Corpus ISU

Conducting corpus-based
studies: Emerging challenges

and opportunities
SHIRLEY N. DITA, Ph.D.

De La Salle University – Manila
shirley.dita@dlsu.edu.ph
Lecture outline
- corpus
Backgrounder
- corpus linguistics
Some resources: Online Corpora
- previous work
What can be done with corpora
- on actual corpus
Concluding remarks
@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

Corpus linguistics
approaches the study of
language in use through
corpora (singular:
corpus).
u A corpus is a large collection of
language texts usually electronically
stored and processed using a search
engine.
What is
CORPUS? u Francis (1982:7): “a collection of texts
assumed to be representative of a given
language, dialect, or other subset of
language, to be used for linguistic
analysis.”

A corpus is a collection of (1)
machine-readable (2)
authentic texts (including
transcripts of spoken data)
which is (3) sampled to be (4)
representative of a particular
language or language variety
The Corpus Approach
It is empirical, analyzing It utilizes a large and

the actual patterns of principled collection of
language use in natural natural texts as the basis
texts. for analysis
It depends on both
It makes extensive use
quantitative and
of computers for
qualitative analytical
analysis.
techniques.

Advantages of computer-based
language studies
Machine- Speed of Allows further

readability is a de processing and automatic
facto attribute of ease of processing to be
modern corpora manipulating data performed
Can process
Can avoid human
machine-readable
bias, hence more
data accurately
reliable
and consistently

What Corpus Linguistics is NOT
Corpus Linguistics is NOT

u able to provide negative evidence
u (what is possible or correct or what is not possible
and incorrect in language)
u able to explain why
u able to provide all possible language at one time

The Brown family
Brown LOB (Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen)
• published American • published British

English in 60s English in 60s
Frown F-LOB
• Early 1990s American • 1990s British English

English
@2021 Shirley N. Dita
5/23/22
Corpora all over the world
The Survey of
English Usage
Corpus Kolhapur (Indian Wellington (New Australian Corpus of
English) Zealand); English (ACE);
• Used in the development
of Quirk et al (1985)
The British National The Bank of English Cambridge

Corpus (BNC) Corpus (BoE) International
• 100 million words • 450M words (mainly US Corpus (CIC)
and UK) • 1B+ words
Corpus size over time …
1960s-70s: Brown and LOB: 1M words
1980s: The Birmingham/Cobuild corpora: 20 M words
1990s: The British National Corpus: 100 M words
Early 21st Century: The Bank of English: 645 M words
Current trend: BIG DATA

English-Corpora.org

English-Corpora.org

iWeb: 14B words

English-Corpora.org

English-Corpora.org

NOW Corpus: 15.2B words

iWeb: 14B words

Types of corpora
u General/reference vs. specialized corpora

u Written vs. spoken corpora
u Synchronic vs. diachronic corpora
u Monolingual vs. multilingual corpora
u Native vs. learner corpora
u Developmental vs. learner/interlanguage corpora
u Raw vs. annotated corpora
u Static/sample vs. dynamic/monitor corpora
What you can do with corpus …
01 04
02 03
see the frequency see concordance
of a word or limit by and lines ("Keywords in
phrase by date or compare words and find "collocates" Context"), to see
variety or genre (or phrases in different (nearby words) of a patterns and
by other sections sections of the given word, to phrases in which
corpus (e.g. words investigate the the word occurs
of the corpus)
that are more meaning and usage of
frequent in April 2020 a word (following the
than in March 2020) maxim that "you can
tell a lot about a word
by the words that it
hangs out with")

Sample query on iWeb: BREAD

Frequency

Sample search: balikbayan box vs parcel

Sample query: STAYCATION

Philippine English words

Sample query: download

Thrice : antiquated … dead?

Areas in linguistics that use corpora …
u Lexicography
u Semantics
u Lexical studies u Pragmatics
u Grammatical studies
u Stylistics
u Register/genre analysis
u Literary study
u Language variation u Sociolinguistics
u Contrastive analysis
u Discourse analysis
u Translation studies
u Forensic linguistics
u Language change u Computational linguistics
u Language teaching
u …
… outside linguistics
CORPUS LINGUISTICS TECHNIQUES are also used by:

u Historians (e.g. McEnery and Baker, 2016)
u Law scholars (e.g. Mouritsen, 2010)
u Sociologists (e.g. Zinn, 2018)
u Social sciences (in general)

Lexicography, lexical studies

Phil English entries in OED, June 2015
1. Mabuhay 14. Suki

2. Balikbayan 15. Bahala na
3. High-blood 16. Presidentiable
4. Sari-sari store 17. Baon
5. Estafa 18. Mani-pedi
6. Despidida 19. Dirty kitchen
7. Carnap 20. Sinigang
8. Halo-halo 21. Kuya
9. Utang na loob 22. Buko juice
10. Comfort room 23. Kikay
11. KKB 24. Barangay
12. Barong 25. Barkada
13. Pandesal 26. Gimmick
Phil English entries in OED, March 2016
u KILIG
u it can be used as part of the phrase:
u "kilig to the bones"
u compounds "kilig factor"
u "kilig moment
Other words:
- Teleserye
- Vlog
October 2018 entries
u ambush interview (n.) – impromptu interview

u accomplish (v.) [forms and questionnaires rather
than fill them out]
u bagoong (n.) – fish sauce
u bihon (n.) – long thin noodles
u ensaymada (n.) – spiral-shaped pastry w/butter &
cheese
u bold (adj.) [erotic or sexually explicit, not
courageous]
u carinderia (n.) – low-key resto
u cartolina (n.) – thick, colored paper for posters
u dine-in (n. and adj.) – cf eat in (SA); for here

dirty ice cream, n.
viand. n
holdupper, n.
palay, n.
panciteria, n. October
querida, n.
2018 entries
rotonda, n.
sorbetes, n.
trapo, n.
turon (n.)

Verbing of nouns; nouning of verbs
u The nouning of verbs
u There are new eats along Maginhawa!
u We export our produce.
u And the verbing of nouns!
u I'm soloing here! - Fat Amy (PP2)
u I am waitressing at the cheesecake factory (Penny, TBBT)
u We are holidaying in Bangkok!
u We are goodbying again! – Tammy
u Come over, we’re breakfasting!
Prison Break S5
SUITS, S8

Compounding
u Compounding/blending
u Camwhore, attentionwhore
u Foodporn, catporn, flowerporn, cloudporn
u Eargasm, foodgasm, bedgasm
u Staycation
u Infomercial
u Frienemies
u Webinar, webisode
u Guesstimate

Over-generalization of affixes
u pinkish … 10:30ish, Justin Bieberish, purplish

u doable… tweetable, IGable, sippable
u undo … unblock, unfriend, unsmile
u panicky … lyricky, vintagy
u Pianist … apologist, revionist, tiktokerist
u Christmassy … Thanksgivingy, Valentiney
u gentlemanly … Borlonganly…

Based on VS based from

Stay at home VS stay home

Physical VS Social distancing

reason for vs. reason to

DATA: singular or plural?
Per million words:

Singular: 776
Academic: 21
misc: 9.2
spoken: 1.9
newspaper: 1.6
fiction: 0.3
Per million words:

Plural: 1,035
academic: 42.5
misc: 8.8
spoken: 0.2
fiction/news: 0.1
Thrice : antiquated … dead?

Wildcard: *complete

Philippine English words

Grammatical Studies
u demise of the inflected form whom

u use of less instead of fewer with countable nouns
u less [fewer] people
u lesser [fewer] problems
u regularization of irregular morphology
u dreamt àdreamed
u burnt à burned

Grammatical Studies
u spread of the s-genitive to non-human nouns

u the book’s cover
u the bag’s handle
u a tendency towards analytical comparison of disyllabic
adjectives
u politer, politest à more polite, most polite
u elimination of shall as a future marker in the first person
u I will return!

Grammatical Studies
u Depassivization of progressives
u The ticket is printing [is being printed]
u Get-passive over be-passive
uI got hired [I was hired]
u The man got shot. [The man was shot]
u spread of “singular” they
u Everybody came in their black suit.
Grammatical Studies
u How is futurity realized in XX?

u Modal: will/shall
u Periphrastic modals: be + going to
u Simple present: The gate closes at 9 pm.
u Present progressing: I am leaving tomorrow
u emergence of be like as a quotation-introducing verb
u She’s like, “Wow! I never thought that!”
u And I was like, “Really, are you serious?”
Multi-word verbs in World Englishes (Ella, 2019)

Multi-word verbs in World Englishes (Ella, 2019)
1000.0
900.0
800.0
700.0
600.0
500.0
400.0
300.0
200.0
100.0
0.0
Australia Canada New Ireland Great Philippines India Singapore Hong East Nigeria Jamaica
Zealand Britain Kong Africa
Spoken Written
@2021 Shirley N. Dita
pr
ep
o sit
io
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
0
50
na
lp
hr
as
e
fin
it e
cl
a us
sin e
gl
e
ad
ve
ad rb
ve
rb
ph
ra
s e
no
un
ph
ra
no se
nf
in
ite
cl
a us
Total
ve e
rb
l es
pr s cl
ep a us
o sit e
io
na
pr lc
la
Adjuncts in Phil English (Morales, 2015)
ep
o sit
us
e
io
na
la
dv
er
b
(b
la
nk
)
5/23/22
Total
Disjuncts in World Englishes (Dita, 2017)
350 332
297
300
250 242 241

223
208
200
172 169
145
150 130 123
114
105 99
100 90 97
81 82
74 71 73
66
55 5662
50 36 39 36 41 40
29 27 2416 27
13
24 201620 26
8 10 11 6
0
ll y
ly
tl y
ly
ly
sly
ly
ly
lly
te
in
ul
te
al
ia
ra
en
ou
f
rta
sic
na
na
nt
pe
tu
ar
vi
se
ce
ba
na
tu
rtu
ob
ho
es
r
ap
fo
fo
un
@2021 Shirley N. Dita AUS CAN GB IRE NZ 5/23/22

Disjuncts in World Englishes (Dita, 2017)

Split infinitives in WE (Gonzales & Dita, 2017)

Discourse Analysis
u What are the common forms of ‘name-calling’ / form of insults

among teen-agers?
u What are the common forms of expressing surprise, disgust,
anger, disappointment?
u What are the forms of cursing among XX?
u What are the common discourse particles among X?
u What are the common vocatives for males? females? Both?

u What words are used to describe
“politicians, police officers, DDS, etc”
u What are the usual collocates of UP/,
DLSU, student, man/guy/boy,
woman/girl, mother/mommy,
Father/daddy
u What patterns of description are used
Sociolinguistics to refer to Martial law, EJK,
Pnoy/president/Noynoy; to Filipinos; to
GMA, Duterte
u How are Filipinos/Pinoys/Pinays, etc
constructed in the papers?

How are man and woman described?

Critical Discourse Analysis
u The language of political campaigns

u The language of Duterte, Marcos, Leni
u The language of ‘apologists’, ‘trolls’,
u The language of dilawans, pinklawans
u the political memes

Semantics
u A study on the functions of the following:

u Negative words used positively:
u OC
u Bully
u Autistic
u The semantics of ‘ass’, ‘solid’, ‘chill’ , ‘steady’ , ‘hot’

Philippine languages
u What Filipino words have emerged in SNS as evident in the affixation

u Nag-download
u Finorward
u i-bluetooth
u Pagti-tweet
u Picturan
u What are the emerging patterns of aspectual affixation and reduplication in Tagalog?
u Ikakamatay o ikamamatay
u Ipapa-Xerox o Ipasi-Xerox
u Ipapa-defend o ipade-defend
- Ikakataba o ikatataba
- TRINAY o TINRAY?
Filipino grammar
u The use of personal pronouns in the students’ essays

u Kina à kila
u Sina à si, sila
u Nina à sila
u The demise of ang/ng;
u the rise of ‘yung’ and ‘nung’

What can corpora provide?
Corpora not only tell us what is possible to use, but

also what is actually used, and what is typically
used.
For non-native teachers of English, a corpus can be

regarded as “an always available native-speaker
consultant” (Römer, 2006, p. 129).
Some points to ponder on …
u Language will evolve, as it should, and there’s nothing we can do

about it!
u Language will never stop changing; it will continue to respond to the needs of
the people who use it.
u (English) teachers are NOT the gatekeepers of the (English) language …
u What was perceived to be ungrammatical or unacceptable a couple of years
ago may be perfectly grammatical or acceptable to a specific variety ..
u error -à deviation -à innovation (feature of a particular variety)
u If in doubt, do a corpus-based investigation …
“A life without corpus
linguistics is possible but
meaningless.’
(Freely adapted from Vicco von Bülow)

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Conducting corpus-based

studies: Emerging challenges

SHIRLEY N. DITA, Ph.D.

Some resources: Online Corpora

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

It is empirical, analyzing It utilizes a large and

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

Machine- Speed of Allows further

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

Corpus Linguistics is NOT

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

Brown LOB (Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen)

• published American • published British

• Early 1990s American • 1990s British English

The British National The Bank of English Cambridge

1960s-70s: Brown and LOB: 1M words

1980s: The Birmingham/Cobuild corpora: 20 M words

1990s: The British National Corpus: 100 M words

Early 21st Century: The Bank of English: 645 M words

Current trend: BIG DATA

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

u General/reference vs. specialized corpora

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

CORPUS LINGUISTICS TECHNIQUES are also used by:

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

1. Mabuhay 14. Suki

u ambush interview (n.) – impromptu interview

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

u pinkish … 10:30ish, Justin Bieberish, purplish

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

Per million words:

Per million words:

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

u demise of the inflected form whom

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

u spread of the s-genitive to non-human nouns

@2021 Shirley N. Dita 5/23/22

u How is futurity realized in XX?