Corpus linguistics is one of the main methodologies in present day linguistic research. By using corpora, or large collections of computer-readable texts, we can analyse vast amounts of data quickly and efficiently, and reach well-informed and empirically based judgments about the linguistic features that interest us. This methodology course will provide you with the tools you’ll need to use corpus linguistic methods in your MA thesis and in your other linguistic work. Although the course requires no prior knowledge of corpus linguistics, we will proceed at a relatively quick pace so basic IT skills will be necessary. Topics to be discussed include the theory and history of corpus linguistics, the principles of corpus compiling, surveys of available corpora, principles and practices of corpus annotation, various methods of retrieval and data management, and basic statistical methods.
Course work will be practically oriented and task-based, with some background reading, plenty of group work, oral presentations and a final research paper.