| The present study aims at analyzing American vocabulary changes in 1960s through 1990s by comparing the Frown Corpus(1990s) and the Brown Corpus(1960s). Quantitative analysis focuses on changes in lexical density,changes in average word length and comparison of word length between Brown-only and Frown-only words. Qualitative analysis concentrates on vocabulary changes illustrated by positive key words and negative key words.Statistical and computational results show that lexical density has changed significantly over the 30 years.American vocabulary in 1990s is lexically denser and carries higher information loading than that of 1960s.The average word length of 1960s is smaller than that of 1990s.Frown-only and Brown-only words share the same word length distribution.While compared to Brown-only words,the number of Frown-only words is greater,and the range of word length of Frown-only words is wider.By applying WordSmith Tools,we have positive key words and negative key words,which provide a way to investigate vocabulary changes.The results show that the number of proper nouns in positive key words is greater than that in negative key words.The main reason is that the advancement of science and technology,the development of world trade and the happening of world political affairs enhance preponderance of names of discs and software,organizations and corporations,battles and events,etc.The percentage of positive key words produced by word formation processes is much larger than that of negative key words.
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