Abstract In a usage-based framework, variation is part and parcel of our linguistic experiences, and therefore also of our mental representations of language. In this article, we bring attention to variation as a source of information. Instead of discarding variation as mere noise, we examine what it can reveal about the representation and use of linguistic knowledge. By means of metalinguistic judgment data, we demonstrate how to quantify and interpret four types of variation: variation across items, participants, time, and methods. The data concern familiarity ratings assigned by 91 native speakers of Dutch to 79 Dutch prepositional phrases such as in de tuin ‘in the garden’ and rond de ingang ‘around the entrance’. Participants performed the judgment task twice within a period of one to two weeks, using either a 7-point Likert scale or a Magnitude Estimation scale. We explicate the principles according to which the different types of variation can be considered information about mental representation, and we show how they can be used to test hypotheses regarding linguistic representations.

中文翻译：

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变化就是信息：在元语言判断数据中，项目，参与者，时间和方法之间的变化分析

摘要在基于使用的框架中，变化是我们语言经验的一部分，也是我们心理语言表达的重要组成部分。在本文中，我们将注意作为信息源。我们不仅仅将变异视为噪声，而是研究它可以揭示出有关语言知识的表示和使用的内容。通过元语言判断数据，我们演示了如何量化和解释四种类型的变异：项目，参与者，时间和方法之间的变异。数据涉及91位荷兰语母语者对79个荷兰介词短语的熟悉程度，例如在“花园中的de tuin”和“在入口附近”的rond de ingang。参与者在一到两周内执行了两次判断任务，使用7点李克特量表或幅度估计量表。我们阐述了可以将不同类型的变异视为关于心理表征的信息的原则，并且我们展示了如何将其用于检验关于语言表征的假设。