33!04!& , although only in a positive light to exemplify a sud-
den urge to help or express guidance from above, respectively:
(33) Auch wir sind berufen, uns auf den Weg zu machen, auf den Weg des Glaubens, der uns drängt,
anderen zu helfen.
‘We too are called to set out on the journey, the journey of faith that us to help others.’⸏
(34) Der Hintergrund unseres Einsatzes als Frauen in all diesen Handlungsfeldern ist der Auftrag des
Evangeliums, ein Glaube, der mehr ist als „Wellness für die Seele“, ein Glaube, der uns anspornt, unsere
von Gott geschenkten Kräfte wirksam werden zu lassen.
‘The foundation of our commitment as women in all these fields of action is the mission of the Gospel,
a faith that is more than “wellness for the soul”, a faith that us to make our God-given strengths ⸏
effective.’
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While both patterns can be found in political discourse to formulate requests (signalled
through passive constructions in the case of ANSPORNEN; see Excerpt 27 above), DRÄNGEN
further shows a tendency to do so also in a metaphorical sense and to paraphrase resolute
calls in theatres of war:
(35) Individualist könne man den Glauben nicht verstehen. Er sei kein privater Akt, sondern komme aus
dem Hören und dränge dazu, verkündet zu werden.
‘One cannot conceive of faith as individualistic. It is not a private act, but comes from hearing and to⸏
be proclaimed.’
(36) Wenn Simon sie jetzt zufällig töten würde, wäre das eine ideale Ausgangsposition für mich. Gerade
deshalb habe ich ihn heute Morgen den gesamten Tag dazu gedrängt einen Gegenschlag zu
organisieren.
‘If Simon happened to kill them now, it would be an ideal starting position for me. That is precisely
why I have been him all day this morning to organise a counter-attack.’⸏
The pattern does not seem to carry suggestions as to any favourable appraisal of the topic
being discussed, and it is rarely used to motivate the addressee. Interestingly, when this is
the case, the encouragement stems from unfavourable sources as DRUCK (‘pressure, ur-
gency’, LEO Dictionary Team, 2006–2024) and LEERE (‘emptiness’, LEO Dictionary
Team, 2006–2024) in the following examples, similar to 5 6 #*% ANSPORNEN+ !0
7*! but differently from the more explicit URGE33!04!& :
(37) Ich will einen Druck aufbauen, der uns dazu drängt zu versuchen tatsächlich zu gewinnen, und nicht
nur Stärke zu demonstrieren.
‘I want to build the kind of pressure that us to actually try to win, not just demonstrate strength.’⸏
(38) Die gähnende Leere in Brieftasche und Kühlschrank drängt mich dazu erfinderisch zu warden
‘The yawning emptiness in my wallet and fridge me to become inventive’⸏
Alternatively, the expression is used with a fairly neutral prosody to exemplify a general
stimulus to do something:
(39) In Israel ist Arabisch eine offizielle Amtssprache, weil ein Fünftel der Bevölkerung Araber ist, doch
das ist nicht der wichtigste Antrieb, warum dort gedrängt wird, Arabisch zu lernen.
‘In Israel, Arabic is an official language because one-fifth of the population is Arab, but that is not the
main reason for people to learn Arabic there.’⸏
The behaviour of 5 6 *BRINGEN+ !7*! varies greatly and usually occurs in
neutral environments, with a total of 52 occurrences from a sample featuring 99 concord-
ance lines (one line was discarded for representing an irrelevant meaning). No implica-
tion suggests a priori that a person will be induced or led to either objectionable or com-
mendable courses of action. Although people who BRINGEN others to a certain outcome
may in principle exert their influence indirectly, the pattern also functions in the proact-
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92 ! "#$%
ive sense of get someone to do something. Unlike INDUCE 3 3!04!& , then,
agents are here active participants with a clear objective in mind:
(40) Außerdem wurden Konzepte erstellt, wie mehr Lehrkräfte dazu gebracht werden können die
bestehenden Materialien im Unterricht auch einzusetzen.
‘Plans were also devised on how to more teachers to use the existing materials in their lessons.’⸏
(41) Seiner Aktion Y+2m sollte die Menschen dazu bringen, sich auf der Y-Achse zu bewegen, den
Blickwinkel zu ändern und die Stadt aus einer anderen Perspektive zu sehen – eine wichtige
Voraussetzung für das urbane Gärtnern.
‘His campaign Y+2m was meant to people to move on the Y-axis, to change their point of view and ⸏
to see the city from a different perspective – an important prerequisite for urban gardening.’
When found in unfavourable environments involving people, the causative nature of 5 0
6 6* BRINGEN+ !7*! often translates into deception. That is to say, the
agent tricks the addressee into doing something detrimental for them:
(42) Zur erfolgreichen Ausnutzung dieser Schwachstelle muss der Angreifer den Anwender dazu bringen
eine manipulierte E-Mail oder Webseite zu öffnen.
‘To successfully exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must the user to open a manipulated email or ⸏
website.’
(43) Die Kinder werden vom Täter dazu gebracht, dass sie ein dunkles Geheimnis mit ihm teilen.
‘The children are by the abuser to share a dark secret with him.’⸏
Subtle coercion or negative influence from external forces are not reported systematic-
ally, which constitutes a key difference with respect to DRÄNGEN. Rather, 5 6 *
BRINGEN+ !7*! also expresses a positive evaluative force, especially when paired
with items denoting a moment of realisation:
(44) Eine Geschichte, die, wenn sie nicht so traurig wäre, hier zu Ihrer Belustigung beitragen könnte,
passierte mir heute, was mich dazu bringt, mich mal wieder an Sie, liebe Leser von 8 ! ( , zu
wenden.
‘A story that, if it were not so sad, could contribute to your amusement here, happened to me today, ⸏
me to turn once again to you, dear readers of 8 ! ( .’
Contrary to INDUCE33!04!& , there is only one instance where the German
equivalent is found in religious discourse as indicating a moving force:
(45) Nur ein allmächtiger Erlöser kann uns dazu bringen, uns wie Hiob „selbst zu verabscheuen“ (Hi 42,6)
und Böses zu verachten.
‘Only an almighty Saviour can us to “abhor ourselves” (Job 42:6) and despise evil like Job.’⸏
As a final remark, it must be noted that 5 6 *BRINGEN+ !7*! and INDUCE3
3!04!& do actually share similar meaning nuances in academic prose, where
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the German pattern denotes neutral causation chains of events between inanimate ob-
jects:
(46) Mit der neuen Technologie werden die Pflanzen dazu gebracht, selber Pilzgifte zu entwickeln, die
natürlich für den Menschen unschädlich sind.
‘With the new technology, plants are to develop their own fungal toxins, which are naturally ⸏
harmless to humans.’
3.3. Summary of results
The results of all six analyses are listed in Figure 1, Table 3 and Table 4. The prevailing
prosody of each pattern, whether favourable, unfavourable or neutral, is shown in bold.
Figure 11&!& (2 !7 ''69
Going back to our research questions, our study highlighted differences at both the intra-
and interlinguistic levels among the near-synonymous patterns under analysis. Despite
claims of synonymy found in dictionaries, both monolingual and bilingual, the corpus
evidence did not lend sufficient support to a strong claim in this sense. For example, dif-
ferently from the ‘milder’ ENCOURAGE33!04!& , whose evaluative prosody of-
ten resembles ‘proactive support given by animate subjects to the accomplishment of a
previously-set goal’, URGE 33!04!& clearly displays a greater degree of intens-
ity stemming from the immediate necessity of addressing overlooked issues or from con-
siderable pressure being explicitly exerted on the individual, the latter associated with a
shift towards deplorable actions that is even more evident with INDUCE33!04!0
& .
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Pattern Prosody Text type Pragmatic function
ENCOURAGE +
noun +
to-infinitive
+ Unspecified Persuade the addressee to do something positive
they have already committed themselves to doing
Evoke a sense of commonality between those
who encourage and the encouraged that is
opposed to a third party
- Unspecified Non-volitional “persuasion for the bad” stemming
from external circumstances
0 B2C, manuals Formulate a request or suggestion
URGE +
noun +
to-infinitive
+ Political discourse Raise awareness on a beneficial outcome
Unspecified Explicitly motivate someone
- Unspecified Explicit coercion normally resulting in physical
damage, mostly by animate agents that feel
justified in so doing and may not participate in
the action
0 Political discourse Formulate urgent requests
Unspecified Stressing topicality
INDUCE +
noun +
to-infinitive
+ Unspecified Indirectly stimulating or inspiring someone
Persuade people or entities with great(er)
authority
Religious prose Positive form of spiritual guidance
- Unspecified Subtle constriction by animate or inanimate that
does not result in physical damage
Legal proceedings Implicit coercion
Religious prose Perilous tendencies towards unethical conduct
0 Scientific prose Leading to, determine something
Literary prose Convince
Table 31& (6!! ! <!!' !8 (8 0''6
Clear tendencies also discriminate between German near synonyms. While 5 6 *
!7ANSPORNEN consistently occupies the positive end of the evaluative spectrum, the
behaviour of its two near-synonyms oscillates more evidently.
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Pattern Prosody Text type Pragmatic function
jemandem zu
etwas
ANSPORNEN
+ Unspecified A person or an unpleasant state of affairs lead
someone towards personal development or
amelioration without implying prior
commitment on their part
Religious prose Guide towards a positive outcome
- Unspecified Negative encouragement due to pressing forces
0 Political discourse Ask or lead to do something
jemandem zu
etwas
DRÄNGEN
+ Unspecified Motivate someone towards a desired result
Religious prose Sudden urge to help
- Unspecified Either animate or inanimate beings force
someone against their will to detrimental results
without implying urgency
External forces press someone to commit
despicable acts
0 Political discourse Resolute call for action
jemandem zu
etwas
BRINGEN
+ Unspecified Indirectly leading to a moment of realisation
Actively encourage someone
- Unspecified A person tricks someone into doing something
negative for them
0 Unspecified Influence someone, either directly or indirectly
Get someone to do something
Academic prose Denote causation chains between inanimate
objects
Table 41& (6!! ! <!!' !8 6 0''6
In particular, 5 6 * !7 DRÄNGEN refers to detrimental results in approximately
50% of sampled instances, whereas 5 6 * !7BRINGEN does so almost exclusively
in the sense of deception. More frequently it occurs in neutrally-connotated co-textual
environments to indicate (in)direct influence (approximately 52% in the sample).
Furthermore, considered from a cross-linguistic perspective, these items do not ex-
hibit the same meaning nuances as their alleged equivalents. Cases in point are those of
5 6 * !7 ANSPORNEN lacking the unfavourable prosody of ‘non-volitional per-
suasion for the bad stemming from external circumstances’ associated with ENCOURAGE 3
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3!04!& , or the evaluative mismatch between URGE 33!04!& and 5 0
6 * !7 DRÄNGEN on the one hand, and INDUCE 3 3!04!& and 5 0
6 * !7BRINGEN on the other, which differ cross-linguistically in terms of degree
of explicitness (of the act portrayed) and involvement (of those who prompt the act).
Mismatches between corpus and dictionary evidence can be explained with reference
to the semasiological nature of most dictionaries, guiding the reader ‘from the word to its
meaning’ (Siepmann, 2006, p. 8). Traditionally, lexicographers gather information on dis-
crete word-forms based on frequency patterns with the objective of classifying them in
alphabetical fashion, a practice that ‘give[s] patchy or inadequate coverage to semantic-
pragmatic collocations, [that] cannot provide adequate cross-referencing between syn-
onymous items and [is] prone to translation errors’ (Siepmann, 2006, p. 1). The opposite
view is represented by Sinclair’s approach to the empty lexicon (2004, p. 160), an onoma-
siological practice proceeding from particular concepts to appropriate linguistic items so
that “meanings have words”, and not vice versa (Philip, 2011, p. 9).
Sequences such as the ones targeted here, in particular, make the limitations of most
monolingual and, especially, bilingual dictionaries’ evident. When it gets to accounting
for extended units of meaning entering the same structural pattern and having, to para-
phrase Frege (1892), a similar Bedeutung (here ‘persuasion’) but a different Sinn (under-
stood as a mode of ‘presentation’), these resources are clearly less than ideal.
4. Conclusion
The present study has attempted to provide insights into the relevance of semantic pros-
ody from both an intra- and an inter-linguistic perspective, focusing on two English and
German near-synonymous sets whose salient patterns are associated with a general
meaning of persuasion. Evidence from monolingual comparable corpora has contributed
to highlighting considerable discrepancies in their evaluative behaviour and related dis-
course functions.
These results corroborate previous findings as to the powerful predictive and explan-
atory power of semantic prosodies against the background of the idiom principle (see for
example Partington 1998, Philip 2009). At the same time, they expand the scope of both
monolingual and comparative research into subtle, arguably non-obvious meaning nu-
ances differentiating near-synonymous alternatives available on the paradigmatic axis,
within and across languages. Clearly, a number of limitations remain: they concern,
among others, the composition of the corpora (crawled from the web, with no attempt at
sampling from different registers), the method of analysis (bottom-up, focusing on a lim-
ited number of examples), and the reliance on a single individual’s interpretation of the
data.
One area where the observations presented here naturally find their application is lex-
icography. Following in the path indicated by Siepmann (2006), one could conceive of
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97
dictionaries as onomasiological resources that assign meaning and concepts to (structur-
ally complex) linguistic units, rather than the opposite. Within this model, each entry is
allocated a topic area with varying situation-types, thus providing a clear and explicit un-
derstanding of interrelated semantic-pragmatic features and repeated syntagmatic con-
texts, ultimately achieving an effective ‘economy of treatment’ (Siepmann, 2006, p. 17–18,
20–24). By adopting this model, monolingual and bilingual dictionary definitions could
then be enriched with fine details that may escape conscious knowledge, allowing foreign
language learners and translators to better capture the complexities of language in use: a
quest that Alan has always excelled in, and has consistently encouraged them, and us, to
embark upon.
Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests to declare.
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