Corpus Linguistics.

Unit 1
2 minutes 35
Neil Millar

0:01
Hello and welcome to unit one
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of this module. An introduction to
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Corpus Linguistics and BNC web. The first thing that we do in this
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unit, is introduce
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two main concepts in Corpus Linguistics. Those are
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empiricism, so Corpus Linguistics is based on
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observations of language; it's not based on introspection,
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thinking about language but rather observable facts about language.
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The second main concept that we
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talk about in this module, in this unit, is
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representativeness, and this is an important but
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tricky topic to tie down.
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So when we are using a corpus
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to carry out some sort of language research we're probably
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interested in making generalisable claims
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either about the language as a whole, or
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a part of the language, so for example a group speakers,
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or a certain group texts that we're analysing.
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In order for those claims to be valid then
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we would hope that our texts, our corpus,

University of Birmingham. ELAL. Corpus Linguistics Module. Unit 1

1:14
in some way reflect the...
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the language so here we're talking about
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our corpus as a sample and the language that we're
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...interested in, or the part of the language that we're introducing,
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is the population. Okay. And the relationship between
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our sample, the corpus and the language is all
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to do with representativeness
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how how representative our corpus is.
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Okay. We then move on to
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look at the applications of corpus linguistics.
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So... applications
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in second language acquisition, lexicography,
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...translation... many applications
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and the different types of corpora that are available
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and are used for research.
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And then finally we actually move on to
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some practical activities with corpora and start off with
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simple searches. So...
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you'll sign up for a username and password with BNC web,
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and then there are a set tasks to
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get you started with some simple... simple searches.
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Okay.

University of Birmingham. ELAL. Corpus Linguistics Module. Unit 1