AJ02007 Exercises in Corpus Use (On-line)

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2016
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
PhDr. Jarmila Fictumová (seminar tutor)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Supplier department: Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.

The capacity limit for the course is 50 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/50, only registered: 0/50
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
The course is an introduction to the use and application of electronic corpora. Students will be acquainted with some of the existing large online corpora and the basic methodology of corpus investigation. At the end of the course, students will be able to apply the newly acquired knowledge to improve their language skills and answer language-related queries relevant to their further studies. The course is a pre-requisite for other BA/MA courses where the skill of using and applying corpus search techniques is instrumental.
Syllabus
  • Introducing electronic corpora: What are they and how can they help us?
  • Internet as a language resource: Why Google cannot answer everything?
  • Basics of corpus use: How to search and navigate through a corpus?
  • Searching for words and phrases: Why frequency matters?
  • Word sketch tool: How to find frequent language patterns easily?
  • Collocation and context: Why learn new words in context?
  • Grammatical patterns: Can we solve riddles of textbook definitions and formulas?
  • Text and discourse: How to look beyond sentence boundaries?
  • Corpus vs. grammar books: How to avoid major pitfalls when using electronic corpora?
Literature
  • OSOLSOBĚ, Klára. Recenze : František Čermák - Renata Blatná (eds.): Jak využívat český národní korpus, Praha : Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2005. 179 s. (Review : František Čermák - Renata Blatná (eds.): Jak využívat český národní korpus, Praha : Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2005. 179 s.). 2007. info
  • SINCLAIR, John McHardy. Reading concordances : an introduction. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2003, xx, 180. ISBN 058229214X. info
  • BIBER, Douglas. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Edited by Randolph Quirk. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000, xxviii, 12. ISBN 0582237254. info
  • HUNSTON, Susan and Gill FRANCIS. Pattern grammar : a corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2000, xi, 288. ISBN 1556193998. info
  • BIBER, Douglas, Susan CONRAD and Randi REPPEN. Corpus linguistics : investigating language structure and use. Cambridge: University Press, 1998, ix, 300. ISBN 0521496225. info
  • PARTINGTON, Alan. Patterns and meanings : using corpora for English language research and teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1998, vii, 162. ISBN 9027222711. info
Teaching methods
self-study online course independent reading homework assignments
Assessment methods
progress tests (reading), short practical assignments, end-of-term test
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
The course is taught annually.
The course is taught: every week.
Teacher's information
https://elf.phil.muni.cz/elf2/course/view.php?id=2455
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2013, Spring 2014, Autumn 2014, Spring 2015, Autumn 2015, Autumn 2016.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2016, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2016/AJ02007