Corpus Linguistics
Investigating Language Structure and Use

This book is about investigating the way people use language in speech and writing, introducing the corpus-based approach to the study of language.

Douglas Biber (Author), Susan Conrad (Author), Randi Reppen (Author)

9780521499576, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 23 April 1998

312 pages, 33 tables
19.9 x 13 x 2 cm, 0.37 kg

"This book could be used as part of the curriculum for an introductory corpus linguistics class, especially for students with a humanities background." Vasileios Hatzivassiloglou, Computational Linguistics

This book is about investigating the way people use language in speech and writing. It introduces the corpus-based approach to linguistics, based on analysis of large databases of real language examples stored on computer. Each chapter focuses on a different area of linguistics, including lexicography, grammar, discourse, register variation, language acquisition, and historical linguistics. Example analyses are presented in each chapter to provide concrete descriptions of the research methods and advantages of corpus-based techniques. Ten methodology boxes provide clear and concise explanations of the issues in doing corpus-based research and reading corpus-based studies and there is a useful appendix of resources for corpus-based investigation. This lucid and comprehensive introduction to the subject will be welcomed by a broad range of readers, from undergraduate students to professional researchers.

Preface
1. Introduction: goals and methods of the corpus-based approach
Part I. Investigating the Use of Language Features: 2. Lexicography
3. Grammar
4. Lexico-grammar
5. The study of discourse characteristics
Part II. Investigating the Characteristics of Varieties: 6. Register variation and English for specific purposes
7. Language acquisition and development
8. Historical and stylistic investigations
Part III. Summing Up and Looking Ahead: 9. Conclusion
Part IV. Methodology Boxes: 10. Issues in corpus design
11. Issues in diachronic corpus design
12. Concordancing packages versus programming for corpus analysis
13. Characteristics of tagged corpora
14. The process of tagging
15. Norming frequency counts
16. Statistical measures of lexical associations
17. The unit of analysis in corpus-based studies
18. Significance tests and the reporting of statistics
19. Factor loadings and dimension scores
Appendix: commercially available corpora and analytical tools
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Computational linguistics [CFX]