Introduction to Corpus Linguistics ENG 331 Rania Al-Sabbagh Department of English Faculty of Al-Alsun (Languages) rsabbagh@alsun.asu.edu.eg Week 4

COCA: Comparing Words 1 To differentiate near synonyms, COCA uses the ‘compare’ function. It displays the collocations of each word sorted by frequency. It also displays the raw frequency of the first word to the second word. For example, comparing ‘steady’ as an adjective to ‘stable’ as an adjective yields the following table. The table shows the difference that ‘stable’ means unchanged, while ‘steady’ is used Week 4

Comparing Words in BYU Corpora 2 Week 4

Comparing Words in BYU Corpora 3 The first line in the ‘steady’ table reads as follows: The raw frequency of word 1 – ‘steady’ – with ‘pace’ is 218. Yet, the raw frequency of word 2 – ‘stable’ – with ‘pace’ is 0. The third column is the ratio of word 1 to word 2 and it reads as follows: there are 436.0 times as many cases of steady pace as there are stable pace. Remember: you can always guarantee more accurate results by adding the part of speech to each of your queries. Week 4

COCA: Finding Collocations 1 To find the collocations of a given word, you can use the ‘collocate’ function. For example, the top collocations of remind_v* are: Week 4

COCA: Finding Collocations 2 You can refine your collocation search by looking for collocations in a specific part of speech. Suppose that we want to find the adverbial collocations of the verb remind, then your query should look like: The top 3 adverbs collocating with remind as a verb are: just, how, and also. Week 4

COCA: Finding Collocations 3 In the ‘collocates’ functions there is the ribbon below. What does it stand for? This is the window size – i.e. the search space in which the engine tries to find collocations. It is meant to find both adjacent and non-adjacent collocations. Adjacent collocations are the ones that immediately precede or follow your query word. They are usually inseparable. In this case, you need to set the window size to ±1. An example of adjacent collocations is at hand and kick the bucket. Non-adjacent collocations are the ones that can be separated by one or more words such as give up. Week 4

COCA: Finding Collocations 4 Looking for the adjacent left-hand collocation of remind_v* yields: Looking for the adjacent right-hand collocation of remind_v* yields: Week 4