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What Is Corpus Linguistics

Corpus linguistics is the study of language using large collections of electronic texts known as corpora. It relies on computers to analyze patterns in language at a scale not possible manually. The first modern corpus, the Brown Corpus, was created in the 1960s, but corpus linguistics emerged as a field in the 1980s with increased computing power. It provides insights into real-world language usage and dynamics unavailable through other methods of linguistic analysis.

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128 views2 pages

What Is Corpus Linguistics

Corpus linguistics is the study of language using large collections of electronic texts known as corpora. It relies on computers to analyze patterns in language at a scale not possible manually. The first modern corpus, the Brown Corpus, was created in the 1960s, but corpus linguistics emerged as a field in the 1980s with increased computing power. It provides insights into real-world language usage and dynamics unavailable through other methods of linguistic analysis.

Uploaded by

dancruz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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What is Corpus Linguistics

Corpus linguistics is a study of language and a method of linguistic analysis which uses a
collection of natural or real word texts known as corpus. Corpus linguistics is used to
analyse and research a number of linguistic questions and offers a unique insight into the
dynamic of language which has made it one of the most widely used linguistic
methodologies.
Since corpus linguistics involves the use of large corpora that consist of millions or
sometimes even billion words, it relies heavily on the use of computers to determine what
rules govern the language and what patters (grammatical or lexical for instance) occur.
Thus it is not surprising that corpus linguistics emerged in its modern form only after the
computer revolution in the 1980s. The Brown Corpus, the first modern and electronically
readable corpus, however, was created by Henry Kucera and W. Nelson Francis as early as
the 1960s.

What Corpus Linguistics Does

Gives an access to naturalistic linguistic information. As mentioned before, corpora


consist of real word texts which are mostly a product of real life situations. This
makes corpora a valuable research source for dialectology, sociolinguistics and
stylistics.
Facilitates linguistic research. Electronically readable corpora have dramatically
reduced the time needed to find particular words or phrases. A research that would
take days or even years to complete manually can be done in a matter of seconds
with the highest degree of accuracy.
Enables the study of wider patterns and collocation of words. Before the advent of
computers, corpus linguistics was studying only single words and their frequency.
Modern technology allowed the study of wider patters and collocation of words.
Allows analysis of multiple parameters at the same time. Various corpus linguistics
software programmes, online marketing and analytical tools allow the researchers to

analyse a larger number of parameters simultaneously. In addition, many corpora


are enriched with various linguistic information such as annotation.
Facilitates the study of the second language. Study of the second language with the
use of natural language allows the students to get a better feeling for the language
and learn the language like it is used in real rather than invented situations.

What Corpus Linguistics Does Not

Does not explain why. The study of corpora tells us what and how happened but it
does not tell us why the frequency of a particular word has increased over time for
instance.
Does not represent the entire language. Corpus linguistics studies the language by
using randomly or systematically selected corpora. They typically consist of a large
number of naturally occurring texts, however, they do not represent the entire
language. Linguistic analyses that use the methods and tools of corpus linguistics
thus do not represent the entire language.

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