Lancaster University

Aims and objectives:

In this module, you will gain an in-depth understanding of corpus linguistics, as applied to a range of contemporary issues in English Language Studies; this is outlined in detail below. In addition, you will learn to:

• use current state-of-the-art tools for corpus annotation and corpus based analysis;
• use corpus data to track changes in English temporally, geographically and socially;
• apply, and understand the limitations of, a range of models of textual variation;
• understand the social contexts of textual variation; 
• design, implement and report on large-scale research tasks;
• develop analyses incorporating large sets of diverse, abstract data. 

This course focuses on the contemporary field of English Language Studies. In particular, we will be looking at how the methodology of Corpus Linguistics (a research specialism at Lancaster University for many years) has been used to shed light on a number of topics that  you may already be familiar with, including text-type, genre, and register variation; attitudes towards language use; and World Englishes.  The module will explore how corpus-based research is done, and survey the broad range of areas in EL Studies that corpus linguistics can be applied to.  You will also get hands-on experience of investigating the English language with corpora.

The content of the course will vary over the year.  At the start of the module, there will be lectures that introduce aspects of corpus linguistics.  Later, we will move on to look at the idea of a "text-type", looking at how research has been done in this field, and what has been learned about the ways that English is used in different genres and for different purposes as a result.  The third part of the course addresses issues of how social change over the last few decades may be related to change (or lack of change!) in the linguistic features of English: for example, how has the increasing informality of Western society affected English grammar?  What social attitudes have been involved in attempts to regulate English and force our usage to change (or to not change)?  Finally, the fourth part of the course will look at how English has changed as it has become a world language ? the establishment of new national varieties, and the effect of globalisation and the rise of English as a Second Language in many countries.

While the issues we look at are very varied, we will use the methods of corpus linguistics as a way in to all these topics: every lecture will be followed by a hands-on seminar where you will investigate the issues yourself, using state-of-the-art research tools and a plethora of different sets of textual data.

In summary, the course will look at:

• The basic theory and practice of the corpus linguistics method for research
• Lexical, semantic and grammatical variation across text-types, and social / functional explanations for this variation
• The effect of English's status as a world language on its speakers and the way in which it is spoken
• The major processes of current linguistic change in English (genre shift over time, colloquialisation, Americanisation, etc).

BLOCK ONE - CORPUS LINGUISTICS METHODOLOGY 

• Intro to corpus analysis techniques
• An overview of English corpora:  issues in corpus construction
• Corpus annotation - what is it good for?
• The linguistics of the lexicon - collocation and semantic prosody  

BLOCK TWO - TEXT-TYPES AND VARIATION IN ENGLISH 

• Text-type variation:  the Biber approach
• Text-types in focus (1):  the language of comics
• Text-types in focus (2):  the language of fictional style
• Beyond parts-of-speech:  parsing and the grammar of speech and writing
• Corpus methods in the study of regional variation

BLOCK THREE - CHANGE AND STASIS IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH  

• Informalisation:  the changing shape of English speech
• Recent change in written English
• Language regulation
• Swearing and "bad language"
• Studying new discourses:  the role of corpus evidence  

 BLOCK FOUR - WORLD ENGLISHES 

• Globalisation and American/Australian English
• Globalisation and L2 Englishes
• English language teaching and the use of corpus methods

• undertake analysis that links quantitative and qualitative modes of thinking
• critically evaluate the details of a methodology and understand the limitations it places on the interpretation of evidence
• understand the role of statistics and statistical significance in social science research.
• grasp the contribution made by particular language usages to particular types of generic text.

Aijmer, K. and Altenburg, B (1991) English Corpus Linguistics. London: Longman.

Baker, P. (2006) Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum.

Biber, D. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: Cambridge

            University Press.

Biber, D. Conrad, S. & Reppen, R. (1998) Corpus Linguistics: Investigating

            LanguageStructure and Use. Cambridge University Press.

Biber, D, Johansson, S. Leech, G. Conrad, S & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman

            Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.

Hoffmann, S, et al. (2008) Corpus Linguistics with BNCweb. Peter Lang.

Hunston, S (2002) Corpora in applied linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University

            Press.

Kachru, B., Kachru, Y. & Nelson, C. (eds.) (2006). The Handbook of World     Englishes. Oxford: Blackwell.

Kennedy, G. (1998) An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics. London: Longman.

McEnery, T. & Wilson, A. (1996) Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh University Press.

McEnery, T & Hardie, A. (2012) Corpus Linguistics: Method, Theory and Practice.    Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Meyer, C. (2002) English Corpus Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive

            Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.

Sampson, G and McCarthy, D (eds.) (2004) Corpus linguistics: readings in a

            widening discipline. London and New York: Continuum International.

Tottie, G. (2002). An Introduction to American English.  Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.