A Comparative-Contrastive Analysis of Corpus Tools (Case Study: Working with Corpora of Cinematic Discourse)

Abstract

A broad scope of application of corpus technologies indicates their importance in applied linguistics. Employing the comparative-contrastive method and the method of computer analysis, the author seeks to compare and contrast the main corpus tools of the programs Sketch Engine, AntConc, and WordSmith Tools, focusing on texts from specialized periodicals about cinematography ‘Total Film’ and ‘American Cinematographer’ for 2019–2020. The primary goal of this comparison is to provide recommendations for optimal choice of tools and programs for obtaining certain types of information. The author processed the total volume of texts that contained over 900,000 words, using the functions “concordance”, “word list”, “collocations” + “word s etch”, “N-grams”, “keywords” in Sketch Engine and AntConc (Word-Smith Tools has only “concordance”, “wordlist,” and “keywords”). Information about specific tools available in various corpora is collected and presented in a specially developed table. Different software programs described in the article have functions that perform the same tasks, but there are some differences in how data is presented. Among the software programs featured in this case study, the Sketch Engine platform gives the most options for choosing personal settings. The “concordance” function shows the word in context, “Wordlist” shows all the words on a given list with a record of their frequency in the corpus. The “collocation” function (or “word s etch”) recognizes fixed expressions, “N-grams” finds phrases that comprise a certain number of elements, while the “ eywords” function allows users to identify words that are specific to a particular subject area. Information thus obtained from the corpora may be helpful in updating English LSP dictionaries and glossaries of cinematography. The theoretical significance of the present study lies in systematizing the material about existing corpus tools, while its practical value is in using the tools of three corpus programs for the study of cinematic discourse, understood here as language used by the community of movie goers and filmmakers in their discussions of cinematography in specialized periodicals ‘Total Film’ and ‘American Cinematographer’.