English Linguistics : Corpus Linguistics [ LGERM2829 ]

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The course introduces the main tenets of corpus linguistics and the methods and techniques used to work with large collections of spoken or written electronic data.

It covers the following topics: corpus design:
- data collection, archiving and markup.
- corpus typology: spoken and written corpora; monolingual vs multilingual; native vs learner; diachronic vs synchronic.
- major electronic corpora: British National Corpus, International Corpus of English, International Corpus of Learner English, MICASE, Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage, etc.
- corpus annotation (POS-tagging, lemmatization, parsing, semantic tagging, prosodic annotation, error tagging).
- automated analysis of lexis, grammar and discourse.

Special attention is paid to the links between corpus linguistics and foreign language learning, contrastive and translation studies and natural language processing.

By the end of the course, students are expected to have a solid theoretical background in corpus linguistics and master the main techniques and tools used to analyse spoken and written computerized data. They will be able to read the scientific literature and conduct their own research in the field.

During the term: one or several written assignments involving the analysis of corpus data and counting for 20% of the final grade. Students who have not submitted their assignments in time will not be allowed to register for the exam.

In January or June: written exam. Students can replace the written exam by an extended term paper that will have to be submitted before the exam session (deadline to be established by the lecturer). The term paper will have to be defended orally during the exam session.

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The course provides a theoretical and practical introduction to corpus linguistics. Students are expected to do the required readings before class and should be ready to participate fully in the discussions. A series of hands-on sessions in the computer lab are organized to familiarize students with text handling software tools.

Course materials : online course McEnery, T., Xiao, R. & Tono, Y. 2006. Corpus-based Language Studies. An advanced resource book. Routledge. Granger, S., J. Hung & S. Petch-Tyson (eds) (2002) Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching. Language Learning and Language Teaching 6. Benjamins: Amsterdam & Philadelphia. Kennedy, G. (1998) An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics. Longman: Harlow. Scott, M. (1996). WordSmith Tools. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

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