Edinburgh Textbooks in Empirical Linguistics – serie

Corpus Linguistics has quickly established itself as the leading undergraduate course book in the subject. This second edition takes full account of the latest developments in the rapidly changing field, making this the most up-to-date and comprehensive textbook available. It gives a step-by-step introduction to what a corpus is, how corpora are constructed, and what can be done with them. Each chapter ends with a section of study questions that contain practical corpus-based exercises.* Designed for student use, with all technical terms explained in the text and referenced further in a Glossary* Examples are taken from existing corpora; detailed case study chapter included* Contains end-of-chapter summaries, study questions and suggestions for further reading* Updated reviews of new studies, areas that have recently come to prominence and new directions in corpus encoding and annotation standards* Detailed coverage of multilingual corpus construction and use* An in-depth historical review of computer-based corpora from the 1940s to the present day* Helpful appendices include answers to the study questions, up-to-date information on where corpora can be found, and the latest software for corpus research."[An] important addition to the fast growing literature in corpus linguistics… should be read by anyone interested in utilization of large-scale corpora in linguistic research." Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, on the first edition

This book is a first-stop introduction to corpus-based language research. It takes the reader systematically through the practical problems and benefits including the points to be reviewed before using computers, obtaining corpus material, the main analytical tools and the most important applications of computerised natural language processing. Each chapter offers guidance on programming where appropriate at a level suitable for readers with no prior experience, and provides exercises to help the reader to apply the principles covered. Case studies are used to show how the techniques are used in genuine research situations.* Provides and introduction to computer analysis, techniques, the practical problems involved in using them and their potential benefits* The guidance on programming provides a basic tool kit for use and devleopment by readers with no previous experience. * The exercises at the end of each chapter allow readers to test their understanding and to develop an effective approach to their own research problems.* The case studies demonstrate the use of the techniques described in real research situations.