Use Of Corpus Data Research Articles

CURRENT STATE AND DEVELOPMENT VECTORS OF LEXICOGRAPHIC PRACTICE IN RUSSIA AND ABROAD

The article analyzes the current trends in the development of lexicographic practice in Russia and abroad. The authors proceed from the fact that the evolution of lexicography as a socially oriented science is determined by a multitude of external and internal factors, dominated by changes in the social life, transformation of users’ data acquisition and reading habits, improvement of technologies, etc. Shifts in the lexicographic paradigm result in the unification of approaches to the creation of dictionaries as well as their content and structure, which indicates the integration of the global scientific and methodological space of lexicography. Lexicographic resources aspire for hybridization, which provides for the solution of a wide range of tasks, use of corpus data, “client-orientation”, which changes the user concept of dictionaries towards personalization of query and dictionary browsing modes. Dictionaries are created in an electronic environment using the capacities of new digital tools and artificial intelligence. Lexicography for specific purposes, represented primarily by terminological dictionaries, databases, ontologies and thesauri, remains a priority. Bilingual and multilingual lexicography is actively developing too, witnessing a significant growth in the number of language parallels and the expansion of the repertoire of services facilitating translation and communication processes. On the other hand, the development of lexicography is determined by national interests, which manifests itself in the creation of dictionaries that form and preserve the national identity of the members of the linguoculture described in the dictionary. The lexicographic concept of cultural heritage is being formed. It is framed by dictionaries of language and culture, phraseological and paremiological dictionaries, onomasticons, dictionaries of idiolects, mythology, folklore, etc. The lexicographic practice adequately responds to the challenges of the time, improving the existing and developing some new methods and techniques of creating dictionaries, thus formatting the general scientific methodological paradigm.

Особенности формирования лексики положительной морально-этической оценки в испанском языке XIII–XV вв. (на материале среднеиспанского прилагательного virtuoso)

The article focuses on the features of the formation of the lexis of positive moral-ethical evaluation in the Spanish language of the 13–15th centuries. The research is based on the material of the Mediaeval Spanish adjective virtuoso (virtuous), which in the studied period belonged to the core lexis of positive moral-ethical evaluation. This is explained by the role the Church played in the life of the mediaeval society, in the formation of ethical norms and a particular system of values. This is confirmed by the fact that the subject of sin and virtue occupied a significant place in the analysed texts. Mediaeval Spanish written monuments of the 13–15th centuries both religious and secular in nature serve as the source of the research material. The written monuments are contained in the Corpus del español electronic corpus. The use of corpus data made it possible to study those lexico-semantic and thematic relations that were inherent in the lexeme virtuoso in the period in question. A significant part of the analysed contexts, the main purpose of which was to name and characterize Christian virtues, along with the virtuoso lexeme, contains chains of lexemes of positive moral-ethical evaluation, which were the names of certain virtues: santo, poderoso, vergonzoso, honesto, etc. Positive moral-ethical evaluation was especially clearly manifested when the lexeme entered into antonymic relations with adjectives denoting various sins and vices: malo, vicioso, malicioso, bravo, etc. Subsequently, the lexical meaning of the adjective virtuoso, characteristic of the above-mentioned contexts, becomes widespread outside the religious sphere, and over time it becomes the main meaning at the systemic level.

Исследование вариативности фразеологизмов библейского происхождения (на материале англо- и немецкоязычных корпусных данных)

The article studies the biblical phraseology of the English and German languages in terms of its variability; in particular, the structural and semantic features of English and German biblical phraseological units are revealed taking into account the use of the search corpus method and on the basis of corpus data; the usual and occasional types of the variants of phraseological units of biblical origin are identified; the examples from text corpora illustrating the general use of the studied phraseological units in different types of discourse and text genres are analysed. The aim of the study is to identify the most frequent and commonly used variants of biblical phraseological units by native speakers with attention to the types of va¬riants based on the use of the search corpus method in the field of phraseology and the use of corpus data. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the identification and description of the variants of biblical phraseological units that function in fiction and media discourse, as well as their prevalence in different text genres on the basis of using the search corpus method and corpus data, which greatly facilitate and optimize research processes, as well as increase objectivity and reliability of the results obtained in a short time.As a result, based on the corpus data, the most frequent biblical phraseological units in English and German have been identified, the variants of biblical phraseological units have been distributed according to their prevalence including by the types of discourse, and the frequency structural types of biblical phra-seological units as well as their modified variants have been identified.

Principled pattern curation to guide data-driven learning design

Insights from corpus linguistics (CL) have informed language learning and materials design, among many other areas. An important nexus between CL and language learning is the use of Data-Driven Learning (DDL), which draws on the use of corpus data in the classroom and which brings opportunities for inductive language discovery. Within the ethos of DDL, learners are encouraged to discover patterns of language and, in so doing, foster more complex cognitive processes such as making inferences. While many studies on DDL concur on the success of this approach, it is still perceived as a marginal practice. Its success so far has been largely limited to intermediate to advanced level learners in higher education settings (Boulton and Cobb 2017). This paper aims to offer guiding principles for how DDL might have wider application across all levels (not just at Intermediate and above) and to set out exemplars for their application at different levels of proficiency. Based on insights from second language acquisition (SLA) and learner corpus research (LCR), the focus of this paper will be on identifying principles for the curation of language patterns that are differentiated for stage of learning. In particular, we are keen to build on recent and important work which looks at SLA through the lens of the usage-based (UB) models (that is, models that view language as being acquired through the use of and exposure to language).

Cultural semantics of the ‘salt’ word in Persian

AbstractThis article explicates the cultural conceptualizations of the word for salt (namak) in Persian. The concept ofnamakreveals an important aspect of Persian sociality, hospitality, mutual respect, and playfulness. For instance, a person’s face or words can be perceived to ‘have salt’, or one’s hand is declared to ‘not have salt’ in the Persian language. To examine the conceptualization ofnamak, this article makes use of corpus data as well as the metalanguage proposed by Natural Semantic Metalanguage to spell out the nuances of salt-related cultural concepts in Persian. Three senses are identified fornamakfrom a historical perspective:namak0for the substance of salt;namak1the cornerstone of Iranian sociality and hospitality; andnamak2the pleasantness, which has changed its semantic content from referring to being pleasant and eloquent to being amusing and playful.

Corpus Investigations of Medieval Slavonic Manuscripts: Statistically Important N-Grams (Collocations) of Old Russian Chronicles

The paper deals with the current status of preparation of Slavonic historical textual corpora and requirements for them from the point of view of processing, search and demonstration of linguistic data. It is stressed that the main causes of the slow development of this line are high labor expenditures of manual creation of machine-readable transcriptions and their tagging and the necessity of training of special corpus managers providing access to data and its visualization. It is emphasized that one of the lines of use of corpus data of current importance is its analysis with the help of quantitative and statistic methods. There is a description of the functional possibilities of the historical corpus “Manuscript” comprising medieval Slavonic manuscripts of the 10th — 15th centuries (manuscripts.ru). The possibilities of the module of n-grams for revelation of grammatically and semantically set expressions characterizing the text subjects are demonstrated on the example of subcorpus of three Old Russian chronicles (Laurentian, Hypatian, Radzivilovsky). Statistic measures Mutual Information and T-score help to reveal the lists of relatively rare and more frequent set expressions. MI-lists include proper names, pair names, set biblical and Slavonic-bookish subordinating constructions. T-score lists give information on the events, goals, persons, outputs and their characteristics. A conclusion on the efficiency of application of statistic measures to automatic finding of the semantically and thematically important expressions in the historical sources is made.

Corpus-based approach to phraseology research: New evidence from parallel corpora

The present paper discusses the possibility of using parallel corpora in the study of phraseology. The results of the analysis support the assumption that the use of corpus data not only significantly improves cross-linguistic descriptions, but also changes the very idea of the specifics of phraseology as a subsystem of the lexicon. Parallel corpus data make it possible to identify the language-specific features of idioms that were traditionally considered completely equivalent. As the empirical bases, parallel subcorpora of the Russian National Corpus (RNC) are used: Russian-German and primarily German-Russian. In some cases, the material of the main corpus of the RNC is involved. In addition to the task of identifying similarities and differences between semantically similar idioms of German and Russian, the paper also addresses general issues, in particular the question of the boundaries of the concept of crosslinguistic equivalence and ways to operationalize it. At least two different types of equivalence have to be distinguished: equivalence at the level of the language system and equivalence at the text level. The proposed method includes a subsequent comparison of individual pairs of correlating idioms of different languages based on corpus data. It aims at identifying differences between them, including semantic, syntactic, pragmatic and combinatorial ones. The results of the performed analysis may find application in bilingual lexicography.

Towards the corpus revolution? Bridging the research–practice gap

AbstractAlthough there is a large and increasing body of research on the use of corpus data by language teachers and learners, the language teachers in question are also the researchers reporting on their use of corpora with their own learners. There is thus a gap, which this plenary speech addresses, between this research and the practice of language teachers who are not corpus linguists. After a brief account of the successful integration of corpus data in the production of language learning resources such as dictionaries, grammars and course books, the potential benefits of having direct access to corpora by teachers and learners are discussed. Following this, a number of publications on the use of corpora in the language classroom, both in higher education and at secondary level, are examined, focussing on how easy or difficult it would be for teachers to replicate the use of corpus data in their own classrooms. This leads to a final section where possible solutions to the research–practice gap are considered, involving language teacher education, publishers of course books, and research involving the use of corpora in the classroom by language teachers who are not also corpus linguists.

АКСІОЛОГЕМА «СМИРЕННЯ» У ГРЕЦЬКІЙ РАННЬОХРИСТИЯНСЬКІЙ ТА УКРАЇНСЬКІЙ ЛІНГВОКУЛЬТУРАХ: ДІАХРОНІЧНИЙ ВИМІР

The paper addresses the verbalization of the axiologeme of “humility” in Ukrainian linguoculture based on the Corpus of the Ukrainian language. The semantics of the “tokens of humility” in Early Christian literature and Ukrainian fi ction of the 19th and 20th centuries is analyzed in the comparative aspect. It is shown that the axiologeme of “humility” belongs to the central values of the early Christian axiosphere, being defi ned as obedience to God and diminishing one’s own value. The paper identifi es new evaluative connotations in the semantics of “tokens of humility” in Ukrainian language and describes the evolution of the axiologeme of “humility”. It is established that “tokens of humility” can acquire negative semantics in Ukrainian language (“complacency”, “weakness”, “insignifi cance”, “pity”, “despair”, “apathy”), as opposed to extremely positive connotations of Greek lexemes in the New Testament and Early Christian literature. As the study showed, the variability of the semantics and the palette of evaluative connotations of the “tokens of humility” can only be established through the use of corpus data in comparative and diachronic studies, as vocabulary data do not show the depth of semantic changes and do not allow for the identifi cation new contextual meanings.

Exploring Learner Language Through Corpora: Comparing and Interpreting Corpus Frequency Information

This article contributes to the debate about the appropriate use of corpus data in language learning research. It focuses on frequencies of linguistic features in language use and their comparison across corpora. The majority of corpus‐based second language acquisition studies employ a comparative design in which either one or more second language (L2) corpora are compared to a first language (L1) production corpus or two or more L2 corpora are compared to each other. This article critically examines some of the central tenets of the comparative method related to the interspeaker variation in L1 and L2 use, the representativeness and comparability of corpus data, the interpretation of difference found between corpora and the appropriate use of statistics. Using and discussing a set of five L1 spoken English corpora and three L2 English corpora (two spoken and one written), we approach these areas empirically exploring different sources of variations and methodological options that corpus‐based SLA studies offer.

Phraseographie

Multiword expressions – i.e. phraseological units – like idioms and collocations are one of the most interesting part of every language. In this article, I investigate phraseological units from a lexicographical point of view. I discuss the theoretical and methodological basis of phraseography as a discipline that includes aspects of lexicography, phraseology, corpus linguistics and theories of language learning. I demonstrate the importance of corpora as a source for the lexicographer and the use of corpus data. I also discuss the requirements for the lexicographical treatment of phraseological units by the compilation of a phraseological database for language learners in relation to their assumed needs that have already been described in detail.

Resumptive Pronouns in Polish co Relative Clauses

This paper discusses the problem of resumptive pronouns in Polish object relative clauses introduced by the relative marker co . It does so through the use of corpus data, thus contributing to previous literature, which has been largely based on introspection. In the literature, different accounts vary significantly as to the basic question of when the resumptive pronoun is expected. The present study addresses this matter by means of qualitative and quantitative analysis of conversational spoken Polish—the language variety in which co relatives typically occur. As is shown, the relatives are used in two broad configurations—unmarked (with null resumptives and inanimate referents) and marked (with overt resumptives and human referents). Both scenarios are linked to distinct strategies of case recovery. The presence of the pronoun itself is one such strategy. In contrast, the omission of the pronoun is often accompanied by case-matching effects that facilitate the omission. Another typical property of co relatives is their preference for encoding definiteness of referents, whereby ktory clauses tend to signal indefiniteness. This is evidenced by the frequent cooccurrence of co clauses with head-internal demonstratives. Interestingly, these head-internal demonstratives can also render resumptive pronouns unnecessary, thus constituting another factor relevant in resumption.

A corpus-aided approach for the teaching and learning of rhetoric in an undergraduate composition course for L2 writers

This paper illustrates a corpus-aided approach for the teaching and learning of rhetoric in an undergraduate writing course for second language writers. The twenty-one international students in the course read and analyzed texts produced by a local environmental group and an international mining company regarding a proposed copper mine in the U.S. southwest. The textual analysis was enhanced and supplemented by a series of activities using corpus data derived from collections of texts from the opposing groups. The contrastive analyses made possible through the study of texts and corpus data from the sharply distinct groups enabled students to notice, analyze, interpret, and discuss the meaningful and purposeful linguistic and rhetorical variation present in the texts, the corpus data, and the debate. This implementation of localized, specialized corpora comprised of texts with immediate relevance to the students' campus and community provides a means to incorporate corpus study in the writing classroom from a rhetorical perspective. This article details the principles guiding the design of the approach, explains the corpus-aided activities, reports students' attitudes to the use of corpus data in their academic writing classroom, and offers suggestions for implementing similar activities in L2 writing classrooms.

Modality of Lexicographic Discourse in Dictionaries of Usage

Dictionaries are increasingly making use of corpus data or, at least, of secondary sources based on them. This has brought about a revision of the concept of the standard of usage and changes in modality of lexicographic discourse, first in general-purpose explanatory dictionaries and later in dictionaries of usage. The paper analyses Oxford Fowler’s Modern English Usage, registering the markers of frequency in its entries expressing modal meanings other than “statement of fact” for epistemic modality and modal markers expressing deontic modal meanings, taking into account high and low modality in both types. The findings have revealed that the balance is decidedly in favour of epistemic modality, while in both types of modality it is in favour of low modality markers. The data show that some epistemic markers of frequency referring to high probability or likelihood of occurrence have functions opposite to those in academic discourse beyond lexicography, where they are used primarily as hedges. This allows us to conclude that genre (or type of discourse) and context are the decisive factors in establishing the meanings and functions of modality markers.

Language teachers with corpora in mind: from starting steps to walking tall

Although the use of corpus data in language learning is a steadily growing research area, direct access to corpora by teachers and learners and the use of the data in the classroom are developing slowly. This paper explores how teachers can integrate corpus approaches in their practice. After situating the topic in relation to current research and practice in ICT and language learning, we examine some easily available resources, suggesting how they can provide examples of naturally occurring discourse for use in the language classroom. Beginning with easily available online corpus resources with built-in concordancers which require no prior technical training, we continue by discussing the challenges which more advanced use of corpora presents. This is illustrated by examples from corpora of business communication and casual conversation. We conclude by emphasising that there is considerable scope for both research and dissemination in relation to corpus applications in language learning.

Cognitive Corpus Linguistics: five points of debate on current theory and methodology

Within cognitive linguistics, there is an increasing awareness that the study of linguistic phenomena needs to be grounded in usage. Ideally, research in cognitive linguistics should be based on authentic language use, its results should be replicable, and its claims falsifiable. Consequently, more and more studies now turn to corpora as a source of data. While corpus-based methodologies have increased in sophistication, the use of corpus data is also associated with a number of unresolved problems. The study of cognition through off-line linguistic data is, arguably, indirect, even if such data fulfils desirable qualities such as being natural, representative and plentiful. Several topics in this context stand out as particularly pressing issues. This discussion note addresses (1) converging evidence from corpora and experimentation, (2) whether corpora mirror psychological reality, (3) the theoretical value of corpus linguistic studies of ‘alternations’, (4) the relation of corpus linguistics and grammaticality judgments, and, lastly, (5) the nature of explanations in cognitive corpus linguistics. We do not claim to resolve these issues nor to cover all possible angles; instead, we strongly encourage reactions and further discussion.

The Cantonese double object construction with bei2 ‘give’ in bilingual children: The role of input

This article examines the role of input in bilingual children’s acquisition of the Cantonese double object construction with bei2 ‘give’ from a usage-based perspective (Tomasello, 2003; Lieven & Tomasello, 2008). In this domain of grammar, bilingual Cantonese—English children use the non-target [ bei2-Recipient-Theme] order more frequently and for a more protracted duration than their monolingual counterparts (Yip & Matthews, 2007). We make use of corpus data to analyze the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the input that these bilingual children receive, and discuss three input factors to account for such vulnerability in bilingual children. First, the findings substantiate the idea that a bilingual child hearing fewer hours of Cantonese when compared to his or her monolingual age peers is likely to be exposed to fewer tokens of the target construction. Second, the findings indicate that the mapping between word order and thematic roles is not consistent in the Cantonese input, and as such is not conducive to learning for either bilingual or monolingual children. Third, simultaneous experience with the largely invariant [ give-Recipient-Theme] forms from the English input overlaps with and therefore entrenches the developmental errors in Cantonese. These three input factors conspire to make this grammatical domain in Cantonese particularly vulnerable in bilingual children.

Framing Terminology: A Process-Oriented Approach1

The frame notion used in Frame Semantics can be traced to case frames, which were said to characterize a small abstract situation in such a way that if one wished to understand the semantic structure of a verb it was necessary to understand the properties of the entire scene that it activated. A frame has been more broadly defined as any system of concepts related in such a way that one concept evokes the entire system. In this sense, it bears an obvious affinity with terminology, which is also based on such conceptual organization. However, despite the fact that Frame Semantics has been usefully applied to lexicology and syntax, so far it has not been systematically applied to terminology. This paper argues for a frame-based organization of specialized fields in which a dynamic process-oriented frame provides the conceptual underpinnings for the location of sub-hierarchies of concepts within a specialized domain event, and the elaboration of a definition template, thus opening the door to a more adequate representation of specialized fields as well as supplying a better way of linking terms to concepts. The domain of coastal engineering is used as an example because the entities in play take part in processes that are difficult to describe only by means of conceptual trees. Through the use of corpus data we demonstrate how it is possible to represent such an event and create a dynamic frame which enriches and enhances the understanding of specialized field concepts.

Response to Newmeyer's 'Grammar is Grammar and Usage is Usage'

In an article in a recent issue of Language (Newmeyer 2003), Frederick Newmeyer argues for a clear separation between what he terms 'knowledge of language [i.e. grammar] and use of language [i.e. pragmatics]' (682). In developing his argument, N makes frequent reference to linguistic analyses that are corpus-based, that is, centered on information taken from large datasets of actual speech or writing (e.g. transcriptions of conversations, newspaper articles, novels). In N's view, grammar is distinct from pragmatics, and because a corpus contains examples of actual language use drawn from a large community of speakers and writers, it can yield only performance data. As a result, N argues, 'there is no way that one can draw conclusions about the grammar of an individual from usage facts about communities, particularly communities from which the individual receives no speech input' (696). Implicit in this argument, however, is the view that the traditional way of collecting linguistic data-introspection-somehow gives us insights into the competence of the native speaker that corpus data cannot. The real issue, we argue, is not which kind of data gets us closer to the native speaker's competence, a goal that we believe is largely unobtainable, but rather how linguists can best collect data relevant to the linguistic analyses they are conducting. There is considerable evidence that a corpus can enrich our understanding of language and, in many cases, provide linguists with examples they would have never considered had they relied only on data obtained through introspection. To support this view, it is worth reviewing N's critique of Manning's (2003) use of corpus data to challenge Pollard and Sag's (1994) analysis of verb subcategorization in English. Manning (2003:299) notes that Pollard and Sag claim that the verb regard can be followed by as-complements (1) but not by predicative to-complements (2). (1) We regard Kim as an acceptable candidate. (2) *We regard Kim to be an acceptable candidate. However, in an analysis of texts in the New York Times, Manning (2003:300) found examples such as 3, where regard can take a to-complement.

A Corpus-Based Study of Idioms in Academic Speech

A mastery of idioms is often equated with native speaker fluency (Fernando, 1996; Schmitt, 2000; Wray, 2000), but it is difficult for language teachers and material writers to make principled decisions about which idioms should be taught, given the vast inventory of idioms in a native speaker’s repertoire. This article addresses the advantages and limitations of a corpus-based approach to researching and teaching idioms in a specific genre by drawing on a specialized corpus of 1.7 million words of academic discourse, the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English. We argue that evidence from such a corpus can be quite informative for language teachers when the primary target language domain matches that of the corpus. In terms of pedagogical applications, we demonstrate the use of corpus data to construct teaching materials aimed not only at helping students learn unfamiliar idioms but also at raising their awareness of the speech contexts idioms occur in and the discourse functions they perform.