corpus search what are the most common words in english what are the most common verbs what is the...
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Corpus search
What are the most common words in EnglishWhat are the most common verbsWhat is the most common pronounWhat is the most common proper nounWhat are the most common noun+noun collocations?
Whom in British and American
Fill in the tables using COCA and BNCFreq. whom Freq. Prep. +
whomFreq. Whom – (prep + whom)
British
American
Whom in British and American
COCA has 450M and BNC 100MCalculate per million frequencies
Freq. whom Freq. Prep. + whom
Freq. Whom – (prep + whom)
British
American
Simple past vs. present perfect
Use the BNC and COCA to fill in this chart with frequencies per million
Past participle ([vh*][v?n*] = auxiliary have verb + PP) Simple past ([v?d*] = past tense verb)
US US UK UK
Simple Pres. Perf. Simple Pres. Perf.
just
already
yet
ever
Simple past vs. present perfect
Use the BNC and COCA to fill in this chart with frequencies per million
Past participle ([vh*][v?n*] = auxiliary have verb + PP) Simple past ([v?d*] = past tense verb)
US US UK UK
Simple Pres. Perf. Simple Pres. Perf.
just
already
yet
ever
Corpus Applications
What is corpus linguistics good for?• Making a concordance
• List of all words in a text and where they are found
• Scriptures• Works of Shakespeare
What is corpus linguistics good for?• Finding word frequencies
• Psycholinguistic experiments• Language instruction
• Put most common words in L2 vocabulary• toxicomano
What is corpus linguistics good for?• Lexicography
• What words to include in a dictionary?
• What do words mean?• How are meanings changing?• How are spellings changing?
• Blowtorch• Blow-torch• Blow torch
• Identifying regionalisms
What is corpus linguistics good for?• Computer systems development
• Text to speech• Text messaging
• If you have typed gla- frequency data says glass is highly probable and fills it in for you
• Speech synthesis• Natural language processing
What is corpus linguistics good for?• Testing linguistic theories
• Generativists relied on personal introspection• So what if Dayton is less frequent
than New York in a corpus• I’m a native speaker and know
what sounds right and wrong
What is corpus linguistics good for?• Problems with introspections
• They’re subjective• They can’t be verified• Your introspection probably go
along with your theory
What is corpus linguistics good for?• Corpus data . . .
• Are objective• Can be verified• Can be shared• Can be used to test theories• Can be used to get ideas for
theories
Limitations of corpora
• They can’t contain every sentence• Some data aren’t interesting
• Frequency of Dayton versus New York
• They have mistakes
Lexical
• Word lists– General Service List
• 2,000 most frequent words in English
– Academic Word List (Coxhead)• 570 words in English academic writing
– Academic Vocabulary List (Davies & Gardner)• 3,000 words• High frequency in ACAD, low frequency in other registers• Measure of dispersion (Juilland’s D)
Lexical
• Word lists– General Service List
• 2,000 most frequent words in English
– Academic Word List (Coxhead)• 570 words in English academic writing
– Academic Vocabulary List (Davies & Gardner)• 3,000 words• High frequency in ACAD, low frequency in other registers• Measure of dispersion (Juilland’s D)
Phraseology
• Formulaic sequences (lexical bundles)– Corpus-driven– Frequency– Function– Fixedness
• at the * of• What do you think most often fills the *?• Check in COCA
Grammar
• Descriptive reference grammars – Describe descriptions of how language is actually used
rather than prescriptions about how language should be used
– Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English
Lexicogrammar
• Certain words are more likely to occur in some grammatical structures than others– E.g., some verbs (e.g., deem, base, subject) are much
more common in the passive than active voice• The material was deemed faulty.• Her choice was based solely on…• The matter may be subjected to…
• Collostructional analysis is a means of measuring the strength of a relationship between a word and a grammatical structure
Register variation
• Does ‘general English’ exist?
“General” Speech Academic writing0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Nouns and Verbs
Nouns Verbs
Frequent phrases in conversation
Phraseological feature Examples
Personal pronoun + lexical verb phrase
I don’t know what, I don’t want to,I was going to
Yes-no question fragments do you want to, are you going to
Wh-question fragments what are you doing, what do you mean, what do you think, what do you want
Frequent phrases in academic writingPhraseological feature Examples
Noun phrase with of-phrase fragment the end of the, one of the most
Prepositional phrases with embedded of-phrase fragments
in the case of
Other prepositional phrase fragments on the other hand
Register variation—complexity • Which is more complex—speech or writing?• Define the type(s) of complexity we find in each.
Multi-Dimensional analysis
• Identify a comprehensive set of relevant linguistic features
• Identify and quantify those features in a corpus of texts• Use factor analysis to identify dimensions based on co-
occurrence among linguistic features• Interpret dimensions functionally• Calculate scores for each text on each dimension• Compare mean scores of registers/varieties
Involved
vs.
Informational
Non-technical Synthesis vs. Specialized Information Density
• Positive features:• Verbs: verb HAVE (.36)• Adverbs: general adverbs (.59), amplifiers (.43),
certainty adverbs (.37), emphatics (.36)• Coordination: adverbial conjuncts (.51), phrasal
coordinating conjunctions (.39)• Nominal Modifiers: that-relative clauses (.36)• Lexical Features: COCA Core Vocabulary (1-500) (.61)
• Negative features:• Nouns: pre-nominal modifiers (-.73); nouns (-.73),
technical concrete nouns (-.31)• Verbs: agentless passive voice (-0.42)
27
Study 1—Dimension 1 Results
Popular Academic Textbooks Journal Articles-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
Biology
History
Dimension 1 Scores
28
Register variation
• Does ‘general English’ exist?
“General” Speech Academic writing0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Nouns and Verbs
Nouns Verbs
Dialect variation activity
In what country is this expression permitted? Allow to Verb Permit to Verb
Where is the word banjaxed used? Meaning?UK vs. US use of
Different from/toWhich do they use in Australia?
Needn’t vs. don't need Haven't a Noun vs. don't have a Noun
Diachronic change
• whom• [be] [v?n*]• [get] [v?n*]• end up [v?g*]• need n’t• Others?
Data-driven Learning
• Language learners actually use corpora in the classroom• Research is mixed• It seems to be more useful/effective for advanced
learners
Corpus-informed materials
