Does the language of Twitter differ from that of Facebook? Do American and British speakers use the same swear words?  How has the language of news or gossip changed over time? Does the word 'table' mean the same thing in all texts? This module seeks to answer questions like these by examining a variety of approaches to the study of language behaviour. 

In this module we will look at how we can examine patterns in how language is actually used, using large collections of language (known as Corpora).  We will explore patterns of language used across a variety of different data types from written sources such as books, magazines, junk mail, letters, advertisements, business documents, literature, academic papers, emails and internet pages to transcribed spoken language such as everyday conversations, phone calls, university classes, television and radio programmes, and parliamentary debates. 

In this module, language is explored as a means of discovering patterns and to test existing theoretical views about language. This module aims to develop students’ understanding of how corpus analysis can be used to test theories about language use and to reveal culturally significant patterns of language.  It also aims to give students the opportunity to learn to use software which is designed to assist the researcher in lexical, grammatical and textual analysis, offering students the opportunity to develop skills in critical and digital literacies. Students will learn to apply basic text-based methodologies for language analysis and they will be able to discuss and compare the differences and similarities between corpus-based language analysis and other forms of analysis.

We will consider the important contribution of using corpus methods to our understanding of, for example, patterns of written, spoken and e-language (i.e. language online); language change and variation; phraseology and constructions; word meaning (and semantic prosody) and the use of corpora in literary studies.

Knowledge and Understanding

• Assess what corpus analysis reveals about  how different social and cultural contexts affect the nature of language and meaning
• Evaluate the relationship between corpus results and linguistic theory
• Interpret some basic statistical results from corpus research
• Apply relevant approaches and methodologies for the analysis of language using a corpus
• Describe how language varies according to context

The module will be delivered through a mix of large group and small group sessions, including, where relevant, asynchronous materials such as lecture recordings. Full details on the delivery mode of this module will be available on Learning Central at the start of the academic year – and may be, in part, determined by Welsh Government and Public Health Wales guidance.

• Analyse language using corpus-based methods
• Extract data from a corpus
• Use a variety of electronic tools and resources for language analysis
• Gain subject specific and general skills in Information Technology
• Work independently on developing an appropriate area of research in corpus linguistics
• Critically interpret linguistic data

Traditional intellectual skills:

• Think critically
• Compare and contrast theoretical explanations
• Summarise reading material
• Interpret results
• Refer to the larger body of research available in the literature

Indicative Syllabus:

The module will include most of the following topics:

• Corpus Linguistics: A brief history
• Investigating patterns in language use
• Patterns in written language
• Patterns in spoken discourse
• Patterns of language online (e-language)
• Patterns of language change
• Patterns of language variation
• Phraseology and constructions
• Semantic prosody
• Corpus stylistics and literary studies