accessing corpora
Accessing corpora | Mike McDonald | February 20th, 2003
I would like to have access to one or more corpora for use with classes and for my own research. If possible, I would like it/them to include samples of written and spoken British and American English in various genres, and to be easily accessible.
Does anyone have any recommendations? I can use my research budget, so cost is not the main factor.
Mike McDonald
Re: Accessing corpora | Colin Graham | February 20th, 2003
Hi Mike,
There are a few free access corpora available online- the BNC, Collins COBUILD, etc. However, if you're looking to spend money, then the ICAME collection on CD-ROM has a good selection and balance of 'famous' corpora - the Brown, Freiburg, COLT etc.
I bought a copy and got it within 10 days- very fast, efficient service. There are also a complete version of WordSmith, tagging software and other text analysis software provided.
The Collins ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CD-ROM is also useable but somewhat more restricted.
Oh, and this site might answer more/most of your questions and is quite comprehensive: "Introduction to the Use of Computer Corpora in Linguistics."
Colin
\(^_^)/
Banzai!
Re: Accessing Corpora | Colin Graham | February 21st, 2003
Wow! That's pretty expensive: the conversion table gave 60,000 yen as the equivalent of 3,500 Norwegian kroner. I know I said price is not the main factor, but I didn't imagine a CD-ROM would cost THAT much.
Mike
It's about average for corpora because of copyright royalties and so on, but it's worth the price if you intend doing serious research in corpus linguistics, honest! You can have a look at mine if you want a better idea before forking out loadsa dosh.
The Collins ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CD-ROM is also useable but somewhat more restricted. This is only 10,000yen-ish- probably more in your price bracket.
Are the free-access corpora easy to use online?
Yes, although each has a different input format and the BNC isn't searchable by TAG only, like the COBUILD one.
Are there any advantages in having a CD-ROM?
If www access is a problem, yes. Otherwise I think it's six and half a dozen. You might want to consider doing CL and building your own corpus- it's not that difficult.
Colin
\(^_^)/
Banzai!
with 
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