32/16/014 - APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Academic Year 2021/2022

Free text for the University

Objectives

A Module
Knowledge and understanding
- knowledge of the main concepts in corpus linguistics, electronic lexicography and databases

Applying knowledge and understanding
- being able to apply the principles of linguistic inquiry through the use of various types of corpora
- being able to create an annotated corpus
- being able to create an e-dictionary
-being able to query an e-dictionary
-being able to query a linguistic database

Making judgements
- Being able to evaluate linguistic data by interpreting the information encoded in corpora, in electronic dictionaries and in linguistic databases
- Being able to identify and collect information and to correctly encode it within a corpus, an electronic dictionary, and a linguistic database

Communication
- being able to discuss problems and solutions in relation to the creation and analysis of corpora, electronic dictionaries and databases.

Lifelong learning skills
-Having the learning skills necessary for continuous updating in the corpus linguistics and e-lexicopgraphy
- Having the ability to draw on several bibliographic sources related to the studies of corpus linguistics and e-lexicography

B Module
Knowledge and understanding
- major theoretical issues involved in intercultural pragmatics and communication
Applying knowledge and understanding
- apply principles of linguistic analysis to intercultural contexts

Prerequisites

- Solid background in linguistics and in two foreign languages.
- Basic notions of semantics

Contents

Corpora, electronic dictionaries and databases
1. Corpora
Introduction to corpus linguistics
- History of the discipline: from concordances to corpus linguistics
- Classification of corpora
- The main corpora for Italian and for foreign languages
1.2 Querying corpora: concordances and studies on frequency
1.2.1 Concordances
- The role of context in the interpretation of the utterances
- The use of corpora for the study of the linguistic context
- The concordancers
- Introduction to SketchEngine
- The study of collocations
- Collocates
- Colligates
- Semantic preference
- Semantic Prosody
- Extended units of meaning
1.2.2 Frequency studies
- Population
- Distribution
- Frequency lists
- Tokenization
- Vocabulary and type/token ratio
- Lexical distribution: Zipf's law
- Cumulative frequencies
- Study of keywords
1.3 Creating a corpus
- Corpus design
- Acquisition
- Encoding
- Annotation
- Introduction to XML annotation
- Introduction to the main coding standards
- A case study: the Early Modern Sardinian Corpus

2. Electronic dictionaries
- Principles of lexicography
- What is an electronic dictionary
- How to build and electronic dictionary
-How to query an electronic dictionary
- Introduction to Lexonomy

3. Linguistic databases
- What is a linguistic database
- How to build a linguistic database
- How to query a linguistic database
- Typological databases: the World Atlas of Language Structures

Teaching Methods

Lectures

Verification of learning

Written exam

Texts

Cresti, Emanuela, Panunzi, Alessandro (2013), Introduzione ai corpora dellitaliano, Bologna, Il Mulino
Riccio, Anna (2016) Gli strumenti per la ricerca linguistica. Corpora, dizionari e database. Collana: Studi Superiori, Roma: Carocci.

More Information

Additional support material will be provided during the course
The slides will be available on moodle