Semantic prosody builds on the idea of collocations and introduces connotation into the mix. Connotation is a concept that relates to how a word becomes tied to our negative or positive perception of it through its common context. For instance, a word like "kindness" is most likely to be perceived as positive as it often appears in a positive context, while "laziness" will connotate negatively due to it most commonly being found in a negative context. One use of this is tracking the attitude towards a word over time to see how attitudes towards it might have changed.

While the two examples in the previous paragraph are quite obvious to us, semantic prosody becomes interesting when we explore less explicitly connotated terms. Examples of this could be found when looking at function words or verbs, which might gain connotation either in specific contexts or with certain collocates. Michael Stubbs explored this in regards to "cause" and "provide" and found that the former will most often carry a negative connotation, such as causing an accident, while the latter will most commonly be found in a positive connotation, such as providing aid. Of course, semantic prosody is also dependent on register and text type, which we will discuss in the next lesson.

The diachronic aspect of how semantic prosody can be used has already been mentioned. However, the idea also becomes important when exploring new words in rapidly moving linguistic environments, such as social media. As a new word is created, the context in which it is used will come to dictate its connotation, and studying the semantic prosody of the word will allow researchers to make informed decisions regarding the word's nature.

However, the notion of semantic prosody being the property of a word is debated. One of the prominent scholars involved in developing the concept, John Sinclair, used semantic prosody to discuss a unit of meaning instead. A unit of meaning can be a word but also a sequence of words. This would bring the concept back to having a close relationship to collocations, as the unit of meaning might be created only by the specific sequence of words allocating one another. 

With this complexity in mind, we can consider collocation networks as a way of exploring the possible semantic prosody of a word. If we explore a phrase, which we know to carry negative sentiment, through a collocation network, we will be able to see if, at the first level, the direct collocates of that phrase support this notion. At the second level, we can then gain some insight into the possible connotation of the collocates as a further representation of the broader context.