Against statistical significance testing in corpus linguistics
Alexander Koplenig · Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory · 2018
Abstract In the first volume ofCorpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, Gries (2005. Null-hypothesis significance testing of word frequencies: A follow-up on Kilgarriff.Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory1(2). doi:10.1515/cllt.2005.1.2.277. http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cllt.2005.1.issue-2/cllt.2005.1.2.277/cllt.2005.1.2.277.xml : 285) asked whether corpus linguists should abandon null-hypothesis significance testing. In this paper, I want to revive this discussion by defending the argument that the assumptions that allow inferences about a given population – in this case about the studied languages – based on results observed in a sample – in this case a collection of naturally occurring language data – are not fulfilled. As a consequence, corpus linguists should indeed abandon null-hypothesis significance testing.