Large-scale patterns of number use in spoken and written English

Abstract This paper describes patterns of number use in spoken and written English the main factors that contribute to these patterns. We analysed more than 1.7 million occurrences numbers between 0 a billion British National Corpus, including conversational speech, presentational speech (e.g., lectures, interviews), imaginative writing fiction), informative academic books). find four affect frequency: (1) Magnitude – smaller are frequent larger numbers; (2) Roundness round unround comparable magnitude, some others; (3) Cultural salience culturally salient recent years) non-salient (4) Register informational texts contain (in writing), types numbers, decimals, less texts. In writing, we 1–9 mostly represented by words ‘three’), 10–999,999 numerals ‘14’), 1 million–1 mix ‘8 million’). Altogether, this study builds detailed profile English.