User:Savla94/sandbox
Concordancer
[edit]A concordancer is a computer program that automatically constructs a concordance; that is, it finds all of the occurrences of a search word or pattern in a corpus and displays them in context. The output of a concordancer may serve as input to a translation memory system for computer-assisted translation, or as an early step in machine translation.[1]Concordancers are also used in Teaching English as a second or foreign language[2], and in corpus linguistics to retrieve alphabetically or otherwise sorted lists of linguistic data from the corpus in question, which the corpus linguist then analyzes.[3]
Use in translation
[edit]The concordancers used in translation are typically bilingual or multilingual.[1] Bilingual concordancers search for translations of the same sentences from the corpora, and highlight the translation of the search term.[1] This allows the translator to not only find terminology and idiomatic language, but also to find the most common term when there are several equivalents; essentially, translators are able to confirm or reject what they find using other tools, such as dictionaries and their own intuition, to find the most appropriate equivalent.[1] The resulting translations can be stored in translation memory systems or added to the translator’s personal corpus.[1]
English language teachers often rely heavily on intuitive language knowledge, especially when it comes to student questions.[2] Concordancers are used to check these assumptions, along with finding the most up-to-date collocations, expressions, and uses of language.[2] Teachers also use concordancers to find relevant, real examples of the concepts being taught.[2]
Concordancers can also be used by students, both as teaching materials and also as a research tool. Students who consistently make the same mistakes can search the root word and find out for themselves.[2] The advantages for students are similar to those for teachers: they can find genuine examples, find and understand different meanings for the same words, and explore collocations.[2]
The disadvantages of concordancers in English language teaching include the corpus being far too advanced for lower-level students (as they are based on authentic language use), their inaccessibility without internet access (although downloadable software packaged exist, most concordancers are internet -based), and interfaces that are very complex to use and not user-friendly.[2]
Use in corpus linguistics
[edit]Concordancers are often used in corpus linguistics to find data on naturally occurring language in corpora, or systematic collections of text.[3] Concordancers do in a few seconds what used to take hours or even days when performed manually.[3] The information concordancers provide on the occurrence of certain words or strings and their contexts is vital for corpus linguistics.[3] Results from concordancers are analyzed for frequency of use, collocations, regional variations, and so on.[3] Different corpora are analyzed for different insights, such as reference versus specialized corpora, and English learner, regional, spoken language, historic, and bi- or multilingual corpora.[3] Corpora then fall into a further two categories, based on the treatment of the text: in annotated corpora, some form of linguistics analysis has already been performed on the texts, while in orthographic corpora the text is left as is.[3] Linguistic items are investigated in context, and as a result their patterns are more readily visible.[3]
See also
[edit]- Cross-reference
- Ctags
- Key Word in Context
- Corpus linguistics
- Translation
- English as a second or foreign language
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e Wilkinson, Michael (July 2006). "The corpus analysis tool -- an under-exploited translation aid". Retrieved 23 November 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Concordancers in ELT". Teaching English. British Council. April 2005. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Nesselhauf, Nadja (October 2005). "Corpus Linguistics: A Practical Introduction" (PDF). Anglistisches Seminar. Heidelberg University. Retrieved 24 November 2015.