Practical Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction to Corpus-Based Language Analysis

This is the first book of its kind to provide a practical and student-friendly guide to corpus linguistics that explains the nature of electronic data and how it can be collected and analyzed.

• Designed to equip readers with the technical skills necessary to analyze and interpret language data, both written and (orthographically) transcribed

• Introduces a number of easy-to-use, yet powerful, free analysis resources consisting of standalone programs and web interfaces for use with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux

• Each section includes practical exercises, a list of sources and further reading, and illustrated step-by-step introductions to analysis tools

• Requires only a basic knowledge of computer concepts in order to develop the specific linguistic analysis skills required for understanding/analyzing corpus data

[From the Back Cover]

Designed to help readers analyze and interpret language data, both written and (orthographically) transcribed, Practical Corpus Linguistics offers a step-by-step guide to this burgeoning field of linguistics research. In this accessible introduction, Martin Weisser not only explains the nature of electronic data, illustrating how it can be collected and prepared for analysis purposes, but also demonstrates ways of comparing the result of readers' own smaller-scale analyses to facts obtained from general reference corpora. Each section includes practical exercises, a list of sources and further reading, and illustrated step-by-step introductions to analysis tools.

Seamlessly balancing computer science with linguistic theory, Practical Corpus Linguistics is essential reading for anyone interested in developing the specific linguistic analysis skills required for analyzing corpus data.