Chapter Sixteen
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while the latter terminological units are in turn, understood in light of
quality control. These features, precision and symbiosis foreshadow the
conceptual relations in a knowledge frame, thus representing the
conceptualization of scientific language more generally.
Collocation analysis of protein
The definitions of protein in common reference works mark the term’s
scientific affiliation. Protein is described as a “substance” (Merriam
Webster Online, Oxford English Dictionary) which occurs in foods and is
fundamental to the human body and diet. In addition to establishing a
frame based on the linguistic context of protein, the following analysis is
interested in the question of whether the lexeme’s semantics in scientific
contexts increases in terms of complexity and precision. Table 3 presents a
collocation analysis of the keyword protein based on the scientific corpus.
In line with the analysis of quality, I have only considered the first position
to the left of the search term and the first position to the right, respectively.
Rank L1 collocate Freq. L1 Rank R1 collocate Freq.
R1
1 lupine 35 1 content 113
2 high 33 2 isolate (n.) 66
3 soy 29 3 gel 42
4 low 16 4 concentrate 38
5 myofibrillar 14 5 network 29
6 total 9 6 solubility 25
7 crude 8 7 matrix 21
8 recover 8 8 digestibility 19
9 sarcoplastic 8 9 denaturation 15
10 in-vitro 8 10 aggregation 10
11 gluten 7 11 fat 9
12 carp 6 12 concentration 8
13 egg 6 13 cross 7
14 increase 6 14 extractability 7
15 granular 5 15 isolate 7
16 grey 5 16 lipid 7
17 milk 5 17 molecule 7
18 starch 5 18 starch 7
19 peanut 4 19 fraction 6
20 different 3 20 functionality 6
Table 3. Twenty most frequent collocations of protein (lemma-based).