Corpus linguistics is the computer-assisted analysis of very large databases (‘corpora’) of authentic language data. Once considered a highly specialised and advanced-level research field, corpus linguistics has now become part of the basic methodological apparatus of almost all branches of modern linguistics. Linguistic data in electronic form is now easily accessed and collected via the Internet, and sophisticated yet extremely user-friendly software packages for corpus analysis are now widely available.
In this module, students will learn how to use corpus analysis software to investigate a variety of existing spoken and written corpora, and will also gain experience in building their own small corpora for analysis.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
Make appropriate and independent use of available corpus data and software resources to investigate particular research questions in English Language and Applied Linguistics.
Create, annotate and analyse their own small corpora for particular research purposes.
Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to articulate and critique the theoretical assumptions underpinning published corpus research, and describe the wider impact that corpus-based research has had on linguistic theory in recent decades;
Demonstrate an understanding of, and ability to articulate and defend the theoretical assumptions underpinning their own empirical corpus-based analytical work.
