Online Corpus Literacy Teachers’ Best Friend
- SlideShare title: Online corpus: Literacy teachers' best friend
- Talk date: Not established
- SlideShare upload: 2011-07-01 (upload date, not the delivery date)
- Event: Not established
- Place: Not established
- Topics: Language & meaning
- Language: en
- Slides in the original listing: 65
- Coverage: Full text of all 65 slides, each paired with its original slide image (slide N is section N).
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Associated online-corpus recording; the presentation version is unconfirmed.
Slide 1: Online Corpus Literacy Teachers’ Best Friend
Online Corpus Literacy Teachers’ Best Friend
training.dyslexiaaction.org.uk
Dominik Lukeš
Dyslexia Guild
Summer Conference 2011
Slide 2: Outline
Outline
- What is a corpus
- Answering questions with a corpus
- The language of corpus searches
- The corpus and the classroom
- Practice

Slide 3: Corpus / Corpora
Corpus / Corpora
????
Slide 4: of about
of about
knowledge

language
Slide 5: Prescriptivism
Prescriptivism
… how language should be used
v
… how language is used
Descriptivism
Slide 6: Slide 6

“Most of the prescriptive rules of the language mavens make no sense on any level. They are bits of folklore that originated for screwball reasons several hundred years ago… For as long as they have existed, speakers have flouted them…”
— Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct
Slide 7: Slide 7
Grammarian Geoffrey K Pullum on …
- Politics and the English Language, George Orwell (cover shown):
- “dishonest and stupid”
- “More passives in Orwell's pompous essay with the warning about how you mustn't use them than in any periodical you can lay your hands on! “
- The Elements of Style, Strunk and White (cover shown):
- “vile little compendium of tripe about style”
- Strictly English, Simon Heffer (cover shown):
- “intellectual abdication”
- “should be ashamed”
- “current around 1900”
- “a perversion of grammatical education”
- “blind to textual evidence even when he himself exhibits it”

Slide 8: Slide 8
This usage stuff is not straightforward and easy. If ever someone tells you that the rules of English grammar are simple and logical and you should just learn them and obey them, walk away, because you're getting advice from a fool.

Slide 9: Corpus
Corpus
Key modern tool for finding out about how language works…
Slide 10: Corpus
Corpus
… is a large database of representative language samples …
Slide 11: Corpus
Corpus
… 100s of millions of words from (mostly) written language in different genres in small samples (~2000 words) …
Slide 12: Corpus
Corpus
… used for linguistic research, making dictionaries, writing grammars, …
Slide 13: Slide 13



Slide 14: Corpora available for teachers
Corpora available for teachers

Slide 15: Access to COCA and related BYU corpora is free…
Access to COCA and related BYU corpora is free…

…but free registration required for more than ~10 queries a day
Slide 16: Slide 16

Slide 17: Slide 17

Slide 18: Slide 18

Slide 19: Slide 19

Slide 20: Slide 20

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atoach/3900591006/
Searching a corpus early on in the process of making a generalization can save you a lot of unpleasant surprises later.
Slide 21: How do we use the word dyslexia?
How do we use the word dyslexia?
We speak more often of dyslexic children than adults.
We speak more often of dyslexia than any other dys- word.
Slide 22: Concordance
Concordance
BNC: dyslexic [n*]

- DYSLEXIC CHILDREN 20
- DYSLEXIC CHILD 6
- DYSLEXIC PERSON 4
- DYSLEXIC BOY 3
- DYSLEXIC PEOPLE 3
- DYSLEXIC PUPILS 3
- DYSLEXIC YOUNGSTERS 1
- DYSLEXIC UNIT 1
- DYSLEXIC SON 1
COCA: dyslexic [n*]

- DYSLEXIC CHILDREN 15
- DYSLEXIC STUDENTS 14
- DYSLEXIC KIDS 5
- DYSLEXIC POPULATION 4
- DYSLEXIC RESEARCH 3
- DYSLEXIC PIANIST 2
- DYSLEXIC TREATMENT 2
- DYSLEXIC READERS 2
- DYSLEXIC WRITERS 2
Slide 23: Slide 23

COCA: dys*

Slide 24: Suffixing rules
Suffixing rules
*yed

*ied

Slide 25: Suffixing rules
Suffixing rules
*yed
- played
- stayed
- portrayed
- enjoyed
- unemployed
- surveyed
*ied
- died
- tried
- married
- worried
- identified
- applied
Slide 26: The Corpus Magic
The Corpus Magic
*[ ]?[n* ]
Different corpora use slightly different codes. Read the manual.
Slide 27: The Corpus Magic
The Corpus Magic
*Any number of characters (incl 0)?Any one character[ ]Lemma (all inflectional forms of a word)[n* ]Part of speech tags (e.g. nouns)
Different corpora use slightly different codes. Read the manual.
Slide 28: Slide 28
*
*each | each, reach, beach, teach, outreach, …, impeach, … |
teach* | teachers, teaching, …, teachable, teacher-librarians, … |
t*ch | touch, teach, tech, torch, trench, twitch, …, three-inch, … |
teach * | teach the, teach us, teach students, … |
Slide 29: Slide 29
?
?each | reach, beach, teach, peach, leach, keach, … |
each? | each- (1), each# (1) [ie nothing] |
?each? | peachy, bleachy, teacha, reachs (2) [ie spelling error], … |
t?ch | tech, tach, toch, tuch, tsch, tich |
t??ch | touch, teach, torch, tisch, … |
Slide 30: [Lemma]
[Lemma]


Slide 31: Part of speech tags
Part of speech tags
[run].[n*]

[run] [n*]

Slide 32: Common tags
Common tags
[n*] noun
[NN2] plural nouns
[v*] verb
[VVD] verb past tense
[aj*] (BNC) / [j*] (COCA) adjective
[av*] (BNC) / [r*] (COCA) adverbSlide 33: Help
Help

Slide 34: Slide 34

Slide 35: Slide 35

Slide 36: You can also
You can also
cats and dogs search for idioms
?each*s combine wildcards
[=pretty] search for synonyms
car|bike|horse search for alternatives
used -car exclude searchesFor more details see:

Slide 37: Concordance + KWIC
Concordance + KWIC
*ies.[N*]
Slide 38: KWIC – Key-Word In Context
KWIC – Key-Word In Context
*ies.[N*]
Slide 39: Limit searches by genre
Limit searches by genre

Slide 40: Other questions corpus can answer
Other questions corpus can answer
Are there more nouns or verbs ending in -ies?
*ies.[V*] vs. *ies.[N*]Are there four-letter verbs ending in -ed in the present tense?
??ed.[VVB]What are the most common adjectives describing students vs. pupils.
[j*] [student] vs. [j*] [pupil]What do we say teachers do most often?
[teacher] [vvb]Slide 41: Corpus, rules, and regularity
Corpus, rules, and regularity
pre*
*ed
*ies.[V*]
Slide 42: Collocations: Limits on variability
Collocations: Limits on variability

See also Kennedy, p. 80-23
Slide 43: Collocations (cont): Limits on variability
Collocations (cont): Limits on variability
See also Kennedy, p. 80-23

Slide 44: Collocations (cont)
Collocations (cont)
[teacher] must [v*]

- TEACHERS MUST BE 144
- TEACHER MUST BE 53
- TEACHERS MUST HAVE 29
- TEACHERS MUST LEARN 18
- TEACHERS MUST BECOME 16
- TEACHER MUST HAVE 12
- TEACHERS MUST PROVIDE 10
- TEACHERS MUST TAKE 10
- TEACHERS MUST UNDERSTAND 10
- TEACHERS MUST MAKE 9
- TEACHERS MUST REALIZE 8
- TEACHER MUST DETERMINE 7
- TEACHERS MUST HELP 7
- TEACHERS MUST KNOW 7
- TEACHERS MUST USE 7
- TEACHERS MUST WORK 7
Slide 45: Idioms and set phrases
Idioms and set phrases

275 results

359 results
Slide 46: Google as a Corpus
Google as a Corpus
"put the search text in quotes"
use * for the search item

Slide 47: Slide 47
Google: "a good student always *" — about 2,560,000 results (0.45 seconds)

Relevant results (red label, with a red arrow to each outlined phrase):
- “always perceives right meaning from conversations” — first result, “Qualities of a Good Student”, englishforums.com; snippet “A good student always perceives right meaning from conversations but an average …”
- “always wants to know the real truth.” — a YouTube result for a Gayatri Mantra video; snippet “A good student always wants to know the real truth. May your inner instinct bless you to know every truth in this universe. …”
- “A good student always loves his teacher.” — at the foot, result “Quote:Dooku - Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki”, continuing “—Darth Sidious, to Dooku. “It is not our way.”
Irrelevant results (red label, with a red arrow to the result):
- “~SHELDON~” (members.tripod.com/sheldon_2/, 24 Feb 2008); snippet “He was a good student, always A’s and B’s and into woodworking and building trades. He loved using his hands and imagination …”
Slide 48: Google as a Corpus: Pros & Cons
Google as a Corpus: Pros & Cons
PRO: rare, low frequency usage, uptodate usage
CON: no sampling, no frequency sort, no genre limit, no part of speech tags
Slide 49: Google results counts are only rough estimates…
Google results counts are only rough estimates…
Different people searching in different geographic locations can get different numbers

Sometimes searching for A gives fewer results than searching for A without B

http://searchengineland.com/why-google-cant-count-results-properly-53559
Slide 50: …but Google fights can be fun
…but Google fights can be fun

Slide 51: WebCorp is makes Google search results linguist-friendly
WebCorp is makes Google search results linguist-friendly


Slide 52: Avoid Common Corpus Errors
Avoid Common Corpus Errors
- Be aware of limitations: sampling, coverage, size, presence of typos and errors, bad part of speech tagging
- Beware of low frequency results
- Beware of homographs
- Check results come from multiple sources
- Check KWIC to confirm relevance
- Limit search by genre

Slide 53: Check examples and sources
Check examples and sources
??ed.[j*]
Matching words: TIED — rank 10, 207 hits. Red label with a red arrow to it: “Click on concordance results for KWIC view”.
Concordance lines (red label: “…to check relevance of result (e.g. part of speech tag)”, with red arrows to the two outlined phrases):
- 2007, FIC, VirginiaQRev: “is six years old. Her mother has put her in a white dress and tied bows in her long hair.” Outlined: “and tied bows in her long hair.”
- 2006, MAG, SportsIll: “. She set five Trojans records, including stroke average (72.06) and tied school records for” (cut off at the image edge). Outlined: “and tied school records”
Slide 54: Always check low frequency results
Always check low frequency results
must [v*] [n*]
…sometimes they come from the same source

Slide 55: False roots
False roots

corner, silly, preface, cockroach, protest, stable …

Slide 56: Make your own corpus with TextSTAT
Make your own corpus with TextSTAT

Slide 57: Make your own corpus with AntConc
Make your own corpus with AntConc

Slide 58: Corpus in the classroom
Corpus in the classroom
- teacher preparation
- student discovery
Slide 59: Teacher preparation
Teacher preparation
- find relevant, common examples
- prepare worksheets
- check for exceptions
- find out answers to student questions about rules and usage
Slide 60: Student discovery
Student discovery
- show search results to students to work out rules or word meanings
- teach students how to search for questions
- ask students to give each other puzzles for searching
Slide 61: For heavy classroom use…
For heavy classroom use…
register for group access to prevent spam lock out

Slide 62: Corpus v dictionary
Corpus v dictionary


Slide 63: Non-classroom corpus use
Non-classroom corpus use
- supplement dictionary
- cross-word puzzles
- check typical usage when writing
Slide 64: Where to go next?
Where to go next?



Slide 65: Thank you
Thank you
Contact http://dominiklukes.net