Electronic Corpora Research Articles

Contrastive Analysis of Stretched Collocations with <i>Get</i> and <i>Take</i>: Their use and Pedagogical Implications

Abstract: This paper explores the pedagogical implications of contrastive analyses of light verb constructions containing get and take in English and Spanish based on electronic corpora, the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus de Referencia del Espanol Actual (CREA). The main tenets of collocations from a contrastive perspective-and the points of contact and departure between both languages-are discussed prior to examining the commonest types of verb+ noun combinations (i.e., take a bath, take advantage of), verb+ adjective (i.e. get ready, get worse, get angry), verb+ participle (i.e., get married, get dressed) as significant cases of so-called light, empty, thin, or verbs. A quantitative and qualitative-oriented case study is accordingly conducted, determining the weight of get and take in stretched collocations in the BNC and of the Spanish equivalent verbs constructions within the CREA. Based on empirical data obtained this way, this paper provides relevant insights for more accurate translations, helping to enhance the collocational competence of L2 students, who tend to avoid constructions including empty verbs in favour of full verb forms. The findings in this study shed light on the potential of corpora resources for improving the collocational usage of foreign-language learners, as quantitative and qualitative comparisons of collocations serve to highlight the similarities and, more importantly, the lexical, cognitive and typological differences between these phraseological constructions in the two languages, thereby substantiating the very useful role that analysis may play for teaching in general and for collocational knowledge and proficiency in particular.Keywords: Collocations, Light Verb Constructions, Translation, Teaching PhraseologyIntroductionStretched Collocations at the Crossroads in English and Spanish PhraseologyPhraseology is definitely concerned with the study of those chunks which, be they collocations or idioms, constitute some crucial cognitive, textual and pragmatic tools to be mastered by the learner. As Sokolik (2001: 487) underlines in her overview of Computer- Assisted Language Learning (CALL), corpus linguistics and concordancing can help provide the data and tools that students and instructors need to make sense out of usage. CALL applications and phraseology may thus provide invaluable resources for the student's knowledge of multiword units such as delexicalized verb constructions. These semi-compositional verb-noun constructions have been investigated under various labels in the different linguistic traditions. Other terms that are in use to denominate such constructions, parts of them, or a superset of semi-compositional expressions which will be used in this study are light verbs, operator verbs, complex predicates, support verb constructions and others. There is no consensus among the authors about what structures are admissible and different studies investigate non-identical structures. Despite this proviso, in English linguistics, the common ground is that the structures should be non-compositional and consist of a semantically low-content, inflected verb and a predicate noun (Nickel, 1968; Wierzbicka, 1982).Prior to undertaking a detailed case study exploring this phenomenon and its implications for learning, some remarks will be made on CALL, phraseology and their interface.CALL and its Role in Improving L2 LearningCALL has become a new, but well-established, scholarly domain researching the pedagogical possibilities provided by computers and the Internet for increasing learners' communicative skills (Warschauer and Kern, 2000; Warschauer, 2001; Blake, 2001; Davies, 2002; Godwin-Jones, 2005; Oster et al., 2006). CALL may be broadly defined as any process in which a learner uses a computer and, as a result, improves his or her language (Beatty, 2003: 248). …

How Detached is Technical Writing? Teaching Interpersonality with NTSB Aircraft-accident Dockets Online

Abstract Aircraft-accident dockets are collaboratively written and summarise the circumstances and outcome of aviation mishaps. Those issued online by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are addressed to a broad mixed readership that may be emotionally affected by the facts reported if death tolls and serious injuries are involved. Therefore, interpersonality plays a crucial role in this type of texts, which I use to reflect on how we ESP teachers can raise polytechnical students’ sensitivity towards their audiences. With that purpose I draw on an electronic corpus of 1,673 samples reporting fatal accidents between 2005 and 2012.

Field – Dicionário de Expressões do Futebol: um recurso lexicográfico baseado no aporte teórico-metodológico da semântica de frames e da linguística de corpus

The present article aims at problematizing the relevance of Frame Semantics (Fillmore, 1982) in the development of Field – Dictionary of Football Expressions – which the configuration allows the access to football language through expressions or through scenarios – or semantic frames. Frame Semantics, a theory developed in the realm of Cognitive Linguistics, is based on empirical data collected from the analysis of electronic corpora. The extraction of the data presented in this study was done with the Sketch Engine concordance, while their analysis was relegated to Frame Semantics. Among the results, it is possible to point out at the manner in which Fillmore´s theory contributes to the analysis of polysemy, presenting the different senses of a lexical unit considering different situations – or different frames – in which they appear. This article also emphasizes the pertinence of corpus linguistics and the processing of corpora as resources that allow the analysis of linguistic constructs present in the texts. It is also important to emphasize the applicability of Frame Semantics to a resource devoted to a non-specialized public, once the theory makes the contextualization of language possible through the everyday routine of the speakers.

WORD CLASS AND TEXTUAL FUNCTIONS OF ANTONYMS: A CORPUS STUDY

Antonymy is traditionally regarded as a paradigmatic relation, but recent studies of antonym co–occurrence in written discourse have shown that it can be investigated as a syntagmatic relation as well. Such investigations in the Untagged electronic corpus of Serbian identified two major and four minor functions of antonyms in discourse and its accompanying lexico-syntactic patterns, matching the results of similar analyses in English, Japanese, Swedish and Dutch. This paper presents a research on the relation between word class that antonym pairs belong to (e.g. adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs and prepositions) and their textual functions in Serbian written discourse. It is hypothesized that language users employ antonymous pairs in text irrespective of their grammatical class. The general conclusion is that the roles of antonyms in text are not influenced by word class as significantly as one might expect.

Antonym sequence in written discourse: a corpus-based study

This article investigates which principles govern the order of antonyms in language use and why antonyms tend to be used in a particular sequence in the sentence. The traditional notion about the paradigmatic relations is that the words in a paradigmatic relation must be replaceable, one for the other, in all contexts. Although antonymy is a paradigmatic relation and antonyms are similar in many respects, members of an antonymous pair may not show symmetrical distribution in actual language use. This study is motivated by an observation, based on corpus data, that certain antonymous pairs tend to be used in a preferred sequence in the sentence. Of the fifty-six English antonymous pairs investigated by Jones (2002), only fourteen did not show any marked preference towards either of the two possible orderings in the sentence. This research was conducted in the electronic corpus of contemporary Serbian language and differs from the study of antonym sequence in English done by Jones with respect to certain aspects of methodology, size of the database and the treatment of the concept of markedness. The results show that three-quarters of the fifty-seven antonymous pairs pre-selected for this study are used in a preferred sequence in text and that there is a strong correlation between antonym sequence in language use and the concept of markedness. It is argued that antonym sequence in written discourse is influenced by the following principles: word frequency, neutrality, temporal and visual-spatial ordering and gender. The conclusion is that the distributional patterns of antonym sequence reflect general cognitive principles and conceptual representations.

English

In the last two decades, the compilation of corpora and the analysis of linguistic phenomena via corpus data have become a fascinating linguistic practice around the world and by this, corpus linguistics is now firmly established as a credible approach for the study of language. Linguists and other researchers of varied persuasions are appreciating more and more the interesting dimensions corpora are introducing to language studies. Yet, not much corpus-based work goes on in Ghana. In this paper, we suggest that a vital first step towards the development of Ghanaian English (GhE) lies in the initiation of large-scale electronic corpus projects. The paper argues that corpora can go a long way to enhance the linguistic descriptions of GhE, making the features of the variety more visible and providing a good opportunity for its codification. The results of building corpora for the study of GhE will not only highlight its rich features, but also help Ghanaians and policy makers to determine its proper status in the country. Keywords: codification; corpora; corpus linguistics; Ghanaian English; linguistic description

An Electronic Corpus of Fifteenth-Century Castilian Cancionero Manuscripts

This article describes the project An Electronic Corpus of Fifteenth-Century Castilian Cancionero Manuscripts , paying particular attention to issues and solutions in matters related to textual criticism, such as the collation of witnesses and the generation of phylogenetic stemmata.

Perfect in Modern Mandarin Chinese

This paper looks at the category of perfect in Modern Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua). There are two main perfect marker “imposters” in modern Mandarin, namely the verbal suffix guo (过) and the sentence-final particle le (了). The paper examines the properties and usage of the two elements in turn, paying special attention to the notion of evidentiality in respect to these elements. Examples for each property are provided, which are borrowed from electronic corpora, prior literature on the subject, and personal conversation. We argue that while both elements possess certain features of a perfect marker, the sentential particle is closer to this function according to its usage, although it is not part of the verbal paradigm.

Substituição do gerúndio pela construção a + infinitivo no Português Europeu (estudo diacrónico)

SUBSTITUTION OF THE GERUND FOR THE CONSTRUCION A + INFINITIVE IN EUROPEAN PORTUGUESE (DIACHRONIC STUDY)
 The article aims to specify the period in which the gerund in Portuguese has given way to a + infinitive construction in syntactic positions in which the infinitive predominates also in the contemporary European Portuguese (periphrastic formations estar a + infinitive, ficar a + infinitive, continuar a + infinitive and andar a + infinitive, in semi‑predicative clauses). In this analysis the electronic corpus (www.corpusdoportugues.org) was used. The analysis shows that the period sought must be located in the 19th century (or slightly before), when the infinitive construction starts to appear with greater frequency than in previous centuries.

Making an Online Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language

The Online Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language (ODNZSL), launched in 2011, is an example of a contemporary sign language dictionary that leverages the 21st century advan­tages of a digital medium and an existing body of descriptive research on the language, including a small electronic corpus of New Zealand Sign Language. Innovations in recent online dictionaries of other signed lan­guages informed development of this bilingual, bi-directional, multi­media dic­tionary. Video content and search capacities in an online medium are a huge advance in more directly repre­senting a signed lexicon and enabling users to access content in versatile ways, yet do not resolve all of the theoretical challenges that face sign language dictionary makers. Con­sidera­tions in the editing and production of the ODNZSL are discussed in this article, including issues of determin­ing lexemes and word class in a polysynthetic language, deriving usage exam­ples from a small corpus, and dealing with sociolinguistic variation in the selection and perform­ance of con­tent.Keywords: sign language lexicography, online dictionaries, multimedia dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, learner dictionaries, new zealand sign language, video content, sign language corpus, polysynthetic mor­phology, polysemy, sociolinguistic variation, sign language lin­guistics, user profile

Ansätze zur Darstellung nicht- und schwach idiomatischer verbonominaler Wortverbindungen in der zweisprachigen (Lerner-)Lexikografie Deutsch-Finnisch (Beschreibung eines Forschungsvorhabens)

The study focuses on verb-noun-connections of the type verb + subject (accusative) and verb + preposition + subject. They will be described systematically, among themselves and in relation to free word connections. The units to be examined will be taken from electronic corpora. They will be analysed with regard to their utilisation. The second part of the research project focuses on the elaboration of Finnish analogies to these units, asking, whether the results can be used for bilingual lexicography (German-Finnish).

Korpusbasierte Analyse der Semantik von Idiomen

Idioms are usually defined in semantic terms as non-compositional units whose meaning does not result from the meaning of their parts. This definition implies that idioms have exactly one meaning. But if we examine idioms in context in large electronic corpora, we observe that the meaning of idioms is contextually variable, like that of words. We observe uses that exceed the range of the conventionalized and (lexicographically) codified meaning. A case study (the German idiom ins Gras beißen, literally "to bite into the grass", 'to die, to bite the dust') is used as an illustration of the relation between core meaning and contextual variability or meaning extension in idioms and the underlying mechanisms of this process.

Do auxiliaire ou do lexical? Indifférenciation sémantique et/ou syntaxique en contexte anaphorique

This paper uncovers the specific properties of “which NP do”, “that NP do” and “this NP do” constructions. Based on a thorough analysis of electronic corpora, it lays bare a factitive meaning shared by the various forms of the verb do, provided the latter takes some complementation (verbal in the case of auxiliary do, nominal in the case of transitive do). In “which NP do”, “that NP do” and “this NP do” constructions notably, this underlying semantic unity appears to blur the boundary between lexical and grammatical occurrences of the verb do, thus obscuring the syntactic differences between the lexical verb and the auxiliary.

German modal particles – from lice in the fur of our language to manifestations of translators' styles

The present paper comprises a study of how the German word class of modal particles can be indicative of translator style. German modal particles as a word class are described in detail and I take stock of the research on this linguistic feature that moved into the centre of researchers' interest in the late 1960s and continues to be a topic of controversial debate. I show how corpus methodologies are useful in the identification and analysis of modal particles and provide a case study based on an electronic corpus that consists of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Beautiful and Damned and its two translations into German by Hans-Christian Oeser and Renate Orth-Guttmann, both published in 1998. A quantitative analysis reveals usage patterns of modal particles applied by each translator, as well as preferences of each translator for individual modal particles. A qualitative analysis with a focus on the modal particle wohl shows how it can be used to shift the point of view, explicitate the relationship between characters etc. and how these strategies affect the macrolevel of the translated novel.

English in its socio-historical context

Since Romaine's (1982) pioneering work, historical sociolinguistics has been studying the relationships between language and society in its socio-historical context by focusing on the study of language variation and change with the use of variationist methods. Work on this interdisciplinary sub-field subsisting on sociology, history and linguistics is expanding, as shown, for example, by Milroy (1992), Nevalainen & Raumolin-Brunberg (1996; 2003), Ammon, Mattheier & Nelde (1999), Jahr (1999), Kastovsky & Mettinger (2000), Bergs (2005), Conde-Silvestre (2007), Trudgill (2010), or Hernández-Campoy & Conde-Silvestre (2012). These works have been elucidating the theoretical limits of the discipline and applying the tenets and findings of contemporary sociolinguistic research to the interpretation of linguistic material from the past. Yet in the course of this development historical sociolinguistics has sometimes been criticised for lack of representativeness and its empirical validity has occasionally been questioned. Fortunately, in parallel to the development of electronic corpora, the assistance of corpus linguistics and social history has conferred ‘empirical’ ease and ‘historical’ confidence on the discipline.

‘A miracle. Madonna!’: Irony in the representation of Alitalia’s privatization by the Italian, British and American press

This article focuses on irony in the representation of the privatization of the Italian airline, Alitalia, in the Italian, British and American press. We rely on a previous study (Fusari, 2010, 2011a) of the metaphors found in three electronic corpora containing all the articles published on this event by Repubblica and Corriere della Sera in Italian, The Guardian, The Times and the Financial Times in British English, and The New York Times and the Washington Post in American English, during the six months (August 2008–January 2009) that led to Alitalia’s acquisition by Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI), a private consortium of Italian investors. The analysis also focuses on the Italian translation of a Financial Times article which appeared in Corriere della Sera. Through the use of undertranslation, which involves the elimination of a crucial metonymy, the criticism of the Financial Times’s irony is considerably reduced in Italian.

Variatie, conventies en verandering - Zeventiende- en achttiende-eeuwse buitgemaakte brieven onder de loep

This contribution focuses on the historical sociolinguistic research conducted within the Brieven als Buit/Letters as Loot programme at Leiden University (www.brievenalsbuit.nl). At the core of this research are seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch private letters, confiscated by the English during times of warfare. The socio-historical linguistic value of these letters, kept in the National Archives (Kew, UK), will be shown when discussing the autograph status of texts, and examining the specific cases of formulaic language and of forms of address. These three issues are illustrated by presenting two seventeenth-century letters sent from New Netherlands shortly after the historic event of the English taking over. Furthermore, the importance of a reliable electronic corpus, built according to LIP (the Leiden Identification Procedure), will come to the fore. Exploring such a corpus results in unprecedented insights into variation, conventions and in particular, changes of both formulae and forms of address.

Discovery Learning and Teaching with Electronic Corpora in an Advanced German Grammar Course

AbstractThis study describes the design and implementation of a usage‐based and corpus‐based advanced German grammar course. Teaching materials for the course included DWDS, or Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache: a large, representative, free and publicly available corpus of contemporary German texts. The article outlines specific theoretically informed principles for course design and presents a logical progression of corpus‐based grammar‐teaching activities as used in this course. It also reports participants’ post‐course reactions which were very positive. The article contains practical recommendations for educators interested in trying out corpus‐based activities for teaching German grammar at different proficiency levels as well as to different participant groups. Furthermore, it promotes a more holistic perspective toward grammar as a meaning‐making resource compatible with innovative approaches to grammar pedagogy.

Use of Corpora and IT in Evaluating Oral Task Competence for Tourism English

This paper describes a method in oral fluency evaluation for Tourism English according to a corpus-based lexical approach. Our main research focus is placed on measuring oral skill competence among Tourism English (TE) learners by contrasting their word use and linguistic fluency, achieved in two types of oral tasks, with corpus data frequencies. Information Technology (IT) resources and electronic corpora are two integrated tools in the evaluative approach to identify significant performance changes between learners who have managed such electronic resources and learners who have not.

Technologies in Computerized Lexicography

Since the early eighties, computer technology has become increasingly relevant to lexicography. Computer science will probably not be the only technological discipline which may have implications for future computerized lexicography. Some developments in the fields of language technology, information technology and knowledge engineering, may support lexicographical practice and enhance the quality of the resulting dictionary. The present paper discusses how the analysis and interpretation of electronic corpus data by the lexicographer may be improved by automatic linguistic analysis, by better access to the corpus, and by a more flexible communication with the computer system. As a frame of reference, first an indication of the state of the art in computerized lexicography will be given, by a concise discussion of three projects at the Institute for Dutch Lexicology INL considered in an international context: the conversion of the <i>Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal WNT</i> (Dictionary of the Dutch Language Based on Historical Principles) to electronic form, the compilation of the <i>Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek</i> (Dictionary of Early Middle Dutch) in a computerized lexicographer's workbench, and the <i>INL Taalbank</i> (INL Language Database). Although the topic of this paper is technology, focus is on functional rather than technical aspects of computerized lexicography.