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Corpus Linguistics (LING30015)

Undergraduate level 3Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)

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Overview

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Semester 2
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Corpus Linguistics is the computational analysis of real-life language use, drawing on databases of written, spoken or signed language. Corpus data reveals patterns in language that go beyond the standard assumptions of linguistic theory, and it is corpus data that forms the foundation of language technologies such as Google and AI. Students in this course will engage in hands-on workshops, learning how to use custom corpus software, as well as basic Python coding, to discover patterns in language. They will also be guided into the theoretical underpinnings of corpus linguistics – how it reflects the cognitive processing of language, and how it relates to theories of grammatical structure. This course does not assume any previous technical skills, but students must be ready to learn computational tools for exploring corpus data. Assessment will involve data exploration, presenting and discussing analyses, and written work.

Intended learning outcomes

On completion of this subject, students should be able to:

  • Learn how to use corpus software (e.g. AntConc) to analyse patterns in language data
  • Compare corpora of different languages to gain skills in flexible analysis of diverse grammatical patterns
  • Investigate diachronic corpora to trace paths of language change
  • Present analyses in a workshop setting and discuss others' analyses
  • Develop new corpus data, including databases for under-documented languages
  • Understand basic quantitative and statistical tools (e.g. using R Studio/Posit) for the analysis corpus data
  • Produce written work that interprets corpus analysis and relates it to questions of linguistic theory
  • Run and modify Python scripts to analyse corpus data

Generic skills

  • Discover patterns in digital records
  • Navigate diverse languages
  • Trace the paths of language change in the historical record
  • Develop their own language data
  • Connect linguistic theory with information technology

Last updated: 8 November 2024