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Building and using Building and using field-specific corpora field-specific corpora to enhance ESP teachingto enhance ESP teaching

Manuela Reguzzonim.reguzzoni@virgilio.it

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The session focus

How to build a pedagogic corpus and what to do to analyse it.

An example: a tentative investigation into a ME pedagogic corpus.

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What is a 'corpus'?

A corpus [kaw-puhs] is a collection of language texts saved to disk in ASCII format.

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‘General’ corpora are huge

The Bank of English (http://mycobuild.com/about-collins-corpus.aspx)• over 500m words of present-day English • 56 million words sub-corpus for teaching -----------------------------------------------The British National Corpus (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/)• A 100-million-word corpus of British English ______________________________

(Aston University ACORN corpus) 180 million words are equivalent to:

– 12.5 million text messages, – 2 to 3000 books, – 15 years of a daily newspapers, – 7 years of non-stop conversation.

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Corpus sizeCorpus size

► Do all corpora need to be large? Do all corpora need to be large?

Not necessarily. The mini-corpus or sub-corpus, approach has Not necessarily. The mini-corpus or sub-corpus, approach has increasingly gained recognition and users for pedagogical increasingly gained recognition and users for pedagogical purposes. purposes. (Willis, 1998; Lewis, 2000; Tribble, 2000)(Willis, 1998; Lewis, 2000; Tribble, 2000)

► How large should a pedagogic (ESP) corpus be?How large should a pedagogic (ESP) corpus be?

The amount of language required depends on the purpose of The amount of language required depends on the purpose of the researchthe research (Barnbrook,1996; Coxhead, 2000)(Barnbrook,1996; Coxhead, 2000) . .

► Should a pedagogic corpus cover 'all' the target discourse?Should a pedagogic corpus cover 'all' the target discourse?

Not necessarilyNot necessarily..

e.g.e.g.

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Field-specific Field-specific pedagogic corporapedagogic corpora

►do not need to be largedo not need to be large

►can be created with the teaching can be created with the teaching materials we use in classmaterials we use in class

►can be centred on the language we can be centred on the language we expose our learners to, the language expose our learners to, the language we think our learners need to know we think our learners need to know

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Why is the creation of a pedagogic corpus useful?

A corpus can

• provide data-based evidence

• produce a word frequency list

• show common language patterns

• allow comparisons with other corpora

• improve material selection/design

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Building your corpus: step 1Building your corpus: step 1

make your materials machine-readablemake your materials machine-readable

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Building your corpus: step 2Building your corpus: step 2

prepare your corpus before loading prepare your corpus before loading

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complicating factors e.g. • "recipe-books" , “engine room” may be considered as a single type

or as two single words.

• "cook's“ could mean "of the cook", or it could be a contacted form (cook is). The programme you use could treat “s” as a separate type distinct from "cook" and "cooks".

• The apostrophe in “cooks‘ “ is ambiguous. The programme could ignore it.

• letters like “I” and “a” can be miscounted. “I” can be a personal pronoun (I am a teacher) and “a” can be an indefinite article (this is a ship) but they can also be used in ordered lists.

Before indexing your corpus you have to sort out these problematic aspects.

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A Practical Example: ‘Why is a Ship called She?’

by Sir John Martin, Lieutenant Governor of Guernesay (Annual Report R.I.N.A., 1976, vol. 118,)

Text of only: 97/98 running words or tokens

Possible complicating factors:• Capital letters/small letters: e.g. A/a – she/She • Poly-words: e.g. good-looking; decked out

ME ‘field specific’ lexis: 3 or 13 types?e.g.

ship; gang; waist; stays; paint; decked out;handle; helm; topsides; bottom; port; heads; buoys.

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Gang number of persons working together; team (of seamen)

Waist 1. part of the body between the ribs and the hips

2. upper deck between forecastle and poop (in old wooden ships)

Stay 1. strip of bone, plastics, or metal used to stiffen a garment

2. a heavy rope/cable used as support

To deck out 1. to decorate 2. to cover with decks

To handle 1. to control, to treat 2. to manoeuvre

Helm wheel or tiller for moving the rudder of a craft

Topsides 1. upper parts 2. the sides of a ship above the waterline

Bottom 1. part of the body on which a person sits, lower part of sth.

2. the lower, horizontal part of the hull

To head to move, to sail towards sth.

Port artificial harbour designed to accommodate and look after ships

Buoy (pronounced

as‘boy’) floating device or float made of buoyant material moored in water

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Building your corpus: step 3Building your corpus: step 3

choose achoose a software tool to analyse the software tool to analyse the corpus for example:corpus for example:

AntConcAntConc by Lawrence Antony by Lawrence Antony ((http://http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/index.htmlwww.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/index.html))

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The AntConc tools

• The word list tool counts all the running words in the corpus (called tokens) and presents them in an ordered list. This allows you to find which words (types) are the most frequent in a corpus.

• The concordance tool allows you to see how words and phrases are commonly used in a corpus of texts.

The concordance table shows the search word in the middle and its co- text to the left and to the right.

• The file view tool shows the source text and can be used to see where particular examples come from. The search term hits will be highlighted throughout the text.

• The collocates tool shows the collocates of a search term. (Collocation is the phenomenon whereby certain words tend to co-occur with other words.)

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Building your corpus: step 4Building your corpus: step 4

define your objective/sdefine your objective/s

start your researchstart your research

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Exhaustive listing of electronic resources and tools available on the Internet concerning corpus linguistics

David Lee’s site• http://

www.uow.edu.au/~dlee/CBLLinks.htm

Bookmark

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AN EXAMPLE:AN EXAMPLE:

A TENTATIVE A TENTATIVE INVESTIGATION INTO A INVESTIGATION INTO A PEDAGOGIC CORPUS OF PEDAGOGIC CORPUS OF MARITIME ENGLISH (ME)MARITIME ENGLISH (ME)

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MARITIME ENGLISH sub-registers set languages (SeaSpeak and IMO Standard Phrases ) shipbuilding, seamanship, cargo handling, meteorology and oceanography, marine engineering, electricity, electronics, automation, port operations, marine pollution, safety of life at sea, international rules and regulations, marine insurance, shipping, business transactions, catering and tourism.

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ME: The State of the ArtME: The State of the Art

very little, if any, is known about very little, if any, is known about MEME

research almost non-research almost non-existentexistent

no field-specific corpora no field-specific corpora availableavailable

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The purpose of the investigation

identifying the main characteristics of the teaching materials that I used

finding the ‘right’ lexical items to focus on devising better-targeted learning tasks reducing, the learners’ difficulties in building up

their ME mental lexicon and in using it appropriately

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The software

• WinATA (Aston Text Analyser) • FREQUENCY and RANGE (Heatley, Nation and Coxhead,

2002)

• WordClassifier (Denies, Goethals and EET Project Team, 1996) • e.g. Word classification with WordClassifier

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Corpus statisticsSub-corpora 14

Texts 185

Average length of texts 280 running words

Pages 96

Tokens/Running words 51,823 (WinATA count)

Types 5,831

Hapax legomena 2,528

Types occurring less than 9 times 5,013

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Sub-corpora description Token count Type count

Basic Ship Terminology 1,771 455

Ship Types 1,255 416

Ship Particulars 1,010 314

Manning 2,057 541

The History of the Ship 2,323 747

Famous Ships 5,956 1,659

Shipbuilding 1,235 509

Miscellanea: Structural Elements and Shipboard Plants 2,583 775

Technical Specification (4) 9,482 1,984

IMO/Classification Societies 2,958 874

Marine Pollution 3,642 1,115

Marine Meteorology 6,134 1,515

Port Operations 3,153 750

Collision Regulations 8,264 997

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Stages in the investigation

• Stage1– Producing a frequency list– Comparing the MEPC most frequent ‘words’ with the

ones from other lists– Identifying the function words not/present in the

corpus– Finding the coverage of the most common words

• Stage 2– Identifying the ‘maritime lexical items in the corpus’‘ – Analysing the main features of the ‘field specific’

lexical items. – Classifying the technical ‘words’

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The most and the least The most and the least frequent wordsfrequent words across across

different listsdifferent lists

The 50 most frequent words The 50 most frequent words

General Service List (GSL)General Service List (GSL) adapted from West by Bauman (adapted from West by Bauman (http://jbauman.com/gsl.htmlhttp://jbauman.com/gsl.html ) )

Cambridge International Corpus Cambridge International Corpus (CIC) (CIC) 330,000 words of written data 330,000 words of written data

The COBUILD Bank of EnglishThe COBUILD Bank of English 196 million words of written 196 million words of written corpuscorpus

0

20

40

60

80

100

the most frequent types

West (1953)

Nations (2001)

Coxhead (2000)

MEPC

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ME ‘vocabulary’

Hardly unique ‘per se’

Mainly ‘general words’ taking on different meanings and roles through polysemy and homonymy compounding

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PolysemyPolysemy and homonymy and homonymy1/5th of all types 1/5th of all types

GE/ME differencesGE/ME differences

• In meaning In meaning

• In grammatical functions: In grammatical functions: – adverbs or prepositions -> adverbs or prepositions ->

adjectives adjectives – from verbs -> nouns from verbs -> nouns

0

2000

4000

6000

Types

Hapax Legomena

Polysemes &homonyms

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‘‘Shifts’Shifts’

In meaningIn meaning

‘‘bank’bank’ - a financial institution - a financial institution - the bank of a river - the bank of a river - a ‘bank of fog’ - a ‘bank of fog’ - a ‘row of objects’ (e.g. - a ‘row of objects’ (e.g. a bank of a bank of oars, a bank of tubesoars, a bank of tubes). ).

‘‘floor’floor’ - a horizontal subdivision in a - a horizontal subdivision in a building building - a vertical plate in the ship bottom. - a vertical plate in the ship bottom.

‘‘air draught’air draught’ - a current of air - a current of air - the maximum height of the ship’s - the maximum height of the ship’s parts above the water surface. parts above the water surface.

‘‘port’port’- - an artificial harbour, an artificial harbour, - an ‘- an ‘opening’opening’ in the hull in the hull- the ‘- the ‘left’left’ side of the ship. side of the ship.

In grammatical functionsIn grammatical functions

‘‘bow’bow’

GE: GE: - noun - noun (a knot with two loops, a (a knot with two loops, a

weapon or a device for playing a weapon or a device for playing a musical instrument) musical instrument)

- verb - verb (indicating a body motion)(indicating a body motion) ME:ME: - noun - noun (the fore end of a ship)(the fore end of a ship) ‘‘after’after’ GE:GE: - time relater - time relater

(preposition/adverb)(preposition/adverb) ME: ME: - adjective (the - adjective (the after after end of the end of the

ship). ship).

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Compounding (1)Compounding (1)

Usual types of connectionUsual types of connection

noun plus nounnoun plus noun

e.g. e.g. ballast water, radio officerballast water, radio officer present participle plus nounpresent participle plus noun

e.g. e.g. mooring ropes, navigating cadetmooring ropes, navigating cadet past participle plus nounpast participle plus noun

e.g. e.g. compressed air, I-shaped beamcompressed air, I-shaped beam

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Compounding (2) Compounding (2) Common semantic relationships Common semantic relationships ((Blakey, 1987: 146)Blakey, 1987: 146)

B of AB of A cylinder covercylinder cover, , hatchwayhatchway

B with/has A B with/has A

B contains AB contains Asalt water, shipownersalt water, shipowner wheelhouse , storeroomwheelhouse , storeroom

B in/on/at AB in/on/at A port operations, bow thrusterport operations, bow thruster

B is made of/from AB is made of/from A copper wire, air-cushioncopper wire, air-cushion

B operated by AB operated by A

B uses AB uses Ahand pump hand pump

steam turbine, water plantsteam turbine, water plant

B shaped like AB shaped like A needle valve, I-beamneedle valve, I-beam

B invented by AB invented by A Diesel engine, Beaufort wind Diesel engine, Beaufort wind scalescale

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Compounding (3)Compounding (3) adjectives adjectives

((deep tank, double deep tank, double bottom, forecastle, bottom, forecastle, parallel middle body, parallel middle body, strong beam, upper deck)strong beam, upper deck)

nominalised adjectivesnominalised adjectives ((deck longitudinalsdeck longitudinals))

adjectival compoundsadjectival compounds ((oil tight,oil tight, watertightwatertight))

reverse combinationsreverse combinations ((depth moulded, length depth moulded, length overall)overall)

ordinal numbersordinal numbers (first mate, third (first mate, third engineer) engineer)

prepositionsprepositions (‘tween deck, upkeep, (‘tween deck, upkeep,

overhauloverhaul))

the names of seasonsthe names of seasons ( ( summer load linesummer load line))

proper nouns turned into proper nouns turned into common nouns common nouns ((jacob’s ladder, samson jacob’s ladder, samson postpost))

eponyms or names of eponyms or names of inventors to describe a inventors to describe a productproduct ((Diesel engine, Beaufort Diesel engine, Beaufort scale, Plimsoll marksscale, Plimsoll marks) )

place names to indicate place names to indicate an important event or an important event or conventionconvention

((York-Antwerp York-Antwerp Convention, Florida ActConvention, Florida Act) )

geographical namesgeographical names ((North Atlantic loadlineNorth Atlantic loadline) )

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Compounding (5) Compounding (5) poly-words poly-words

One word One word (bulkhead, shipowner)(bulkhead, shipowner) Spaces in between Spaces in between (water ballast, bracket floor)(water ballast, bracket floor) Hyphens Hyphens (I-beam)(I-beam) Prepositions Prepositions ((round of deck, turn of the bilge, length between round of deck, turn of the bilge, length between

perpendicularsperpendiculars)) Possessive case Possessive case ((Ship’s Cook)Ship’s Cook) Combined devices Combined devices ((men-of-war) men-of-war)

fixed collocations with ‘specialized unitary fixed collocations with ‘specialized unitary meaning’ meaning’

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condense information (Hatch & Brown,1995:191) create new meanings different from the one of each of the

parts making up a combination (Barlow,1996:12)create ‘unique’ meaningsare the only acceptable referential forms available to point

to areas of experience shared by the target maritime community (there exist no other words to point to the concepts they represent)

do not serve other frames of reference are to be considered as single words (though written with

hyphens or with spaces in between) have stable relationships having frozen into fixed forms can be seen as extreme forms of fixed collocationextreme forms of fixed collocation (Becker,

1975: 8; Schmitt and McCarthy, 1997:43)

ME multi-word items- fixed collocations with ‘specialized unitary meaning’ -

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Other relevant lexical aspectsOther relevant lexical aspects

– clippingsclippings ( (bosunbosun for for boatswainboatswain, , f’c’slf’c’sl for for

forecastleforecastle),),– initialization initialization (A.B.S.) (A.B.S.) – acronymsacronyms (SOLAS: Safety Of Life At Sea, (SOLAS: Safety Of Life At Sea,

MARPOL: MARine POLlution). MARPOL: MARine POLlution).

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MetaphorsMetaphors

Metaphorical use of animal names in fixed Metaphorical use of animal names in fixed collocationscollocations with ‘specialized unitary with ‘specialized unitary meaning’meaning’ ((cat’s walkcat’s walk, , dog watch, crow’s nest, dog watch, crow’s nest, donkeyman)donkeyman)

Metaphorical use of the language in Metaphorical use of the language in connection with the word ‘ship’connection with the word ‘ship’(she/her ->backbone, ribs)(she/her ->backbone, ribs)

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Field-specific borrowingsField-specific borrowings (Eckersley, & Eckersley, 1960: 417-432 )(Eckersley, & Eckersley, 1960: 417-432 )

captain, navy, officercaptain, navy, officer (French) (French) cargo, canoe,cargo, canoe, niñaniña (Spanish) (Spanish) anchoranchor (Greek) (Greek) admiraladmiral (Arabic) (Arabic) yacht, buoy, hull, dock, cruise yacht, buoy, hull, dock, cruise (Dutch) (Dutch) tornado, hurricanetornado, hurricane (Caribbean) (Caribbean) tsunamitsunami (Japanese) (Japanese)

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ME lexical classification

Few ‘unique’ field specific lexical items Lexical items also belonging to other ESP

fields Multi-word sense segments or compounds (‘common words’ occurring together to form

unique ‘field specific single meanings’) Polysemes and homonyms (‘common words’ used with special ‘unique’

meanings in the frame of reference) Function words and general service words

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THE PEDAGOGIC WASH-BACK greater attention to the most frequent and to

the least frequent words in the texts a different approach in designing learning

tasks ‘sense-segment-based lexical activities’

matching ‘old words’ to ‘new meanings’ exploring the ‘multiple meanings’ of words analysing and manipulating the different

relationships and combinations

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Activity 1: Look at the following table and decide what is the meaning of ‘course’ in the different instances

This is of course important in all ships.The captain's watch, and, of course, the bell itself, …..

….. an alteration of course towards a vessel abeam ….. sufficient sea-room, alteration of course alone may be the solution.

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Activity 2: Read the following examples and guess the different meanings of the word ‘current’ in context. Then check by using a dictionary.

1. Evaluate current, nearby port and hurricane haven locations that may be considered for tropical cyclone avoidance.

2. Current and lighting are supplied by the generators.3. Winds of hurricane force opposing any ocean current

can quickly create very steep, short period waves.4. Plot current/ forecast positions of all active/ suspected

tropical cyclone activity.5. The service speed as well as the optimum size of tanker

is very much related to current market economics.6. The developing storm drifts westwards with the current

of free air and it deviates from the equator after arriving at the western margin of the semi-permanent 'high'

7. The current state of the environment is one of the most serious problems facing mankind today.

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Activity 3: Find the different uses and meanings of the word ‘after’ using a dictionary. Then read the following ‘bits of sentences’ and identify the different meanings.

…..on course and look after all the equipment used.

….. not going to Liverpool after all, not yet anyway.

The after perpendicular ( A.P.) is a …..

Every deck is named after an Italian city (Genoa, …..

….. deviates from the equator after arriving at the western …..

….. if a witch was after her.

….. died a few days after she was registered and …..

However, by 12 hours after landfall, tornadoes tend to …..

….. peak tanks and the after peak tanks.

….. have patterned their ships after the shapes of waterfowl.

Standing on the after davit, he was trying …..

….. vertical line through the after edge of the rudderpost.

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Activity 4: All the words listed below contain ‘ship’, but there are two odd-words-out . Cross them out and motivate your decision. Provide an example for each word . Translate the words into Italian.

1. amidships2. athwartships3. battleships4. lightship5. seamanship6. shipboard7. shipbuilder8. warship

1. shipmasters2. ship-owner3. ship-repairing4. relationship5. shipwreck6. shipwright7. shipyard8. steamship

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Activity 5: Identify the relationships in the following compounds and fill in the table

after peak tank cylinder cover salt water needle valve I-beam ship owner wheelhouse storeroom hatchway steam turbine water plant hand pump steam turbine air-cushion Beaufort wind scale port operations

B of A

B with/has A B contains A

B is made of/from A

B in/on/at A

B uses A

B operated by A

B shaped like A

B invented by A

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Activity 6: ‘Gapped’ compounds - Complete the compound words in this passage.

A general cargo _______ is a single- or two-deck ship. The hull is divided up into a number of water-__________ compartments by decks and _________ heads. At the fore and after ends of the hull are the fore _________ tanks and the ________ peak tanks.

There usually are four or five holds in-between. The holds also have ‘__________ decks, i.e. decks dividing up cargo space.

A traditional dry cargo _______ has her engine ______ and bridge ____________ amidships so that there are three holds forward of the engine _____________ and two holds aft of it. Above the main _________ at the fore end, forward of n°1 hold there is the __________ castle and right forward is the _________ staff. The derricks are supported by masts and by a _______________ post. They are stowed fore-and-__________ when the ship is at sea. There are two _________ boats, one on the port ___________ amidships, another on the ___________________ side amidships, abaft the funnel (the funnel is always abaft the bridge). The poop is at the after end of the ship and there is an ensign ______________ right aft.

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Task aiming at developing learner autonomy (created with Word Classifier)

Read the following lists of words. They are all the words (381) from the Module ‘Basic Ship Terminology’ that you have studied. Their difficulty ranges from 0 (fairly common) to 5 ( less common)

Work on your own. Underline all the words that you recognize and whose meaning you can remember. Count them and see how good you are and how much you have learnt.

Work with a partner and create as many ‘compound words’ as you can.

Form a group of four and compare your lists. If you like, you can turn this activity into a competition.(The winner is the team of 2 students who have produced more compound words. The group decides whether the words are correct or not and assigns the scores. If you do not manage to reach an agreement, ask your teacher)

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ENDEND

ReferencesReferences