120134 AR Introduction to Corpus Linguistics (2007W)

Computer corpora, i.e. electronically stored collections of spoken and written texts, have become an important tool for linguistic research, allowing us to uncover regularities of language use which are inaccessible to intuition. In recent years computer corpora have also found their way into language teaching, where they can be particularly beneficial for the non-native teacher.

This course offers a very practical and hands-on introduction to computer corpora (no special computer knowledge required). With the help of concrete examples we will explore their potential and limitations for language description. We will consider, for instance, how computer corpora can help us
· identify collocations, colligations and syntactic patterns
· specify lexical meaning (e.g. semantic prosody, register)
· notice text-type preferences of specific language patterns
· answer questions of 'grammaticality' and appropriate use

Participants will conduct their own mini-projects and present their findings in a 'mini conference' on 12 December (afternoon).