Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis


Book Description

How can you carry out discourse analysis using corpus linguistics? What research questions should I ask? Which methods should you use and when? What is a collocational network or a key cluster? Introducing the major techniques, methods and tools for corpus-assisted analysis of discourse, this book answers these questions and more, showing readers how to best use corpora in their analyses of discourse. Using carefully tailored case studies, each chapter is devoted to a central technique, including frequency, concordancing and keywords, going step by step through the process of applying different analytical procedures. Introducing a wide range of different corpora, from holiday brochures to political debates, the book considers the key debates and latest advances in the field. Fully revised and updated, this new edition includes: - A new chapter on how to conduct research projects in corpus-based discourse analysis - Completely rewritten chapters on collocation and advanced techniques, using a corpus of jihadist propaganda texts and covering topics such as social media and visual analysis - Coverage of major tools, including CQPweb, AntConc, Sketch Engine and #LancsBox - Discussion of newer techniques including the derivation of lockwords and the comparison of multiple data sets for diachronic analysis With exercises, discussion questions and suggested further readings in each chapter, this book is an excellent guide to using corpus linguistics techniques to carry out discourse analysis.




Corpus Analysis in Different Genres


Book Description

This collection sheds light on the ways in which corpus linguistics and the use of learner corpora might be applied to the study of academic discourse, revealing linguistic and rhetorical patterns and insights into variation across a range of disciplinary genres. Organized into three sections, the book highlights key tools and methodologies in corpus analysis to study such features as discourse markers, lexical bundles, linguistic complexity, lexico-grammatical conventions, and modality in case studies in studies of academic discourse, both in a second language and in English for specific purposes. The volume features examples from disciplinary genres not often covered in the existing literature, including MA theses, academic book reviews, and online student forums. Taken together with the study of learner corpora, the book demonstrates the impact of corpus linguistic tools in better understanding linguistic patterns of specific languages and language use and in turn, their role in helping to identify the needs of language learners. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in corpus linguistics, applied linguistics, and English for Specific Purposes.




Pragmatics of Discourse


Book Description

Discourse is language as it occurs, in any form or context, beyond the speech act. It may be written or spoken, monological or dialogical, but there is always a communicative aim or purpose. The present volume provides systematic orientation in the vast field of studying discourse from a pragmatic perspective. It first gives an overview of a range of approaches developed for the analysis of discourse, including, among others, conversation analysis, systemic-functional analysis, genre analysis, critical discourse analysis, corpus-driven approaches and multimodal analysis. The focus is furthermore on functional units in discourse, such as discourse markers, moves, speech act sequences, discourse phases and silence. The final section of the volume examines discourse types and domains, providing a taxonomy of discourse types and focusing on a range of discourse domains, e.g. classroom discourse, medical discourse, legal discourse, electronic discourse. Each article surveys the current state of the art of the respective topic area while also presenting new research findings.




Corpus Approaches to Discourse


Book Description

Corpus linguistics has now come of age and Corpus Approaches to Discourse equips students with the means to question, defend and refine the methodology. Looking at corpus linguistics in discourse research from a critical perspective, this volume is a call for greater reflexivity in the field. The chapters, each written by leading authorities, contain an overview of an emerging area and a case-study, presenting practical advice alongside theoretical reflection. Carefully structured with an introduction by the editors and a conclusion by leading researcher, Paul Baker, this is key reading for advanced students and researchers of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis.




Discourse in the Professions


Book Description

This book explores the structure and use of academic and professional discourse through the lens of corpus linguistics. The goal of this book is to show how insights from corpus linguistic analyses can help us better understand how we use academic and professional language and help us find ways to better train newcomers to the genres used in various professional contexts. The contributions to this book show that specialized corpora of specific genres from a variety of fields allow us to make more relevant observations about the function and use of language for particular purposes. The specialized corpora examined include written and spoken academic genres, written and spoken business and legal genres, and written philanthropic genres. The book showcases a variety of approaches to analyzing the discourse of specialized corpora, and each chapter concludes with a reflection on the practical and pedagogical implications of the analysis.




Discourse on the Move


Book Description

Discourse on the Move is the first book-length exploration of how corpus-based methods can be used for discourse analysis, applied to the description of discourse organization. The primary goal is to bring these two analytical perspectives together: undertaking a detailed discourse analysis of each individual text, but doing so in terms that can be generalized across all texts of a corpus. The book explores two major approaches to this task: ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’. In the ‘top-down’ approach, the functional components of a genre are determined first, and then all texts in a corpus are analyzed in terms of those components. In contrast, textual components emerge from the corpus analysis in the bottom-up approach, and the discourse organization of individual texts is then analyzed in terms of linguistically-defined textual categories. Both approaches are illustrated through case studies of discourse structure in particular genres: fund-raising letters, biology/biochemistry research articles, and university classroom teaching.




Corpora and Discourse


Book Description

This book brings together contributions from a diverse collection of scholars who explore different ways of combining corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, studying discourse at the prosodic, lexical, and textual levels. Both spoken and written discourse are investigated in a variety of settings, including academia, the workplace, news, and entertainment. Not only does the volume offer a rich sample of English-language discourse from around the world­, including international, learner, and non-standard varieties of English, ­but it also covers a range of topics and methods. This book will be of particular interest to researchers and students specializing in discourse studies, English linguistics, and corpus linguistics.




Corpora, Grammar and Discourse


Book Description

Corpus linguistics has had a revolutionary impact on grammar and discourse research. Not only has it opened up entirely new theoretical perspectives and methodological possibilities for both fields, but it has also to a considerable extent erased the boundaries that have traditionally been drawn between them. This book showcases a variety of current corpus-based approaches to the study of grammar and discourse, and makes a case for seeing grammar and discourse as fundamentally inter-related phenomena. The book features contributions from leading experts in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, critical discourse studies, genre and register analysis, phraseology, language learning and teaching, languages for specific purposes, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, systemic functional linguistics and text linguistics. An essential reference point for future research, Corpora, Grammar and Discourse has been edited in honour of Susan Hunston, whose own work has consistently pushed at the boundaries of corpus-based research on grammar and discourse for over three decades.




Corpora and Discourse Studies


Book Description

This edited collection brings together contemporary research that uses corpus linguistics to carry out discourse analysis. The book takes an inclusive view of the meaning of discourse, covering different text-types or modes of language, including discourse as both social practice and as ideology or representation.




Corpus Linguistics in Literary Analysis


Book Description

Corpus Linguistics and The Study of Literature provides a theoretical introduction to corpus stylistics and also demonstrates its application by presenting corpus stylistic analyses of literary texts and corpora. The first part of the book addresses theoretical issues such as the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity in corpus linguistic analyses, criteria for the evaluation of results from corpus linguistic analyses and also discusses units of meaning in language. The second part of the book takes this theory and applies it to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and to two corpora consisting of: Austen's six novels; and texts that are contemporary with Austen. The analyses demonstrate the impact of various features of text on literary meanings and how corpus tools can extract new critical angles. This book will be a key read for upper level undergraduates and postgraduates working in corpus linguistics and in stylistics on linguistics and language studies courses. The editorial board includes: Paul Baker (Lancaster), Frantisek Cermak (Prague), Susan Conrad (Portland), Geoffrey Leech (Lancaster), Dominique Maingueneau (Paris XII), Christian Mair (Freiburg), Alan Partington (Bologna), Elena Tognini-Bonelli (Siena and TWC), Ruth Wodak (Lancaster), and Feng Zhiwei (Beijing). The Corpus and Discourse series consists of two strands. The first, Research in Corpus and Discourse , features innovative contributions to various aspects of corpus linguistics and a wide range of applications, from language technology via the teaching of a second language to a history of mentalities. The second strand, Studies in Corpus and Discourse , is comprised of key texts bridging the gap between social studies and linguistics. Although equally academically rigorous, this strand will be aimed at a wider audience of academics and postgraduate students working in both disciplines.