Daniel A. Nkemleke

• Daniel A. Nkemleke

• Department of English

• Ecole Normale Supérieure

• University of YaoundeI

• Daniel A. Nkemleke

• Department of English

• Ecole Normale Supérieure

• University of YaoundeI

• The study of language based on examples of “real life“ language use, collected, stored and processed via computer

• Facilitated by the advent of computer technology (1960s)

• Latin: corpus (body): body of text  any collection

• of more than one text, written or spoken

Before 1940s/1950s: “early corpus linguistics“  corpus-based methodology (“Primitive corpora?“)

• Before 1940s/1950s: “early corpus linguistics“  corpus-based methodology (“Primitive corpora?“)

• Between 1960s and 1980s: minority of linguists continued working on corpus-based work (Quirk: SEU, Francis & Kucera: Brown corpus, Svartik: London-Lund corpus)

• Computer technology: major support for CL

• First African Corpus: 1989 (ICE-East Africa) (Schmied 1989)

• Second African Corpus: 1992 CCE (Tiamajou 1993)/ Nigeria??

• “Thirty years ago when this research started it was considered impossible to process texts of several million words in length.

• Twenty years ago it was considered marginally possible but lunatic.

• Ten years ago it was considered quite possible but still lunatic. Today it is very popular“

• (Thomas/Short 1996: 4)

L1 Corpora

• L1 Corpora

• Brown Corpus of American English

• Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus (LOB)

• London-Lund Corpus

• British National Corpus (BNC)

• Birmingham Corpus of British English

• L2 Corpora

• ICE-East Africa (Kenya & Tanzania)

• Corpus of Cameroon English

• Corpus of Nigerian English ??

• Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English

• Multinational Corpus Project

• International Corpus of English (ICE)

• 1. Sampling & representativeness

• Interest in whole variety of English

• Attempts to construct a “representative” sample corpus

• Which maximally represents variety

• Aim: picture as accurate and reasonable as possible of a language population

• 2. Finite size

• Body of finite amount of words, e.g. 1,000,000

• Figure determined at beginning of project

• monitor corpus: constant addition of texts

3. Machine-readable form

• 3. Machine-readable form

• Past: reference to printed text

• Nowadays: implication, machine-redable

• Few in book form (e.g. original London-Lund)

• Occasionally other forms of media (microfiche, recordings)

4. Standard reference

• 4. Standard reference

• Tacitly a corpus constitutes a standard reference

• Presupposition: wide availability to other researchers

• Direct comparison of results with other varieties

Began in 1992 with the collaboration of two

• Began in 1992 with the collaboration of two

• British universities (Birmingham/Liverpool)

• Assistance of the British council in Yaoundé

• Target of a million words reached in 1994

• Data use for classroom activities/research since then

• 2005: project benefited from a grant of the AvH

• → Goal: Further development (tagging) of the database

• (TU-Chemnitz)

• Provide authentic data for the description of the main features and problems inherent in the variety of English which is written in Cameroon

• Provide a source of authentic material for English language teaching/learning in Cameroon

• Serve as a database for comparative studies on CamE in relation to other varieties of English

Dialogues

• Dialogues

• 1. Conversations

• 2. Phone calls

• 3. Broadcast discussions

• 4. Classroom lessons

• 5. Interviews

• 6. Parliamentary debates

• 7. Legal cross- examination

• 8. Business transactions

13 possible ways in which a corpus may be useful

• 13 possible ways in which a corpus may be useful

• 1. Corpora as a source of empirical data

• 2. Corpora in language teaching and learning

• 3. Corpora in Lexical studies

• 4. Corpora in grammar studies

• 5. Corpora in speech research

• 6. Corpora and semantic studies

• 7. Corpora in pragmatic and discourse studies

• 8. Corpora in sociolinguistic studies

• 9. Corpora and stylistic studies

• 10. Corpora in historical linguistics

• 11. Corpora in dialectology and variational studies

• 12. Corpora in Psycholinguistics

• 13. Corpora in cultural studies

• Linguists can make more objective statements on language use in the variety, comparing other varieties

• Nkemleke /Mbangwana (2001)

• Nkemleke (2003)

• Nkemleke (2004a, 2004b)

• Nkemleke (2005)

• Nkemleke(2006)

• Nkemleke (2007a, 2007b)

• Nkemleke(fc: 2008a, 2008b, 2008c)

• Schmied/Nkemleke (fc:2008a, 2008b)

• A number of post-graduate projects in ENS/Faculty

CCE data used for classroom activities over the years

• CCE data used for classroom activities over the years

• Support teachers’ classroom explanation

• Learner’s as researchers

• Data-driven learning

• Critical look at existing language teaching material

• CCE data used for studies on aspects of Cameroon English usage, E.g. Hans-Georg Wolf used data from the corpus in his book English in Cameroon, published in 2001 by Mouton de Grouter (Berlin/New York).

• Keep informed about new words, changing meanings

• Call up word combinations, co-occurring words

• ICE-Cameroon is on-going

• Future possibility of more specialized corpora

• E.g. Academic texts, Fiction

• Thank You!