The authors explain how to use large language corpora in explanatory learning and English languages teaching and research. They focus on the largest corpus of spoken and written data compiled (the BNC) and on the search tool SARA.

The Handbook of English Linguistics is a collection ofarticles written by leading specialists on all core areas ofEnglish linguistics that provides a state-of-the-art account ofresearch in the field. Brings together articles from the core areas of Englishlinguistics, including syntax, phonetics, phonology, morphology, aswell as variation, discourse, stylistics and usage Written by specialists from around the world Provides an introduction to a key area of English Linguisticsand includes a discussion of the most recent theoretical anddescriptive research, as well as extensive bibliographicreferences

The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics (CHECL) surveys the breadth of corpus-based linguistic research on English, including chapters on collocations, phraseology, grammatical variation, historical change, and the description of registers and dialects. The most innovative aspects of the CHECL are its emphasis on critical discussion, its explicit evaluation of the state of the art in each sub-discipline, and the inclusion of empirical case studies. While each chapter includes a broad survey of previous research, the primary focus is on a detailed description of the most important corpus-based studies in this area, with discussion of what those studies found, and why they are important. Each chapter also includes a critical discussion of the corpus-based methods employed for research in this area, as well as an explicit summary of new findings and discoveries.

A linguistic corpus is a collection of texts which have been selected and brought together so that language can be studied on the computer. Today, corpus linguistics offers some of the most powerful new procedures for the analysis of language, and the impact of this dynamic and expanding sub-discipline is making itself felt in many areas of language study. In this volume, a selection of leading experts in various key areas of corpus construction offer advice in a readable and largely non-technical style to help the reader to ensure that their corpus is well designed and fit for the intended purpose. This guide is aimed at those who are at some stage of building a linguistic corpus. Little or no knowledge of corpus linguistics or computational procedures is assumed, although it is hoped that more advanced users will find the guidelines here useful. It is also aimed at those who are not building a corpus, but who need to know something about the issues involved in the design of corpora in order to choose between available resources and to help draw conclusions from their studies.

This book presents a richly illustrated, hands-on discussion of one of the fastest growing fields in linguistics today. The authors address key methodological issues in corpus linguistics, such as collocations, keywords and the categorization of concordance lines. They show how these topics can be explored step-by-step with BNCweb, a user-friendly web-based tool that supports sophisticated analyses of the 100-million-word British National Corpus. Indeed, the BNC and BNCweb have been described by Geoffrey Leech as «an unparalleled combination of facilities for finding out about the English language of the present day» (Foreword). The book contains tasks and exercises, and is suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates and experienced corpus users alike.

A lively hands-on introduction to the use ofelectronic corpora in the description and analysis of English, this bookprovides an ideal introduction for university students of English at theintermediate level. Students planning papers, dissertations or theses willfind the book a particularly valuable guide.After introducing corpora andthe rationale and basic methodology of corpus linguistics, the authorpresents a number of case studies providing new insights into vocabulary,collocations, phraseology, metaphor and metonymy, syntactic structures, maleand female language, and language change. In a final chapter it is shown howthe web can be used as a source for linguistic investigations. Each chapterhas study questions, exercises and suggestions for further reading.Studentswill benefit from the book's*Clear language and structure *Well-definedterminology *Step-by-step instructions *Generous, up-to-date exemplificationfrom different varieties of English around the world *Accompanying web-pagewith exercises and updated information about freely accessiblecorpora.

Specialised linguistic research needs can no longer be met by available software. This book enables the researcher to write programs for text and corpus processing, using the popular and easy to learn Java language.