扩展意义单位分析的应用研究：以“Identity”为例

An Applied Study of Extended Units of Meaning: Taking “Identity” as an Example

摘要: 本研究以“identity”一词为例，基于John Sinclair扩展意义单位分析模型，利用COCA语料库和WordSmith工具，系统分析该词的语义特征及用法规律。本文梳理了扩展意义单位分析理论，包括意核、搭配、类联接、语义倾向和语义韵等关键要素。然后在该理论指导下探索了“identity”的搭配结构，通过分析其搭配、类联接、语义倾向和语义韵，揭示了“identity”在不同语境中的多义性和使用特征，结果显示，identity常与(身份的)构建或归属共现时多含积极语义韵，在表明揭示或隐藏身份的语境中呈现消极语义韵。研究表明，扩展意义单位分析为深入理解词汇意义和语用特征提供了有效路径。

Abstract: Taking “identity” as an example, this study systematically analyzes its semantic features and usage patterns based on John Sinclair’s Extended Units of Meaning (EUM), using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and WordSmith tools. This paper first outlines the theory of EUM, including its key elements: core, collocation, colligation, semantic preference, and semantic prosody. Guided by this theoretical framework, this study then explores the collocational structures of “identity”. By analyzing its collocations, colligations, semantic preferences and semantic prosodies, the study reveals how “identity” exhibits polysemy and distinctive usage patterns across different contexts. The results indicate that “identity” tends to carry a positive semantic prosody when co-occurring with notions of construction or belonging, whereas it exhibits a negative semantic prosody in contexts implying the revelation or concealment of identity. The study demonstrates that EUM provides an effective approach to understanding lexical meaning and pragmatic features.