A Corpus Linguistic Approach to Analyzing 'Empathy'

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-041-05343-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 136 Seiten, Format (B × H): 138 mm x 216 mm

Reihe: Routledge Focus on Applied Linguistics

This volume offers an in-depth corpus linguistic analysis of the word “empathy” toward fostering unique insights into a word widely found across contemporary discourses and into methodological innovations for analyzing large corpora.

Given the understanding of empathy’s importance for individual and social development, the book demonstrates the potential of a corpus approach to shed new light on a significant yet difficult-to-define concept. Fusari systematically applies the use of concordances and other corpus output to derive patterns and recurrent phraseologies in the 36+ billion-word electronic corpus, English Web 2020, to help readers grapple with key ideas around empathy. Such questions include what we really mean by empathy, whether it is always positive, whether it is learned or innate, and whether empathy is truly what “makes us human.” The volume contends with these questions across disciplines, from the clinical to the psychological and philosophical to the linguistic and discursive.

Opening new areas of research into inclusive language and the use of corpus tools to analyze individual terms, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in corpus linguistics and applied linguistics, as well as such fields as cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, and allied health.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fusari, Sabrina

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures

List of Tables

Introduction

1. Empathy: some definitions

1.1. Debunking myths about empathy

1.1.1. Empathy is always positive

1.1.2. Empathy is a character trait

1.1.3. Empathy is moral

1.1.4. Empathy makes us human

1.2. Talking about empathy

1.2.1. A profile of the word “empathy” in English Web 2020

2. Empathy: an experiential and logical overview

2.1. Experiential meaning: Transitivity

2.1.1. Have empathy, feel empathy, show empathy

2.1.2. What “empathy” means

2.1.3. Hypotactic verb group complexes

2.2. Logical meanings: the noun group

2.2.1. Paratactic noun groups

2.2.2. Hypotactic noun groups: noun Classifiers

2.2.3. Hypotactic noun groups: Classifying adjectives

2.3. Grammatical metaphor

3. Empathy: an interpersonal overview

3.1. Interpersonal meaning: Attitude

3.1.1. Blurred boundaries of attitudinal values

3.2. Quantitative analysis of Attitude types related to empathy

3.2.1. Beyond the quantitative: invoked Attitude

3.3. Empathy in the dialogic space: Engagement and Graduation

4. Empathy: a textual overview

4.1. Non-structural cohesive devices realizing textual meanings

4.1.1. Reference

4.1.2. Substitution and ellipsis

4.1.3 Conjunction

4.1.4. Lexical relations

Conclusion

References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Sabrina Fusari is Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (LILEC) at the University of Bologna, Italy.