Doing Linguistics with a Corpus: Methodological Considerations for the Everyday User (Elements in Corpus Linguistics)

Description

Paradoxically, doing corpus linguistics is both easier and harder than it has ever been before. On the one hand, it is easier because we have access to more existing corpora, more corpus analysis software tools, and more statistical methods than ever before. On the other hand, reliance on these existing corpora and corpus linguistic methods can potentially create layers of distance between the researcher and the language in a corpus, making it a challenge to do linguistics with a corpus. The goal of this Element is to explore ways for us to improve how we approach linguistic research questions with quantitative corpus data. We introduce and illustrate the major steps in the research process, including how to: select and evaluate corpora, establish linguistically-motivated research questions, observational units and variables, select linguistically interpretable variables, understand and evaluate existing corpus software tools, adopt minimally sufficient statistical methods, and qualitatively interpret quantitative findings. Cover Title page Copyright page Doing Linguistics with a Corpus: Methodological Considerations for the Everyday User Contents 1 Introduction 2 Getting to Know Your Corpus 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Case Study: Determining the Textual Composition of Available Corpora 2.3 Conclusion 3 Research Designs: Linguistically Meaningful Research Questions, Observational Units, Variables, and Dispersion 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Case Study: What Can We Learn about English Genitives in Variationist, Whole-Corpus, and Text-Linguistic Research? 3.3 Conclusion 4 Linguistically Interpretable Variables 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Case Study 1: Measures of Collocation 4.3 Case Study 2: The Linguistic Interpretation of “Keyness” Measures 4.4 Conclusion 5 Software Tools and Linguistic Interpretability 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Case Study: Problems with Opaque Measures 5.3 Conclusion 6 The Role of Statistical Analysis in Linguistic Descriptions 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Case Study 1: Moving Beyond NHST 6.3 Case Study 2: On the Importance of Staying Close to the Language Data 6.4 Conclusion 7 Interpreting Quantitative Results 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Case Study 1: Interpreting Collocational Patterns 7.3 Case Study 2: Interpreting Dimensions of Linguistic Variation 7.4 Case Study 3: Interpreting Diachronic Trends 7.5 Conclusion 8 Wrapping Up Appendix: Why It Is Problematic to Apply NHST to Large (Corpus) Samples References