Based in the Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication, the Corpus research in linguistics and beyond seminar series explores the state-of-the-art, challenges and opportunities in corpus research. Primarily grounded in Linguistics, corpus research has, in the past several years, dramatically expanded its applications across disciplines and is being widely used in research contexts as varied as mental health (Collins et al., 2022), foreign land acquisition (Castañeda, 2015), language teaching (Friginal & Cox, 2022) and ideology (Ajšić, 2021). The series therefore focuses on interdisciplinary applications in corpus linguistics.
Broadly defined as computerised databases of naturally occurring written or spoken texts, corpora (‘corpus’ for singular) encompass a variety of genres, including, for example, poetry, everyday conversations, transcripts of TV programmes, social media content and parliamentary debates. Corpora are analysed using a range of tools, eg Wordsmith Tools, Sketch Engine, AntConc, Python and LancsBox. These afford a variety of computational techniques, from examining lexical and grammatical speech patterns and word semantics to topic modelling and sentiment analysis.
Seminar content and format
Talks in the series will contribute to advancing both corpus linguistics research and corpus-assisted discourse studies and their interdisciplinary application in the social sciences and humanities, including public health, language pedagogy, political science, social policy, media, communication, business, criminal profiling, literature and others.
We are interested in extending understanding of how qualitative can inform quantitative and vice versa; and specifically how corpus linguistic techniques developed within corpus research areas can be used to supplement and provide linguistic evidence in support of qualitative insights.
We also welcome talks exploring the emerging synergies between corpus linguistic methods and computational methods and theories developed within non-linguistics fields, for example, data science, big qualitative data and comparative multilingual corpora research.
We usually hold one 1-hour seminar per academic term, both online and offline, where our guest speakers from the UK and all over the world present original empirical research, followed by a group discussion. Email us if you would like to be added to our mailing list.
Videos of past talks can be found at the bottom of this page by clicking on the event image.
References
Ajšić, A. (2021). Capturing herder: a three-step approach to the identification of language ideologies using corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis. Corpora, 16(1), 63-95.
Collins, L., Brezina, V., Demjén, Z., Semino, E., & Woods, A. (2022). Corpus linguistics and clinical psychology: Investigating personification in first-person accounts of voice-hearing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics.
Friginal, E., & Cox, A. (2022). Corpus uses in language teaching. In Handbook of Practical Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 161-172). Routledge.
Castañeda, R. (2015). Land acquisition and the semantic context of and within the normative construction of “modern development”. In Handbook of Research on In-Country Determinants and Implications of Foreign Land Acquisitions (pp. 63-82). IGI Global.
Seminar conveners:
Clyde Ancarno is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics & Education at King's College London. Clyde's research combines the methods of analysis available in corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. She performs these analyses using a range of digital tools such as online corpus platforms and qualitative data analysis software. Her work therefore lies in the field of corpus-assisted discourse studies/CADS which contends that this combination of methods can enhance the quality of linguistic analyses in multiple ways. Clyde is particularly interested in interdisciplinary applications of corpus linguistics/CADS research. She has notably investigated this through her collaboration with anthropologists as part of a five-year ERC project on interreligious encounters in Nigeria. Her current research focusses on language in education in West Africa, particularly The Gambia (for further information consult megambia.com).
Chris Tang is Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and International Education at King’s College London. His research combines corpus linguistics with diverse methods (eg discourse analysis, focus groups and interviews) in investigating aspects of communication in linguistically and culturally diverse contexts.
Elena Minina is Lecturer in International and Comparative Education with the School of Education, Communication & Society, Centre for Public Policy Research. She specialises in cultural sociology, comparative education and computational social sciences. Elena's research examines the role of culture in neoliberal education policy development in contexts as varied as the UK, the US, Russia, Scandinavia, Sub-Saharan Africa and post-Soviet countries. Elena’s research combines nuanced cultural analysis with various computational and corpus tools.