Corpus Assisted Ecolinguistics

Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistics introduces and integrates key research concepts, principles and techniques in ecolinguistics and corpus-assisted discourse study, answering foundational questions for researchers new to the discipline and asserting the urgent need to expand its scope. Breaking new ground, the book analyzes under-explored environmental discourses that have a tangible impact on ecological wellbeing and sustainability by perpetuating harmful attitudes, practices and ideologies. Chapters present in-depth case studies, including an analysis of the evolving representations of wilderness, an eco-stylistic analysis of a popular novel, and an investigation of the use of humor in reports on animal escapes from slaughterhouses. The studies employ a range of corpus analysis techniques to show how ecological degradation and crisis have become normalized, and even trivialized, in popular discourse but also spaces where positive discourse practices are present. By applying tools from corpus linguistics to a diverse range of environmental discourses, this book makes a significant contribution to advancing the field of ecolinguistics.

Corpus Linguistics and The Study of Literature provides a theoretical introduction to corpus stylistics and also demonstrates its application by presenting corpus stylistic analyses of literary texts and corpora. The first part of the book addresses theoretical issues such as the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity in corpus linguistic analyses, criteria for the evaluation of results from corpus linguistic analyses and also discusses units of meaning in language. The second part of the book takes this theory and applies it to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and to two corpora consisting of: Austen's six novels; and texts that are contemporary with Austen. The analyses demonstrate the impact of various features of text on literary meanings and how corpus tools can extract new critical angles. This book will be a key read for upper level undergraduates and postgraduates working in corpus linguistics and in stylistics on linguistics and language studies courses. The editorial board includes: Paul Baker (Lancaster), Frantisek Cermak (Prague), Susan Conrad (Portland), Geoffrey Leech (Lancaster), Dominique Maingueneau (Paris XII), Christian Mair (Freiburg), Alan Partington (Bologna), Elena Tognini-Bonelli (Siena and TWC), Ruth Wodak (Lancaster), and Feng Zhiwei (Beijing). The Corpus and Discourse series consists of two strands. The first, Research in Corpus and Discourse , features innovative contributions to various aspects of corpus linguistics and a wide range of applications, from language technology via the teaching of a second language to a history of mentalities. The second strand, Studies in Corpus and Discourse , is comprised of key texts bridging the gap between social studies and linguistics. Although equally academically rigorous, this strand will be aimed at a wider audience of academics and postgraduate students working in both disciplines.

This open access volume is a call for ecological awareness and action through communication. It offers perspectives on how we, as humans, posit ourselves in relation to, and as part of, the environment in both verbal and non-verbal discourse. The contributions investigate a variety of situated communicative practices and how they instantiate and potentially influence our actions. Through the frameworks of ecolinguistics, multimodal studies and ecoliteracy, the book discusses how the environmental crisis is communicated as an urgent global and local issue in a variety of media, texts and events. The contributions present a wide range of case studies (including news articles, institutional websites, artwork installations, promotional texts, signposting, social campaigns and other), and they explore how communicative actions can help meet the challenges of ecologically-oriented change. The focus is on the impact that linguistic and multimodal communication can have on acting in, with and towards the environment seen as living ecosystems, or 'lifescapes'. The chapters offer a reflection on the way we experience, endorse, reframe and resist value systems in ecological communication, and propose alternative and healthier perspectives to respect and preserve the common and nurturing lifescapes through awareness and action. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Contemporary research into written academic discourse has become increasingly polarised between two approaches: corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. This volume presents a selection of recent work by experts in academic written discourse, and illustrates how corpus linguistics and discourse analysis can work as complementary approaches. The overall introduction sets the volume against the backdrop of current work in English for Academic Purposes, and introductions to the each section draw out connections between the chapters and put them into context. The contributors are experts in the field and they cover both novice and expert examples of EAP. The book ends with an afterword that provides an agenda-setting closing perspective on the future of EAP research. It will appeal to reserachers and postgrduates in applied linguistics, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and EAP.

Is the internet a suitable linguistic corpus? How can we use it in corpus techniques? What are the special properties that we need to be aware of? This book answers those questions. The Web is an exponentially increasing source of language and corpus linguistics data. From gigantic static information resources to user-generated Web 2.0 content, the breadth and depth of information available is breathtaking – and bewildering. This book explores the theory and practice of the “web as corpus”. It looks at the most common tools and methods used and features a plethora of examples based on the author's own teaching experience. This book also bridges the gap between studies in computational linguistics, which emphasize technical aspects, and studies in corpus linguistics, which focus on the implications for language theory and use.

Linguistic Informatics is a research field named by the Center of Excellence (COE) Program: Usage-Based Linguistic Informatics (UBLI), which aims to systematically integrate studies in computer science, linguistics, and language education. The first part of this volume contains three lectures on spoken language analysis and corpus linguistics delivered at the Second International Conference on Linguistic Informatics held on December 10, 2005. The nine contributions in the second part come from the Collaboration Workshop on spoken language corpora between UBLI and C-ORAL-ROM, a consortium researching the spoken Romance languages. In the third part, four studies representative of Linguistic Informatics are presented. These studies deal with (1) Corpus-based analysis of linguistic usages, (2) Typological study of different languages, (3) Effective integration of e-learning and task-based face-to-face teaching and (4) Fosterage of language education researchers with expertise in the field of Linguistic Informatics.

Situated at the interface of corpus linguistics and health communication, Corpus, Discourse and Mental Health provides insights into the linguistic practices of members of three online support communities as they describe their experiences of living with and managing different mental health problems, including anorexia nervosa, depression and diabulimia. In examining contemporary health communication data, the book combines quantitative corpus linguistic methods with qualitative discourse analysis that draws upon recent theoretical insights from critical health sociology. Using this mixed-methods approach, the analysis identifies patterns and consistencies in the language used by people experiencing psychological distress and their role in realising varying representations of mental illness, diagnosis and treatment. Far from being neutral accounts of suffering and treating illness, corpus analysis illustrates that these interactions are suffused with moral and ideological tensions sufferers seek to collectively negotiate responsibility for the onset and treatment of recalcitrant mental health problems. Integrating corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis and health sociology, this book showcases the capacity of linguistic analysis for understanding mental health discourse as well as critically exploring the potential of corpus linguistics to offer an evidence-based approach to health communication research.

The Role of Corpus Linguistics in the Ethnography of a Closed Community analyses the interactions of immigrants within an Irish reception centre for asylum seekers to highlight the instinctive resourcefulness of people who are faced with the challenge of communicating when there is no common language or culture. Based on three years of ethnographical observation and using an illuminating and innovative blending of applied methodologies, chiefly corpus linguistics, ethnography and conversation analysis, this book: Draws upon a corpus of 98,000 words; Examines the use of English in the interactions of residents with one another and those with English speaking staff of the centre; Challenges constructs such as speech community, communicative competence and interlanguage. This book is essential reading for academics and upper-level undergraduates or graduates working in the areas of Corpus Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, and those interested in research methodologies. It will also prove to be of significant interest to people interested in migration studies and to providers of English language education to immigrants.

This open access volume is a call for ecological awareness and action through communication. It offers perspectives on how we, as humans, posit ourselves in relation to, and as part of, the environment in both verbal and non-verbal discourse. The contributions investigate a variety of situated communicative practices and how they instantiate and potentially influence our actions. Through the frameworks of ecolinguistics, multimodal studies and ecoliteracy, the book discusses how the environmental crisis is communicated as an urgent global and local issue in a variety of media, texts and events. The contributions present a wide range of case studies (including news articles, institutional websites, artwork installations, promotional texts, signposting, social campaigns and other), and they explore how communicative actions can help meet the challenges of ecologically-oriented change. The focus is on the impact that linguistic and multimodal communication can have on acting in, with and towards the environment seen as living ecosystems, or 'lifescapes'. The chapters offer a reflection on the way we experience, endorse, reframe and resist value systems in ecological communication, and propose alternative and healthier perspectives to respect and preserve the common and nurturing lifescapes through awareness and action. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.