LING40440 Corpus Linguistics (MA)

Academic Year 2023/2024

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.

Show/hide contentOpenClose All

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

24
Tutorial

12
Seminar (or Webinar)

24
Computer Aided Lab

12
Specified Learning Activities

64
Autonomous Student Learning

150
Total

286
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
A combined approach between theoretical content and many hands-on activities (tutorials). 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Additional Information:
Steep learning curve to be expected and high level of autonomous work required. No specific computational skills are required. However, the module entails working with specific software (AntConc, SketchEngine, etc.)


 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Assignment: Corpus design. Week 8 n/a Graded No

30
Assignment: Practical exercise (investigating a corpus). Week 5 n/a Graded No

20
Assignment: Research-like paper. Week 12 n/a Graded No

50

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, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Not yet recorded.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
 
Spring
      
Lecture Offering 1 Week(s) - 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32 Wed 09:00 - 10:50