Annotation
The students will be acquainted with the use of corpora and corpus linguistics methods in three areas: designing and preparing teaching materials based on authentic language data; using language corpora in class; exploration of learner language using learner corpora and corpus-assisted methods. During the seminar the students will work with open access corpora of present-day English (e.g., BNC, BASE, BAWE), they will learn how to formulate queries to search for specific language phenomena, and how to interpret the results. They will also have a chance to build their own corpus and work with it. There will be hands-on activities aimed at using corpora both for designing English language exercises and in class. The main focus is on students' individual activities, during the seminar as well as working on their own project. Main topics:
1. Corpus linguistics as a method: available corpora and tools, interpreting the data, linguistic implications.
2. Corpora as a tool for teachers: using corpora in designing and preparing teaching materials (frequency lists, collocations, etc.).
3. Building and exploring one's own corpora: learner corpora, keywords, exploring learner language.
4. Using corpora in class: the selection/creation of a suitable corpus, exercises drawing on corpus data (collocation, colligation, lexico-grammatical patterns).