how lexical priming explains acronym deciphering

8/7/2019 How Lexical Priming Explains Acronym Deciphering

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HowLexicalPrimingexplainsacronymdeciphering

25/I/2011

ABS,EBS,NEDS,TA,etc–therearemoreandmoreacronymsbeingused

as technological advances as well as increasingly intertwined relationships

betweenpeopleandentitiesrequire–inparticularinspeech–shortandsnappy

ways ofdescribingclause-lengthnames anddescriptions.This paper indicates

that thereare some acronyms in some circumstances that can beunderstood

moreeasilythanothers.

“WehavejustsignedanMOUwith[…]1University”,saidthebossand,thoughI

neverhadheardtheterm emm-oh-yubefore,IinstantlyknewitstandsforMoU

–MemorandumofUnderstanding.Now,Icouldbemarvelouslyclever.Oritis

just commonknowledge.OrthewayMoU isembeddedinthe sentenceabove

simplyprovidedmymindwiththecollocationalandcolligationalframeworkI

needed to complete the statement in my head. Because I had heard of

MemorandumofUnderstandingbefore.Andthismakesthelatterthemostlikely

answer.

Traditionally,amemorandumisapieceofpaper–anofficialpaperinthiscase(it

mightevenbeapieceofvelluminsomecases).Papers,officialpapers,arebeing

signed and therefore the signed as a close collocate of memorandum makes

sense.Similarly,theitemsofunderstanding.Inthisparticularcaseissomething

thathas been signbetween two independentbodies and had not specific link

before.Whileajuniorcivilservantmightsendamemorandumuptohissuperior(inotherwords: something thatstayswithinoneorganisation andisbetween

peopleconnecteddirectlywitheachother)amemorandumofunderstandingisa

fixed single entity and the part of understanding indicates that two parties

(whichhavebeenhitherto only loosely linked, ifatall) pledge towork closer

togetherinthefuture.Thiswouldalsoexplainthecollocateweinthevicinityof

understanding,asitformsascohesivelinkbetweenwe(our/thisUniversity)

1Forreasonsofdataprotection,andalsotomakethesentencemoreuniversallyapplicable,Ileft

thenameout.



[…]University(their/thatUniversity).Furthermore,MOUisfollowedbywith

andwhateverhasbeensigned,itwill,ashasbeenindicated,taketheformof

bindingwetogetherwith[…]University.Thisisnotjustacohesivelink,butcan

also be seen as colligation, as the connection we – with – […] University produces a grammatical unit. With this in mind, the above sentence could,

feasibly,bere-formulatedalongthefollowinglines:

“We (that is, this University,) have just signed an official

document with […] University, agreeing to work more closely

togetherinfuture.”

To test this hypothesis, I simply run a few tests. I looked at the cluster

memorandum of understanding in the 553171489 words of the Collins

WordbankOnline(BoE),whereitappears3342times.Thetopfivecollocatesof

thisparticularclusterarethefollowing:

ThismirrorstheuseinthestatementIoriginallyheard- just signedaMOU

withverywell3.

So well, indeed, that 75 times of the 334 occurrences of memorandum of

understandingismemorandumofunderstandingwith(22.5%)intheBoEandof

these,41occurrences(12.3%)aresignedamemorandumofunderstandingwith

and a total of 2 (still 0.6%) actually use just signed a memorandum of

understandingwith.Theusagefiguresfortheacronymareroughlysimilar.The

cluster MOUwithoccurs27timesoutofthetotalof157forMOU(17.2%),and

signedanMOUwith occurs16times(10.2)while justsignedanMOUwith isnot

recorded.

2Thereare,however,only158occurrencesofmou/MoU orMOU .3Indeed,theacronymMoUorMOUcanbefound17timesasacollocateofmemorandumof

understanding –asinthisexample:“Wesignedthememorandumofunderstanding(MOU)in1994.

a 241

the 226signed 126

with 109



WhatdoIconcludefromthis?Inmymind,theembedding(ornesting)ofMoU,

with its cohesive and collocational and colligational links to the surrounding

words enabled me with a very high probability to turn an unknown (not-previously-encountered)entitytoaknownone.Inotherwords,mymindwas

primedtoexpectoneparticularterm(memorandumofunderstanding)basedof

what I heard and immediately understood and this meant that the not

immediatelyunderstoodterm(MoU )couldbelinkedtothemostlikelysolution

of what this acronym would mean when deciphered. If, however, I had not

heardofthetermmemorandumofunderstanding before,oriftheconceptofit

meantlittletome,itisdoubtfulthatIwouldhavebeensuccessfulindeciphering

it.

References:

• Hoey,Michael:LexicalPriming(2005).Abingdon:Routledge

Dr.MichaelPace-Sigge

UniversityofLiverpool

how lexical priming explains acronym deciphering

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