NB: Unfortunately the electronic course enrolment system does not allow us to run long enrolment periods. Thus, we have had to fool around with it a bit. The enrolment period for seminars will be from 9th May to 28th August, however, the system will at first indicate it as 9th May to 30th May. The enrolment period will be manually extended to 28th August at the end of May.

As a side effect of the aforementioned fooling around the start date for teaching will initially be displayed for June, however, teaching starts in January as it usually does for courses starting in period III.

Another side effet is that if you enrol after the initial 9.5.-30.5. enrolment period you will need to first enrol into the university for 2014-2015.

We apologize for any confusion caused by this arrangement.

Description for Professor Rudanko's seminar (group 1)

Corpus-based studies of variation and change in recent English

In recent years the advent of large electronic corpora has opened up new and exciting opportunities for the study of constructions selected by verbs, adjectives, and nouns in recent English. The course is designed to help participants to write a BA thesis in this area. The emphasis is on projects for which it is easy to collect data from suitable electronic corpora, and especially on constructions in which verbs or adjectives select different dependents. (Notice, for example, the verb remember, which permits I remembered to lock the door and I remembered locking the door, among other constructions.) English is rich in such variation, and there is also a surprisingly large amount of change in this area in recent English. For their BA thesis projects, participants will investigate the variation or change in the case of a suitable verb or adjective, with the help of authentic data from an appropriate electronic corpus, or from appropriate electronic corpora, of recent and/or current English. The OED is likely to be an important resource for each project.
    The course includes classroom instruction and some readings so that participants will have the necessary background for writing a thesis in the area of the seminar. The teacher will help each participant to find a project that is suitable for a BA thesis, perhaps one that can later be developed into an MA thesis. The teacher will also help each participant with data collection, to make sure that everyone will be able to have an appropriate amount of data for a BA thesis.
    To apply for a place, please act as instructed. If I can be of help, my email address is: juhani.rudanko@uta.fi.

    Juhani Rudanko