An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

nationalize).

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103
Corpus Linguistics
Concordances of target words can be used to better understand those words’ 
meaning and usage. Initially, concordances can be utilized to discover what a word 
‘means’. However, the use of a word and its patterning characteristics also contribute 
to its meaning senses. For example, words often are seen as synonymous when 
actually, their use is not synonymous. Dictionaries often list the ‘resulting copulas’ 
(copulas which indicate a change of state due to some force or action) become, turn, 
go and come as synonyms, with meanings like ‘to become’, ‘to get to be’, ‘to result’, 
‘to turn out’. However, most dictionaries provide no clues to how these four words 
might differ in meaning. In contrast, corpus research shows that these words differ 
dramatically in their typical contexts of use. In particular, turn almost always refers 
to a change of colour or physical appearance (for example, The water turned grey); go 
almost always describes a change to a negative state (as in go crazy, go bad, go wrong) 
and come is almost always used to describe a change to a more active state (as in 
come awake or come alive) (Biber et al., 1999). Thus, corpus activities, coupled with 
dictionary activities, can provide a much richer language-learning environment and 
one which engages the student in the process of fine-tuning word senses.
Understanding a word’s patterns of use is crucial for language learners, and 
native speaker intuitions often do not prove helpful in predicting the patterns. 
Thus, in the above example, unexpected combinations would be judged as wrong 
by native speakers who would have trouble understanding combinations such 
as go awake or come wrong, but may be at a loss to explain why or think of 
additional examples of the correct patterns. Although traditional dictionaries are 
of little help here, students and teachers can easily discover such patterns through 
corpus analyses. Collocational activities can be used to help advanced language 
learners refine the context of use and move toward native-like use.
The patterns of language use that can be discovered through corpus linguistics 
will continue to reshape the way we think of language. Detailed descriptions and 
models of this use are now being published for teachers’ benefit. Evidence from 
corpus research is also beginning to have a positive impact on the materials that 
we use to teach language. Perhaps the most exciting possibility is that corpus 
linguistics now gives students and teachers the ability to explore for themselves 
the way that various aspects of language are used, helping to guide them toward 
their language goals.
Further Reading
Barnbrook, G. (1996) Language and Computers: A Practical Introduction to the 
Computer Analysis of Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. A comprehensive 
introduction to corpus-based language research that focuses on the computer side of the 
field. Discusses the rationale for using computers, how to collect a corpus, and various 
ways of using a computer to analyse and annotate texts for linguistic research and natural 
language processing. Includes appendices with programming examples.
Biber, D., Conrad, S., Reppen, R. (1998) Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language 
Structure and Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An introduction to the range 
of linguistic analyses that lend themselves to a corpus-based approach, including studies 
focusing on lexicography, grammar, discourse, register variation, language acquisition 
and historical linguistics. Includes detailed explanations of the methodologies involved in 
investigating different linguistic features.

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104 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
O’Keefe, A. McCarthy, M., Carter, R (2007) From Corpus to Classroom: Language Use 
and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Presents information 
that can inform the order of instruction and how certain language features are taught. 
An easily accessible collection of important aspects of spoken language for teachers 
and teacher trainers that includes a reference section with citations that address many 
different aspects of corpus research.
McEnery, T. Xiao, R, Tono, Y. (2006) Corpus-Based Language Studies: An Advanced 
Resource Book. New York: Routledge. A collection of relevant readings and research 
activities presented in an engaging manner.
Useful Websites for Corpus Linguistics
The pages listed below provide a useful and friendly sampler of some of the 
corpora and useful corpus resources that are available through the web. Of course, 
web address and links change over time, so please be understanding if some of 
these are no longer current.
• www.ecml.at/projects/voll/our_resources/graz_2002/ddrivenlrning/whatisddl/
resources/tim_ddl_learning_page.htm
Tim Johns’ Data Driven Learning Page with numerous links to corpus-based 
data-driven learning and teaching materials, as well as more general links 
related to corpora and language teaching.
• www.lexically.net/wordsmith/
The homepage of Wordsmith Tools, a concordancing and text analysis program.
• www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html
A freeware program for doing corpus searches. AntConc can create frequency 
lists, and concordance searches and also create lists of n-grams.
• www.hti.umich.edu/m/micase
Online access to transcripts of the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English 
(MICASE), including a search facility for browsing transcripts and key-word-in-
context (KWIC) searches.
• davies-linguistics.byu.edu/personal/
Mark Davies’ home page provides access to several online corpora including a 
385+ million word corpus of American English, historic corpora and Spanish 
and Portuguese corpora all with a friendly user interface.
• www.lextutor.ca
The Compleat Lexical Tutor is a rich source of tools and resources that allow 
users to identify vocabulary in texts (both English and French). The site includes 
vocabulary assessment tools.
• www.kwicfinder.com/kfNgram/kfNgramHelp.html
The kfNgram website has tools for analysing corpora including tools for 
identifying word clusters.
Hands-on Activity
Imagine that you have been asked to explain the difference in use between think 
of and think about. First, try to decide if through experience and intuition you can 
come up with a pattern for when one form is preferred over the other. Next, look 
at the concordance lines provided below for think of and think about, taken from 

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105
Corpus Linguistics
a corpus of informal spoken conversation. Pay special attention to what comes 
before and after the target words (for example, think of/about what?). Are there 
any generalizations that can be made that would help a learner know when to use 
think of and when to use think about? To help you, the target expressions, think of 
and think about, have been bolded in the concordance lines presented below.
THINK OF
Then, as he was trying to think of something to say to her (all
yes, wedding presents. We must think of something. You probably don’t
racking my brains for three hours to think of something, I simply cannot last
a second catastrophe. I tried to think of something to say myself, but my
offered frills. Nicandra tried to think of something pleasing to say:
only you were here, then we could think of something to do. ‘Christopher
groaning quietly, perhaps trying to think of something that summed up what
let said nothing. He had tried to think of something to say, but the only
lunch?’ ‘Ah me, the young! You think of nothing but your stomachs.
sympathy and collusion. But I can think of nothing to say. Perdie says,
she tried to speak, but she could think of nothing, and her mother, shifting
anything so familiar, and he could think of nothing on earth to say. It
man in the world.’ ‘As he could think of nothing else, Martin repeated
But try as she might, she could think of nothing to say like that, fierce
listening. ‘Can we ourselves think of nothing that needs to be done?
‘what an idiot I was not to think of it before! You all right Elfie?
no, wait a minute, come to think of it you ‘re finding. hmm.
or him, on other occasions, come to think of it. We’ve been aware of each
happened to those kids. And come to