A Corpus-Based Probe into Context Type, Social Power, and Speaker Status of Sympathy, Grief, and Condolence Collocational Patterns in American Spoken English Discourse

The ability to express thoughts and emotions appropriately on different social occasions is considered an essential prerequisite to maintaining social relationships. This study sought to investigate the most frequent words and expressions pertaining to 'Condolence' and 'Sympathy' and also which words and expressions co-occurred with such expressions in spoken American English discourse in the different contexts to know how and when to use grief-related expressions. To this end, the data was collected from the spoken Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The findings revealed that the word 'Sympathy' occurred mostly in the equal social status and socio-cultural context whereas the word ' Grief ' was observed in the equal social status and transactional context in the same corpus. The study showed that the collocational words did not influence the function of such words and they were substituted based on the intended meaning of the speakers. The teachers and the learners will get insights into the more frequent collocations as well as the likely appropriate ways to apply them in the authentic context. The findings could be beneficial for four groups: First, the researcher can use the findings as a resource for cross-cultural comparison of condolences. Second, the EFL learners might get familiar with the expressions of condolences in the native forms. Besides, teachers may benefit from the results to instruct the learners on how to use condolence expressions properly. Finally, material developers and test designers can use the findings in designing materials and tests.

Keywords:

American Spoken English Discourse , Collocational patterns , Condolence , Corpus-based study , sympathy