Attack of the snowclones: A corpus-based analysis of extravagant formulaic patterns

Abstract

The concept of ‘snowclones’ has gained interest in recent research on linguistic creativity and in studies of extravagance and expressiveness in language. However, no clear criteria for identifying snowclones have yet been established, and detailed corpus-based investigations of the phenomenon are still lacking. This paper addresses this research gap in a twofold way. On the one hand, we develop an operational definition of snowclones, arguing that three criteria are decisive: (i) the existence of a lexically fixed source construction; (ii) partial productivity; (iii) ‘extravagant’ formal and/or functional characteristics. On the other hand, we offer an empirical investigation of two patterns that have often been mentioned as examples of snowclones in the previous literature, namely [the mother of all X] and [X BE the new Y]. We use collostructional analysis and distributional semantics to explore the partial productivity of both patterns’ slot fillers. In sum, we argue that the concept of snowclones, if properly defined, can contribute substantially to our understanding of creative language use, especially regarding the question of how social, cultural, and interpersonal factors influence the choice of more or less salient linguistic constructions.

Constructionist Approaches

“…. ), this type of meme shows resemblance to the "snowclones" discussed in Section 5.1 and could thus be seen as a multimodal extension of the latter (see Hartmann & Ungerer 2023).…”

“…The latter type of E-creativity, in particular, can be connected to the notion of linguistic extravagance, which refers to speakers' desire to talk in such a way that they are noticed (Haspelmath 1999;Keller 1994;Ungerer & Hartmann 2020). One example of this is "snowcloning," that is, the use of formulaic patterns that usually draw on a more-or-less-fixed template (Hartmann & Ungerer 2023;Traugott & Trousdale 2013: 183-186).…”

“Chaos theory, shmaos theory”: Creativity and routine in English shm-reduplication

“…As a result, speakers can use the construction to demonstrate their linguistic skills and thereby attract attention. In this sense, shm-reduplication can be seen as an "extravagant" construction, thus illustrating another concept that has gained prominence in (diachronic) constructionist research (e.g., Petré 2016;Hartmann and Ungerer 2023;Neels, Hartmann, and Ungerer 2023). Popularized by Haspelmath (1999), extravagance can be defined as speakers' desire to be noticed and stand out from their peers (see also Ungerer and Hartmann 2020).…”