Resources

1. Carry out a corpus analysis of the verb want in the MICASE corpus. To do this go to the MICASE search interface at:
http://micase.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/m/micase/micase-idx?type=revise

• Enter the word want into the search field and analyse the concordance output. Can you see any patterns of usage of this item?
• Now specify the context word I within 1 word to the left. How many instances are left once you have specified these search criteria, and what are the emerging patterns?
• Now go back to your original search of want without specifying a context word or phrase. Instead select the gender attribute in the result settings section. How is the word want distributed across male and female speakers? Repeat the same procedure with the other settings (age, role and native-speaker status). What do the emerging patterns tell you about distributional qualities of this word in this particular corpus? What kind of additional information do you think you might need to make meaningful statements about this distribution? Refer to chapter 2 in the book.

2. Using the interactive TAPOR web-interface at
http://test-tapor.mcmaster.ca/TaporMain/portal/portal run a search of the word rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

• What patterns are emerging?
• What does your analysis tell you about the meaning of the word rights bearing in mind the discussion of the limitations of corpus analysis covered in the book (particularly in chapter 2).
• What are the advantages of being able to use this type of tool to analyse the particular text in question?

3. Using the same web-interface at
http://test-tapor.mcmaster.ca/TaporMain/portal/portal make a list of all of the words of chapter 1 of Moby Dick. Study the frequency list of this output.

• Is the frequency distribution one that would expect after reading chapter 3 in the book?
• Can you think of any contexts of research in which this frequency list would be useful?
• Does the list tell you anything about the text itself?

4. Note that you can use the tapor interface and also the Compleat Lexical Tutor interface at http://www.lextutor.ca/tools/freq/eng/ (for frequencies) and at http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/text_concord/ (for concordances) to analyse your own texts. Have a go at analysing some of your own texts in this way. You can do this either to test a hypothesis about your own writing style or to organise your data in a way that might lead you to some interesting new insights about your texts that you had not even thought about to start with (see chapter 3). This process of testing and of generating hypotheses is often iterative leading to more refined descriptions of your data. You should therefore always make sure you carry out a careful documentation of the process itself.

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