Guy Aston, Ylva Berglund Prytz, & Lou Burnard, Exploring BNC-XML with Xaira

What is the BNC?  a snapshot of British English, taken at the end of the 20 th century  100 million words in approx 4000 different text samples, both spoken (10%) and written (90%)  synchronic (1990-4), sampled, general purpose corpus  available under licence; latest edition is BNC- XML (13 mar 2007)

Distinctive features of the BNC  non-opportunistic design  standardized markup system  structural annotation  word class annotation  contextual information  general availability...in these respects, the BNC remains distinctive, twenty years on!

What's new in BNC-XML?  No systematic proofing, re-editing, or re-parsing...  Same as BNC World:  texts (minus duplicates)  POS tagging (but extended)  Additions  simpler pos codes  lemmata  Improvements  Duplications, categorizations, segmentations...  Coded descriptions

BNC-XML regroups texts using additional classification criteria

FACTSHEET WHAT IS AIDS ? AIDS ( Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome ) is a condition caused by a virus called HIV ( Human Immuno Deficiency Virus ). … …

What is the markup for?  It makes it possible for you to  distinguish aids=SUBST from aids=VERB  distinguish occurrences in writing from ones in speech  distinguish occurrences in headings from ones in paragraphs  identify contextual units like sentences and paragraphs  FACTSHEET WHAT IS AIDS? AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is a condition caused by a virus called HIV (Human Immuno Deficiency Virus).

Has English moved on since the BNC?  types of text   web pages / blogs  SMS  personal letters  topics  globalization  internet  Elvis  Word Perfect  how comparable is the Web?

Out of date?  The composition (and date) of any corpus affects inferences drawn from it  There aren't many alternatives  Web-as-corpus: 85% of written texts aren't on the web - and spoken texts?  Results from monitor corpora non-replicable  Copyright permissions unrepeatable  Quantitative and qualitative comparative evaluations of BNC coverage are needed  but “it's surprising how much is there”

What can you do with it?  The BNC is a problematizing resource...  complements (and corrects) intuition  increases learner autonomy  critiques the myth of the native speaker ... for teacher and learner alike  XML makes it more accessible by non specialist software (eg A0S in web browser)

You can use XAIRA to...  find sample sentences  cloze tests  check what the text book says  grammar vs usage  (dis)confirm intuitions  find sample specialist texts  make serendipitous discoveries

Finding sample sentences  some phrases that take the gerund  there's no point....  how / what about...  generatable phrases  [comparative] and [comparative]  sentence structures  [s-initial interjection]

(Dis)confirming intuition  about choices  have a problem + infinitive or gerund?  do you make or take decisions?  about vocabulary  which nouns collocate with hard?  about grammar  I would be grateful if you [modal]?

Finding specialised texts  The BNC has an extraordinary range  travel agent brochures, weather reports, formal invitations, advertising, children's talk, academic discourse, doctor's consultations, marketing meetings, oral history, jokes and anecdotes, high literature, best-sellers, leaflets, personal diaries...  The problem is finding it  use WLD principle

For learners...  The same as teachers  Pointers to follow in the quest for idiomicity  collocations  colligations  semantic preferences  semantic prosodies/pragmatic associations  associations with particular genres/domains  Can learners use the BNC “autonomously”?

The ins and outs of autonomous use  Learners may need warning to...  focus on patterns which recur, without necessarily trying to explain all the data  avoid overgeneralisation ... and encouragement to  be curious  browse the context  investigate exceptions

What are ins and outs?  (and are they the same as ups and downs)?  50 occurrences, sort left 2  colligation: (all) the ins and outs of  semantic preference: know/learn/understand/keep up with/get to grips with/get down to/forget; explain/teach/guide through/give/look at  semantic prosody: difficulty(?)  analysis - mainly spoken conversation, but numbers too small for reliable inference

Exploring idioms make a pointthe point ispoint out have a pointhigh pointpoint to in point of factstarting point no point in point of viewat X pointwhat‘s the point to the pointsee/get/grasp the point Example: idioms with point

Exploring features of speech PS6NR >: [laugh] he's not a millionaire yet. PS6NM >: No so perhaps not, mm.Oh perhaps, perhaps he, perhaps he has the knowledge but has difficulty in er navigating his way to the betting shop to to do anything about it. PS6NR >: [laugh] PS6NM >: Anyway erm PS6NR >: Right I've... results see this is PS6NM >: Mm. PS6NR >: this is really what I'm [... ] PS6NM >: Yeah. PS6NR >: comparison of subjects within groups and between groups I thought that's PS6NM >: Yeah, mm. PS6NR >: like a typical [... ] Examples: spoken discourse markers and back channels

Exploring productivity of affixes  How many adjectives can you think of ending in -ish?  babyish, bearish,.... wankish, whorish, yobbish  How many nouns starting with anti-?  How about verbs?

Creative writing Paul Auster: City of Glass It was the wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of the night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. Examples: story beginnings Ian McEwan: Saturday Everyone agrees, airliners look different these days, predatory and doomed.

Where can I get one?  BNC XML:  now available on DVD  standalone single user licence or institutional licence  discounted price till end June  XAIRA  Delivered free with the BNC (and also available free from  Usable with any XML corpus  Usable/ish on any platform