Corpora Linguistics

Corpus linguistics

Corpus

The word corpus (pl. corpora or corpuses) is the Latin term for "body", hence according to McEnery and Wilson "any collection of more than one text can be called a corpus... a corpus can be defined as any body of text".

Introduction

Corpus linguistics has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent years. It has become an increasingly prevalent methodology in many linguistics, in spite of the unpopularity of the approach in the 1960s and 1970s. From being a marginalized approach used largely in English linguistics, and more specifically in studies of English grammar, corpus linguistics has started to widen its scope. Corpus linguistics is also increasingly multilingual with many languages and many varieties of those languages being studied with the help of corpus data.

What is corpus linguistics?

Corpus linguistics is perhaps best described in simple terms as "the study of language on examples of 'real life' language use".

Is corpus linguistics a branch of linguistics?

The answer is yes and no. This question is at the centre of many debates. Among those who consider it a branch of linguistics there is Halliday, he states: "I see corpus activities of data gathering and processing which inevitably lead to qualitative changes in the understanding of language".

Corpus as a branch of linguistics

For this reason it should be considered as an independent branch of linguistics, "a new research enterprise and a new philosophical approach to linguistic enquiry" (Tognini-Bonelli 2001).

Opposite view/corpus as a methodology

Scholars of the opposite view consider CL simply as a "methodology" (and not an aspect of language requiring explanation of description). Corpus linguistics represent a new approach to the use of empirical data which is functional and applicable to (just about) every field of linguistics, for example, lexicography, applied linguistics, critical discourse analysis, stylistics and studies in language variation.

Early corpus linguistics

It is a term used to describe linguistics before the advent of Chomsky. The dominant methodological approach to linguistics immediately prior to Chomsky was based on observed language use. This term describes all linguistics before Chomsky and links it to the fundamental principle of corpus linguistics to which it has affinity. Some argue that new linguists who worked before Chomsky were interested in gathering and studying huge corpora.

Corpus linguistics

Corpus

The word corpus (pl. corpora or corpuses) is the Latin term for "body", hence according to McEnery and Wilson "any collection of more than one text can be called a corpus... a corpus can be defined as any body of text".

Introduction

Corpus linguistics has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent years. It has become an increasingly prevalent methodology in many linguistics, in spite of the unpopularity of the approach in the 1960s and 1970s. From being a marginalized approach used largely in English linguistics, and more specifically in studies of English grammar, corpus linguistics has started to widen its scope. Corpus linguistics is also increasingly multilingual, with many languages and many varieties of those languages, being studied with the help of corpus data.

What is corpus linguistics?

Corpus linguistics is perhaps best described in simple terms as "the study of language on examples of 'real life' language use".

Is corpus linguistics a branch of linguistics?

The answer is yes and no. This question is at the centre of many debates. Among those who consider it a branch of linguistics there is Halliday. He states: "all core activities of data gathering and processing which inevitably lead to qualitative changes in the understanding of language".

Corpus as a branch of linguistics

For this reason it should be considered as an independent branch of linguistics, a "new research enterprise and a new philosophical approach to linguistic enquiry" (Tognini-Bonelli 2001).

Opposite view/corpus as a methodology

Scholars of the opposite view consider CL simply as a "methodology" (and not an aspect of language requiring explanation or description). Corpus linguistics represents a new approach to the use of empirical data which is functional and applicable to (just about) every field of linguistics, for example, lexicography, applied linguistics, critical discourse analysis, stylistics and studies in language variation.

Early corpus linguistics

It is a term used to describe linguistics before the advent of Chomsky. The dominant methodological approach to linguistics immediately prior to Chomsky was based on observed languages in use. This term describes all linguistics before Chomsky and links it to the development of corpus linguistics to which it has affinity. Researchers argue that linguists who worked before Chomsky were interested in gathering and studying corpus data.