Admission requirements
None
Description
This course aims to provide a general introduction to the use of corpus tools in the study of language to students with little or no prior knowledge in using electronic language corpora. Methods of analysis will be presented, both on a theoretical level and in hands-on tasks in the computer room.
Students will learn how to use a range of types of corpora in different languages (written, spoken, multimodal, specialised, learner) and corpus analysis packages (Wordsmith and AntConc).
The analysis of patterns in language variation (according to style, register, regional varieties, etc.), will be demonstrated by using different analysis tools in corpus linguistics (word frequency lists, concordancing, keywords).
Finally, the students will be introduced to a variety of applications of corpus linguistics in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and discourse analysis.
Course objectives
By the end of the course the students should be able to:
understand the basic concepts in corpus linguistics (CL)
describe different applications of CL
use large-scale corpora and corpus analysis packages
interpret the findings of CL analyses
formulate a hypothesis and perform individual research using CL tools
Timetable
The timetable will be available by June 1st at the website of Linguistics
Mode of instruction
One-hour lecture per week
One-hour seminar per week
Course Load
Total course load: 140 hrs Hours spent on:
attending lectures and seminars: 26 hrs
studying the compulsory literature: 38
completing hands-on tasks outside the classroom: 26
preparing for the written (mid-term) exam: 10
writing the paper (reading and research): 40
Assessment method
Written exam (20%)
Paper (80%)
Blackboard
Yes Blackboard
Reading list
McEnry, Tony and Andrew Wilson. 2001. Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Further reading:
O’Keeffe, Anne and Michael McCarthy. 2010. The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. London and New York: Routledge (to be made available).
Registration
Students are requested to register for the course and the examination through uSis
Remarks
As the course will be taught in the computer lab, the maximum number of students will be 18-20.