Self-Test: Computer Jargon & Corpora

• a collection of English-language material available for computer processing KIWCROMRAMHTMLVLEWWWPDFICAMEISPICEMTCALLCALHTTPUSB
• a company which gives individuals|companies|etc. access to the Internet KIWCICEUSBROMWWWMTHTTPHTMLCALCALLPDFISPRAMVLEICAME
• a database of different samples of spoken and written English USBICECALISPMTCALLKIWCHTTPROMPDFVLEHTMLRAMICAMEWWW
• a huge collection of documents that are connected by hypertext links and can be accessed through the Internet HTMLMTKIWCPDFROMRAMISPUSBICAMEICEVLEWWWHTTPCALCALL
• a set of rules for transfering files on the WWW|usually included at the beginning of a website address (e.g. http://www. ) VLEICEWWWICAMECALKIWCUSBISPHTTPHTMLPDFRAMCALLROMMT
• a standard way to connect things like printers and scanners to a computer MTHTTPRAMISPCALLWWWHTMLPDFCALVLEKIWCROMICAMEUSBICE
• a type of permanent computer or disk memory that stores information that can be read or used but not changed ISPHTTPCALLVLEHTMLPDFUSBWWWICEICAMEKIWCROMMTCALRAM
• a way to write documents so they can be displayed on a website HTTPRAMMTISPROMKIWCHTMLUSBVLEPDFCALICAMEWWWCALLICE
• an online classroom ROMMTICAMECALHTTPRAMWWWICEVLEUSBCALLHTMLPDFISPKIWC
• documents in this format look exactly like the original documents and can be viewed and printed on most computers|without the need for each computer to have the same software|fonts|etc. CALHTML1:MULTICHOICE:PDFISPICAMEROMRAMVLEWWWUSBCALLICEHTTPMTKIWC
• the memory which the computer uses for basic processes CALICEHTMLRAMCALLISPHTTPPDFUSBWWWROMKIWCMTICAMEVLE
• the most common format of concordance lines when conducting corpus searches WWWISPICERAMPDFCALLUSBVLEICAMEMTHTTPCALROMKIWCHTML
• using computers to help you learn HTTPICERAMUSBWWWKIWCVLEPDFCALISPHTMLICAMECALLROMMT
• using computers to help you learn languages HTMLICERAMCALROMCALLISPVLEMTPDFICAMEWWWHTTPUSBKIWC
• using computers to translate language ROMVLEICAMEMTCALLHTTPPDFICECALISPRAMHTMLKIWCUSBWWW

What is a corpus?

any large collection of words; e.g. a collection of books or  newspapersa theory of languagean electronic database similar to a dictionarya collection of texts stored on a computer

What is the main reason for using corpora?

Other methods of language analysis are not reliable.Computers help us discover interesting patterns quickly and reliably.With corpora we can answer all research questions about language.Computers can confirm our intuitions about language.

Which of these is NOT a type of corpus?

learner corpusmultilingual corpusdiachronic corpusobserver corpus

What is a concordance?

Information about word frequencies normalised per million words.Listing of examples of a word searched in a corpus with some context.A list of words and their frequencies.An alphabetical list of words that appear in a text.

What is a collocation?

The tendency of words to appear in unique and different contexts.The tendency of speakers to talk over each other.The tendency of sentences to create meaning.The tendency of words to co-occur with one another.

What is a frequency distribution in a corpus?

Information about frequency of use of a term across texts and speakers.Information about how frequent a word is per million words.Information about how frequent a word is in a corpus.Sociolinguistic information about the gender of the speakers.