We're going to
learn how to use the internet for language research. You will be
working in groups, so there is some resposibility involved. You
can use these research techniques for the rest of your life.
We will be using an English language corpus ( a
big data-bank of language. )
to find out things about language. You can find out things that are not
even in the dictionary or reference books. Much of what can be
discovered is about collocations.
A collocation is a word or phrase often used with another word in a way
that sounds natural. For example: take
a bath. Why do we say 'take'? It's a collocation.
Here's the project:
1) Research a language item.
2) Make a presentation of your findings.
3) Create an exercise sheet for your classmates.
4) Submit some problems for the
test ( from the exercises is OK )
The first step involves analyzing language. After that, we will
present our findings and then we will make some worksheets for the
rest of the class. I will use these worksheets to make the final exam.
Concordancer (corpus)
sites: Collins (this
one's best, I think.) VLC HTT
This
site explains the terms 'frequency', 'joint frequency', 'mutual
information', and 'T-score'.
(It's kind of difficult to
understand, but basically 'T-score'
is the most reliable. If
both 'mutual information' and 'T-score' are high, it is definitely a
collocate.)
Time Table
|
|
2/17
|
Research and worksheet creation
|
2/21
|
Research and worksheet creation
|
2/24
|
Presentations
|
2/28
|
Presentations
|
Some problems I
noticed on 2/14:
1) Some people
are writing their own sentences for the worksheets. No! The idea of
using a corpus is to find AUTHENTIC USE! Please use sentences from the
corpus, or other authentic source.
2) Some people
are planning to use dictionary defintitions for their presentation.
Well, ok... But No! Please use the corpus to find COLLOCATIONS that aren't in the dictionary.
Remember,
by using the corpus we are going from DATA to THEORY, not from RULES to
LANGUAGE
First of all, we need to choose a research topic. Please choose
from one of these.
The usages of the word 'fact'.
The usages of the word 'that'.
The usages of the word 'would'.
The usages of the word 'be + case'.
The usages of the word 'suggest'.
The usages of the phrase 'such as'.
The usages of the word 'example'.
Compare the usages of 'day by day' vs.
'day after day'.
Compare the usages of 'persuade' vs.
'convince'.
Compare the usages of 'high' vs.
'tall'.
Compare the usages of 'imply' vs.
'infer'.
Nouns to the right of 'in'.
