LING30140 Corpus Linguistics

Academic Year 2020/2021

This module will introduce students to the study of corpora in linguistics:
- it examines the notion of a corpus (differences between general/specialised, oral/written corpora, multimodal corpora, etc.),
- it discusses the theory and especially the practice of the construction of corpora (design criteria) and
- assesses tools (concordancers, frequency lists, collocates, etc.) for the exploitation of corpora.

The module will explore different approaches to analysing corpora, providing many hands-on exercises in the exploration and construction of linguistic corpora.

Examples of topics analysed through corpus-based approaches:
- Gender
- Linguistic variation (Irish English, US English, etc.)
- Words evolution (diachronic approach)
- Sentiment analysis (exploring language in social networks)
- Political speeches (Brexit, etc.)
- Linguistic politeness
- Media bias, etc.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this module, you should be able to:
- critically examine the notion of a corpus
- understand the uses of text corpora in language research
- explore corpora with simple to more complex tools
- use a concordance program to extract data from a corpus
- design and build your own corpus
- understand how to analyse corpus data through statistical and discourse analysis methods.

Indicative Module Content:

- Corpus Linguistics applications
- Types of corpora
- Corpus design
- Tools
- Investigating a corpus (textual markers, collocates, word lists, etc.)

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

12
Seminar (or Webinar)

12
Computer Aided Lab

12
Specified Learning Activities

20
Autonomous Student Learning

44
Total

100
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
Combined approach between theoretical content and many hands-on activities (tutorials) 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations
Learning Recommendations:

several modules in linguistics (level 1 and/or 2)


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Project: Research-like paper Week 12 n/a Graded No

50
Assignment: Practical exercises (investigating a corpus) Week 5 n/a Graded No

20
Assignment: Corpus design Week 8 n/a Graded No

30

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Summer No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Class feedback, hands-on activities, individual feedback (summative assesment form and comments)

Name Role
Mr Tony Hopkins Lecturer / Co-Lecturer