122231 AR Linguistics Course (interactive) (2018S)

The Internet provides as many great resources for the teacher and learner of English as it does for the researcher. This module intends to survey the types of online resources and their applications. A basic premise is that the Internet acts as a friendly informant about English usage. However, we will be less interested as the Web itself as a corpus (despite its popularity as such) and rather more about specific resources mounted on it, including dictionaries, but principally corpora. The number of carefully constructed online corpora is steadily growing and are proving ever more attractive as providers of authentic and reliable data. These data may as readily answer specific queries about usage as provide the basis for systematic description. Using the textbook Exploring English with Online Corpora (Second Edition, 2017), and by concentrating on chapter 5 (‘Exploring Grammar with Corpora’), this module aims to do just such exploring by undertaking the ‘tasks’ which accompany the chapters, and by keeping an eye on the teacher and learner. The aim of the module is to provide an understanding of the possibilities for use of corpora and other resources on the Internet and to cultivate skill in exploiting those resources.