Corpus Linguistics: Introduction

1. Corpus Linguistics: Introduction Stella E. O. Tagnin - USP Corpus Linguistics, Translation and Terminology New Technologies in Translation - CAPES Universitat Rovira i Virgili-Universidade de São Paulo Tarragona July 8-11, 2008

2. Outline • What is Corpus Linguistics • Types of corpora • Corpus Tools • Translating with Corpora

3. Corpus Linguistics as an approach – a methodology • It is not just instrumental, i.e. a set of tools • It is a typical way of applying a set of theoretical presuppositions (Berber Sardinha 2000) • Approach: new theoretical concepts • Lexicon: collocations –patterns; “idiom principle” • Discovery procedures: Sinclair (2004): “trust the text” – no a priori categorization • Probability: Halliday (1991)

4. Basically Corpus Linguistics = Observation of natural language - use - as opposed to Chomky´s introspection - grammar -

5. Firth/Halliday Performance Linguistic description Empirical Observation - use Probability Chomsky Competence Linguistic universals Rational Intuition - introspection Possibility What is the difference?

6. Can I say this? Yes, you can but... ... it’s just not the way we say it!

7. What is a corpus? 1 formal a collection of writings, for example all the writings of one person 2 linguistics a collection of written and spoken language stored on computer and used for language research and writing dictionaries. Macmillan English Dictionary (2002)

8. But texts compiled according to specific criteria collection should be representative of language to be studied or part of language to be studied

9. Corpus linguist vs armchair linguist • “... I don’t think there can be any corpora, however large, that contain information about all of the areas of English lexicon and grammar that I want to explore...”

10. But... “... Every corpus [...] however small, has taught me facts that I couldn’t imagine finding out about in any other way.” (Fillmore, C.J. “Corpus linguistics” or “Computer-aided armchair linguistics”. In Svartvik, Jan (ed.) Directions in Corpus Linguistics, Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 82, Stockholm, 4-8 August 1991, Berlin/NY: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992, 35-60)

11. Research Areas Lexicology and lexicography • Lexicology • Lexicography Contrastive studies • Translation • Naturalness in language

12. The History of Corpora • In the 60’s – 1 million words! • Brown – American English • 200 texts – 5,000 words each • 15 distinct categories • LOB (Lancaster/Oslo/Bergen) – British English counterpart

13. Current corpora • BNC – 1995 – 100 million words • 90% written language • 10% spoken language • Bank of English (Cobuild) • Birmingham 1987 – 20 million words • Today around 500 million words • Open corpus – constantly being updated

14. Corpora Online Portuguese • COMPARA: http://www.linguateca.pt/COMPARA • Lácio-Web: http://www.nilc.icmc.usp.br/lacioweb

15. Corpus-based dictionaries • Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.), 1989 • Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1980s) • Macmillan English Dictionary (2002)

16. Some useful sites • Corpus Linguistics: http://www.humcorp.bham.ac.uk/ • Bibliography http://www.athel.com/corpus_bibliography.html • Text Corpora http://www.athel.com/corpus.html • David Lee’s Bookmarks for Corpus-based Linguists: • http://devoted.to/corpora

17. Types of corpora • General language • Specialized language • Learner: translator trainee • Monolingual, bi- ou multilingual • Parallel (COMPARA) ou comparable (CorTec)

18. Types of corpora • online (BNC, Cobuild, WebCorp, Lácio-Web, Comet/CorTec) • DIY – customized: always at hand

19. What are corpora good for? • Language description • lexicon • grammar • Teaching: DDL (data-driven learning) • Translation / Terminology

20. What's in a word?Michael Hoey 5 questions should be asked about a word: 1 - What does the word mean? Meaning 2 - What words does it associate with? Collocations 3 - What meanings does it associate with? Semantic prosody 4 - What grammatical functions does it associate with? 5 - What positions in the text does the word favour?

21. Corpora allow us to Visualize lexical patterns – “the way we say it” concordances • Phraseological (collocations): sweeping victory, high and low > search high and low, pay a visit • Terminological: profit and loss, quality control, freshly ground black pepper  Compile dictionaries and glossaries

22. Corpora allow us to • Visualize grammatical patterns • colligations: verbs followed by infinitive or gerund begin + to vs. start + -ing • Detect semantic prosody: cause vs causar

23. How are corpora exploited? Search tools • online corpora have built-in search tools • DIY corpora need stand-alone search tools: WordSmith Tools (Mike Scott 1996), , Ant 3.2.2

24. Computational tools produce • Concordances • Collocates • Clusters • Word Lists • Keyword lists • Statistical data

25. What is a concordance? • A list of all occurrences of the search word in context • KWIC: “key word in context” – • Usually centralized • Vertical reading: to identify lexical and grammatical patterns • Horizontal reading: to identify collocates and different meanings

26. now is a time to look at the other side of the style I want?" Well, look no further. I, Adam Polselli on in and take a " look ," literally! Be on the lookout update is a brand new look that I call "Chic Simplicity call "Chic Simplicity." This new look was inspired by the outdated Centre is opposite Coral Reef - look out for the brown signs homepage trn: How not to look like an idiot on Usenet you want to do is look like an idiot or be group.name or take a look at news.answers. If you careful of advertising. Take a look at `trn: How to advertise Service Pack 2 Beta first look by Kurt Hutchinson A harder look at after-school help By Lisa in the take a closer look page for several weeks. My for several weeks. My students look forward to the picture each Friday March 5, 2004 Hey look , it's a new comic. That's seen it yet, take a look . The new aqua appearance is A concordance for look

27. now is a time to look at the other side of the style I want?" Well, look no further. I, Adam Polselli on in and take a " look ," literally! Be on the lookout update is a brand new look that I call "Chic Simplicity call "Chic Simplicity." This new look was inspired by the outdated Centre is opposite Coral Reef - look out for the brown signs homepage trn: How not to look like an idiot on Usenet you want to do is look like an idiot or be group.name or take a look at news.answers. If you careful of advertising. Take a look at `trn: How to advertise Service Pack 2 Beta first look by Kurt Hutchinson A harder look at after-school help By Lisa in the take a closer look page for several weeks. My for several weeks. My students look forward to the picture each Friday March 5, 2004 Hey look , it's a new comic. That's seen it yet, take a look . The new aqua appearance is Vertical reading – right side

28. now is a time to look at the other side of the style I want?" Well, look no further. I, Adam Polselli on in and takea " look ," literally! Be on the lookout update is a brandnew look that I call "Chic Simplicity call "Chic Simplicity." This new look was inspired by the outdated Centre is opposite Coral Reef - look out for the brown signs homepage trn: How not to look like an idiot on Usenet you want to do is look like an idiot or be group.name or takea look at news.answers. If you careful of advertising. Takea look at `trn: How to advertise Service Pack 2 Beta first look by Kurt Hutchinson A harder look at after-school help By Lisa in the take acloser look page for several weeks. My for several weeks. My students look forward to the picture each Friday March 5, 2004 Hey look , it's a new comic. That's seen it yet, takea look . The new aqua appearance is Vertical reading – left side

29. now is a time to look at the other side of the style I want?" Well, look no further. I, Adam Polselli on in and take a " look ," literally! Be on the lookout update is a brandnew look that I call "Chic Simplicity call "Chic Simplicity." This new look was inspired by the outdated Centre is opposite Coral Reef - look out for the brown signs homepage trn: How not to look like an idiot on Usenet you want to do is look like an idiot or be group.name or take a look at news.answers. If you careful of advertising. Take a look at `trn: How to advertise Service Pack 2 Beta first look by Kurt Hutchinson A harder look at after-school help By Lisa in the takea closer look page for several weeks. My for several weeks. My students look forward to the picture each Friday March 5, 2004 Hey look , it's a new comic. That's seen it yet, take a look . The new aqua appearance is Horizontal reading

30. Corpora OnlineEnglish • BNC:http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html • COBUILD:http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx • WebCorp:http://www.webcorp.org.uk

31. Semantic Prosody

32. family thinks Vicki Rock's former job at the plant caused her son's cancer. but he denies that the plant caused leukemia in families that have brought suits against the company One of two things could have caused this error: The Pobox.com user whose web site you Ok: BM caused TONS of problems over last few weeks…31: Holes that caused fuel leak on shuttle located in nozzle July 28: Columbia reduce deaths, injuries, property damage, economic losses and human sufferingcaused by natural disasters.

33. ventos mais fortes do oeste e aumento de tempestades violentas, causou danos sem precedentes nas propriedades situadas na costa de 1992 na região central dos Estados Unidos. Por isso, causou grande impacto a descoberta do oceanógrafo americano Dudley Chelton membro do conselho executivo deve fazer é "A nossa empresa causou uma primeira boa impressão em consumidores potenciais suficientes para garantir de 1995, quando já assumira a presidência do Banco Central, causou repercussão na imprensa o fato de ter passado o carnaval fato teve não teve a repercussão equivalente ao prejuízo que causou a centenas de empresas que hoje dependem prioritariamente da rede

34. Cause vs. causar • Cause: negative semantic prosody • Causar: neutral semantic prosody • Therefore: *cause a good impression  make a good impression Attention translator: cognates don´t always work the same way!!!

35. To distinguish between near synonyms

36. Small Here is a random selection of 50 solutions from the43118 found... A6F 4 ... only a small number provide an outcome in which one party forms the government. AN4 2149 This would include skilled workers as well as unskilled, small tenant farmers and other rural cottagers, servants in husbandry as well as lower domestic servants, some small traders, ... ARB 1868 I seem to be a permanent figure in this small town, ... BNL 2040 You ought to be able to cope with a small invasion of your privacy now and then. C93 1122 Meetings, rallies, dances and wedding receptions all brought the small communities together. CDM 232 It was a small, battered tin money-box. CHA 2807 The Discman , a small, portable CD player , makes its debut. CHJ 805 A small porch at the rear can be used for other small items, although access is only from inside. EVW 1075 It is divided into two small widely separated lobes which are attached to the dorsal lobe ... H7R 493 When a VCID is used the total motor/load inertia includes the damper housing inertia and therefore it is important that this inertia be as small as possible. H7X 486 But if you read the small print of the viral RNA you will find something devilish written there. HA3 118 Then he stiffened as if sandbagged by a sudden recollection, gave a small yelp of terror and dashed into the gloom. HA9 987 Cup in hand, she was about to sit opposite him at the small kitchen table, ... HGW 1206 You can often use the space between the bottom of wall-hung cabinets and the counter top to put up small shelves which will take a variety of objects; this is often a good place to stand your collection of dried herbs in small pots or jars ... HHX 4302 Others do it on a very small scale. HLY 118 I there is a small difference of course, the C E C did say it, but there is dif different negotiating... KCE 5245 how small Andrew's hands are.

37. Small - summary • Subjective:, smalltrader (4sg +19pl), smallinvasion (1) • Objective: small community, small box (53), small kitchen table • Abstract words: small difference, small scale • Collocations: small number (925),small print(158), small town (293)

38. little Here is a random selection of 50 solutions from the62638 found... A0V 816 It is a little sad to see the innocent eagerness and enthusiasm from so many who have stars in their eyes and really believe they are quite good players. A6E 1372 The room was full of funny little animals whizzing all over the floor. AB4 621 In 1670 William Gauntlett took out a patent of arms at the Herald's College and in 1687 made the manor a little larger. ACE 1266 You're making puerile excuses for yourself, little lad.'; ADK 1755 We stapled a piece of blue baize around the door and, hey presto, there was a neat little portable platform which we could produce when the time came, looking incredibly efficient. AMN 165 ... but for those with some imagination and a little technical knowledge [it is] a site full of wonder ... AP1 1595 I spoke to David on the phone yesterday and he, too, has been able to do very little because of not being able to get into Tim's program... APU 1389 Anyway, so what if there were people smoking a little --; everybody does it, ... CBC 2794 With a little advance preparation, though, you can ensure you have time to relax and enjoy Christmas morning. CEH 60 A shifty-eyed little devil, and his wife always expecting. CHG 433 He was a short, precise man with a small moustache which reminded me a little of Hitler's, but he had none of the German leader's belligerence. EBT 1978 Yet serious research into the history of textiles goes back little more than a century. EFU 802 The next point is that the special rennet that professional cheese-making demands is available only in bulk, and therefore --; since only a teaspoonful or so per half-gallon of milk is required --; of little use for making cheese at home. F9Y 742 ... Sydney Newman saw little of Doctor Who after the pilot episodes had been approved ...

39. Little - summary • Physical: little animals • Quantifier – a little: a little sad; a little technical knowledge, smoking a little • Affective: little lad, little devil (31) • little portable platform???  a neat little portable platform

40. Neat little vs neat small Your query was neat little - Here is a random selection of 50 solutions from the 57found... A5R 281 `;Boots and Sainsburys selling heroin and cocaine in neat little packets with helpful little leaflets ... A61 478 I replaced the blanket over his head and stood for a few moments looking at the bodies in their neat little rows. B73 2303 It may even be possible to make neat little `;scale-model'; houses from normal wood, transport them cheaply ... BN3 119 She was a neatlittle blonde, five years my senior, and perpetually smelling of eau de cologne and cheap powder. CCN 1538 On some coals drawn to the side of the neat little fire, strips of meat were laid to grill: ... CDY 66 Billy's cottage was set back off the road, behind a neat little hedge. CH1 3157 In every Kinder Surprise you will already find one of 100 neat little toys, easy-to-assemble kits featuring locos, cars, ... CH5 4355 Men find her trim figure and neatlittle face with its impossibly turned-up nose, very appealing. ECG 1398 His beloved's in Sheffield and he can't wait to sell his house (any takers for a neat little cottage in Cwm y Glo?) and ... ECU 2424 He opened one of the suitcases and took out an expensive tape recorder and a neat little package of cassettes. EFU 988 Then, the neat little white pots, the crust of yellow butter, there is something fundamentally and uniquely English ... FPU 1382 Biddy, in her neatlittle black dress, was busy serving food. G00 4306 ... isolate the various segments of the electronic publishing industry into neat little compartments. H7H 454 Next: here comes Dada, neat little Dada, small as a doll on one of his big horses, ... H97 2166 `;Meaning,'; she continued, `;that your neatlittle theory that I'm the obvious suspect is actually pretty hollow…'; HA4 1623 Down in the neat little kitchen Sophia made an omelette, cut thin bread and butter and arranged ... HAC 10328 The neat little track ball mouse built into the keyboard is a joy to use ... HR7 2306 Harvey was there in a red-coat uniform, smiling and doing his neat little dances and pretending to drop plates ... JY3 1073 `;I've got a neat little ketch moored down at the marina. JY3 1143 `;She's a neatlittle boat,'; she commented coolly, accepting a long glass of orange juice and fizzy mineral water. JY5 2338 `;Since unlike you I don't make a habit of placing people in neat little labelled categories.'; K2N 207 THE Rev. Martin Smyth, MP, has been telling me of a neat little trick pulled by local people to have houses built ... neat small - Only 2solutions found for this query BP9 85 The head waiter, head steward, chief service attendant, whatever one called him, was a neat small Frenchman named Emil. G23 578 Just fold a square of white paper into four and cut neat small triangles in the folded edges.

41. Neat little vs small little • Neat little: 57 occurrences • Little – connotative (affective, informal) • Small little: 2 occurrences • Small – denotative: neat small Frenchman; neat small triangles

42. Corpora OnlineEnglish • BNC:http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html • COBUILD:http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx • WebCorp:http://www.webcorp.org.uk

43. Making a long story short... • Corpus linguistics is ideal for studying conventionality/phraseology: the way we say it! • Knowing conventionality/phraseology makes for naturalness and fluency • Corpus linguistics enhances translators’ linguistic awareness and fosters independent study by discovery

44. Corpus Tools WordSmith Tools

45. Wordlist • Identification of topic • Most reccurent words in text / corpus

46. WordList by Frequency

47. WordList in Alphabetical Order

48. WordList in Alphabetical Order “lemmatized”

49. WordList - Statistics Identification of peculiarities • corpus (Overall) • each text in the corpus