English corpus linguistics: Methods and applications

Language

English

Main themes

The course introduces the main tenets of corpus linguistics from the perspective of the study of English. It deals with the tools and methods used to compile and analyse English spoken or written corpora, as well as the possible applications of English corpus linguistics. 
It covers the following topics:  

• definition and typology of  corpora: spoken and written; monolingual and multilingual; native and learner; diachronic and synchronic; etc. 
• evolution of corpora and major English corpora: BNC, COCA, ICLE, LINDSEI, etc. 
• corpus compilation: data collection, markup, annotation 
• corpus techniques: concordances, frequency lists, collocations, n-grams, etc. 
• corpus approaches (corpus-based/corpus-driven, qualitative/quantitative) and research domains (lexis, grammar, discourse, etc.) 
• applications: English as a foreign language learning and teaching, corpus stylistics, forensic linguistics, etc.  

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	Master the English terminology and the concepts introduced in class.
2	Use certain tools and techniques to analyse spoken and written English corpus data
3	Apply the acquired knowledge to different fields and domains of English language studies
4	Read scientific literature in corpus linguistics applied to English
This learning unit contributes to the development and command of the following skills and learning outcomes of the ELAL programmes (ELAL learning outcomes): 1.1, 1.4, 2.1, 2.6, 3.1, 4.5, 5.2, 5.3, 6.1

Content

The course provides a theoretical and practical introduction to corpus linguistics. It presents the main concepts related to corpus linguistics, as well as some of its possible applications in different fields.

Teaching methods

Lectures relying partly on required readings that the students are expected to do before class and that will lead to discussions (in class and/or online) in which the students should be ready to participate fully. Several assignments will be organized to familiarize students with text handling software tools.

Evaluation methods

In this course, students are assessed by means of a written exam taking place in the January and/or August/September session.
As we are aiming to train language specialists, particular attention will be paid to language accuracy in the assignments and exams related to the course. For the same reason, the use of generative artificial intelligence is not allowed for any parts of the evaluation. Their use by the student will be considered as cheating.

Online resources

Moodle

Teaching materials

• Documents PowerPoint sur Moodle
• Notes de cours de l'étudiant·e
• Portefeuille de lectures

Faculty or entity

> ELAL