Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use / Edition 1

by Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, Randi Reppen

Overview

This book is about investigating the way people use language in speech and writing. It introduces the corpus-based approach to the study of language, based on analysis of large databases of real language examples and illustrates exciting new findings about language and the different ways that people speak and write. The book is important both for its step-by-step descriptions of research methods and for its findings about grammar and vocabulary, language use, language learning, and differences in language use across texts and user groups.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521499576
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/23/1998
Series:	Cambridge Approaches to Linguistics
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.83(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Introduction: goals and methods of the corpus-based approach; Part I. Investigating the Use of Language Features: 2. Lexicography; 3. Grammar; 4. Lexico-grammar; 5. The study of discourse characteristics; Part II. Investigating the Characteristics of Varieties: 6. Register variation and English for specific purposes; 7. Language acquisition and development; 8. Historical and stylistic investigations; Part III. Summing Up and Looking Ahead: 9. Conclusion; Part IV. Methodology Boxes: 10. Issues in corpus design; 11. Issues in diachronic corpus design; 12. Concordancing packages versus programming for corpus analysis; 13. Characteristics of tagged corpora; 14. The process of tagging; 15. Norming frequency counts; 16. Statistical measures of lexical associations; 17. The unit of analysis in corpus-based studies; 18. Significance tests and the reporting of statistics; 19. Factor loadings and dimension scores; Appendix: commercially available corpora and analytical tools; References; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"This book could be used as part of the curriculum for an introductory corpus linguistics class, especially for students with a humanities background." Vasileios Hatzivassiloglou, Computational Linguistics

From the Publisher