Corpus linguistics 3201-LST-CL
Language corpora are increasingly used in research in linguistics. They provide access to vast resources of authentic and natural, written and oral linguistic production, and thus facilitate a more accurate and reliable analysis of language at its many levels: phonetic and phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, phraseological, semantic, pragmatic and at the discourse. Thanks to corpora, new methods of linguistic data analysis were created, emphasizing the concepts of frequency, patterning and variation. Corpus linguistics also proposes a new approach to language description based on probability rather than rules.
This course is an overview of the most important directions of research in the field of corpus linguistics, along with a discussion of corpus research methods. The course will also present the contribution and importance of corpus methodology in research in many areas of theoretical and applied linguistics. Statistical tests used in corpus research will be presented. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the potential and fundamental principles of utilizing a wide array of publicly accessible corpus resources in both English and Polish, alongside gaining proficiency in the use of tools for analyzing corpus data.
Type of course
Mode
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge:
The student will know and understand
P8S_WG.1 scientific output, including theoretical foundations and general and selected specific issues - relevant to corpus linguistics
P8S_WG.2 main developmental trends in corpus linguistics
P8S_WG.3 a variety of corpus resources and tools in English and Polish and the methodology of corpus research
Skills:
The student will be able to
P8S_UW.1 use knowledge of corpus linguistics to creatively identify, formulate and innovatively solve complex problems or research tasks, in particular
- define the purpose and object of research based on corpus resources,
- apply corpus methods, techniques and tools,
- draw conclusions on the basis of corpus-based research results
P8S_UK.1 communicate on specialized topics related to corpus linguistics to the extent allowing for active participation in the international scientific community
P8S_UK.4 participate in scientific discourse related to corpus-based research
Social competences:
The student will be ready to
P8S_KK.3 recognize the importance of knowledge in corpus linguistics in solving cognitive and practical problems and apply corpus research methods to own research purposes
Assessment criteria
1. class attendance (two absences permitted)
2. participation in class
3. completing a short corpus-based project on a topic selected by the student and approved by the instructor
Bibliography
Textbooks:
• Biber, D., & Reppen, R. (Eds.). (2015). The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139764377
• McEnery, T., & Brezina, V. (2022). Fundamental Principles of Corpus Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107110625
• McEnery, T., & Hardie, A. (2011). Corpus Linguistics: Method, Theory and Practice. Cambridge University Press.
• O’Keeffe, A., & McCarthy, M. (Eds.). (2022). The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics (2nd edition). Routledge.
• Paquot, M., & Gries, S. T. (Eds.). (2021). A Practical Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. Springer.
Additional reading:
Selected papers which serve as examples of corpus-based studies in different areas of linguistics
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: