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14
Chapter1Stateoftheart
wascompiledbythepioneersincorpuslinguisticsNelsonFrancisandHenry
Kučeraintheearly1960satBrownUniversity,US,andthiselectroniccollection
ofEnglishtextsisreferredtoastheBrownCorpus,whichisregardedasthe
firstnon-diachroniccomputercorpuseverdeveloped.Soonafter,computers
startedbecomingmoreandmorepowerfulandthefieldwasdevelopingfaster
andfaster,togathermomentuminthe2000s,andinrecentyearsonecan
observethatitismoreandmorepopular,notonlyamongscholars.1AsMcEnry
etal.(2006:4)note,“nowadays,thecorpusmethodologyenjoyswidespread
popularity.Ithasopeneduporforegroundedmanynewareasofresearch[and]
corporahaverevolutionizednearlyallbranchesoflinguistics.”Ezquerraand
Hurtado(1996:41;afterEndresandWagner1992)mentionthefollowing
disciplinesinwhichcorporafindtheirapplication:
•Theoreticallinguistics:traditionallinguisticsdisciplinessuchassyntax,
morphology,phonetics,etc.
•Lexicologyandlexicography.
•Computationallinguisticsandrelatedfields:languageprocessing,computer
analysis,languagerecognition,speechsynthesis,informationsciences,
knowledgeacquisition,expertsystems,automatedtranslation,textprocessing,
languagestatistics,etc.
•Theoryandpracticeofcommunication,includingpublishing.
•Psycholinguisticsandrelatedfields:neuropsychology,languagephilosophy,
discourseanalysis,textlinguistics,etc.
•Computerassistedteaching:learning,stylistics,orthography,etc.
Lindquist(2009)commentsthatcompilingcorporacanbeverytime-
consumingandexpensive,thereforetheremustbeconsiderablegainsforthe
linguiststojustifytheeffort.Hesaysthatthemajoradvantagesofcorpora
arespeedandreliability,asbyusingacorpusthelinguistcaninvestigate
morematerialthaninmanualinvestigation,andwithinashortertimetoo,and
moreover,hecanobtainmoreexactresults.Lindquist(2009:9)alsopresents
alistoftheadvantagesofcorpuslinguististhatcanbefoundinSvartvik(1992:
8110),oneofthefoundingfathersofICAME,theInternationalComputer
ArchiveofModernandMedievalEnglish,thatwasstartedin1977inOslo.
Wewillmentiononlysomeoftheadvantagesgiven:
•Corpusdataaremoreobjectivethandatabasedonintrospection.
•Researcherscansharethesamecorpusdatainsteadofalwayscompiling
theirown.
•Corporaprovidethepossibilityoftotalaccountabilityoflinguisticfeatures.
•Computerisedcorporagiveresearchersallovertheworldaccesstothedata.
•Corpusdataareperfectfornon-nativespeakersofthelanguage.
•Corpusdataareexcellentforstudiesoflanguagevariation.
1
SeeMcEnryandWilson(2001).
