• Communicative competence in English at C1 level or above
• This is an introductory course - no prior knowledge of corpus linguistics is required or expected

• to learn the basic methodology of corpus linguistics and its theoretical underpinnings
• to appreciate the relationship between word frequency, word co-occurrence, and meaning
• to develop analytical skills in relation to written texts and the nuanced meanings they express
• to develop (written and oral) academic presentation skills
• to develop language proficiency (reading and listening comprehension, oral and written production) to level C1+ in English

Talking about migrants – recurrent lexical patterns and metaphors

This course is an introduction to corpus linguistics - a computer-assisted method widely used in lexicography, translation, discourse analysis, literary stylistics and language teaching - with particular reference to the analysis of contemporary and discourses regarding migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

The main aim of the course is to introduce students to a method which allows them to discover how meaning is constructed in text. Students will learn how meaning is created and consolidated in discourse through collocation and phraseology; they will refine their reading and interpretation skills in English, and will be guided in how to use corpus linguistics software to approach texts in a new way, via word lists, keyword lists, collocations, clusters, and KWIC concordances.

Corpus linguistics consists in the analysis of large quantities of text (corpora) using specific visualisation software to extract recurrent patterns (collocations, clusters, and semantic preferences), to compare corpora in order to identify prominent and statistically-significant words and themes (keywords), and to engage in close analysis of context to uncover ‘hidden’ meanings (connotations and semantic prosody). The central topic of this course is the language of ‘everyday racism’ aimed at immigrants and asylum seekers, following the one of the professor’s current research areas. Students will be given a portion of the professor’s data for use in class and at home; other freely available corpora will be used during lessons; students will also learn how to compile a corpus of their own, to investigate an area of language of their choice.

The course will also deal (minimally) with the relationship between corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, and the current public interest in Artificial Intelligence systems such as ChatGPT, in order to provide perspective and understanding of how the latter works and what its limitations are.

Attendance is not mandatory but is highly recommended due to the hands-on nature of the course. Students who are unable to attend are invited to contact prof. Philip by email and to regularly check the materials uploaded to the online environment.

Running parallel to the course is the level C1+ lettorato with dott.ssa Alatas. Attendance is not mandatory but highly recommended. All students must consult dott.ssa Alatas’ web pages for details relating to the lettorato course and the end-of-year English exam.

Set texts

Lawrence ANTHONY (2015) AntConc v. 3.5.9 [software]. Tokyo: Waseda University. Available at http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/antconc/

Gill PHILIP (2018). "Corpus Linguistics. Studying language as part of the digital humanities". In A. Hewings, P. Sergeant & S. Pihlaja (eds) Routledge Handbook of English Language StudiesLondon & New York: Routledge, pp. 361-378.

John SINCLAIR (2003) Reading Concordances. London: Longman. - Preface (pp ix-xix) plus 8 'Tasks' (approx. 40 pages)

Recommended reading

Paul BAKER, Costas GABRIELATOS, Majid KHOSRAVINIK, Michal KRZYZANOWSKI, Tony McENERY and Ruth WODAK (2008). A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press. Discourse & Society 19(3): pp. 273-306. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926508088962

Ramesh KRISHNAMURTHY (1995). "Ethnic, Racial and Tribal. The language of racism?" In C. R. Caldas-Coulthard and M. Coulthard (eds.), Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, pp. 129–149. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203431382-14

Neda SALAHSHOUR (2016). "Liquid metaphors as positive evaluations: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the representation of migrants in a daily New Zealand newspaper". Discourse, Context and Media 13, pp. 73–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2016.07.002

Tony VEALE. 2012. Exploding the Creativity Myth. The computational foundations of linguistic creativity. London: Bloomsbury (selected extracts). https://doi.org/10.5040/9781472541659

• Teaching is delivered entirely in English.
• All the course materials - slides, worksheets, hand-outs, obligatory and recommended reading - are available on the online environment (the link will be posted to this webpage at the start of teaching). Non-attending students should consider these materials mandatory and dedicate adequate time to their study (approx. 30 hours) prior to embarking on the assessment project. Access is restricted to holders of unimc credentials.
• Students are invited to bring a USB stick to lessons so they can save any work done on the computers.
• Before embarking on their assessment projects and preferably before the Easter 2024 break, students must contact prof. Philip to discuss their proposed topic and to receive suggestions on the methods, data, background reading etc. most appropriate for their assessed project. Joint projects are not permitted.
• Details of the format and content of the Level C1+ English test (‘lettorato’) are available from Dott.ssa Alatas's web-pages. A detailed set of descriptors for competence and evaluation at level C1 level can be found here: https://www.eaquals.org/wp-content/uploads/Checklist-of-Descriptors_EN_2000PortfolioLanguageBiography.pdf

• Teaching methods depend on class size, but normally consist of the following:

  • Presentation of the theory and methods: interactive lectures
  • Language analysis practice based on Sinclair 2003: guided group and individual work
  • Hands-on practice with corpus query software in the computer lab (individual, pair- and group work)

  Active participation (questions, suggestions, contribution of ideas, discussion) is encouraged. Teaching is entirely delivered in English.

• Lingua e traduzione inglese I/M is evaluated in two parts:

  
  

  • the lettorato language exam ("prova scritta di accertamento linguistico"), level C1+ which counts for 40% of the overall grade. The written tests are scheduled in the official examination sessions, with a total of 3 examinations during the year (May, September, January).
  • the course evaluation, which comprises a research project presented (a) in written form (30%) and (b) as a talk with slides (30%).

  The research project makes it possible to evaluate students’ understanding of corpus linguistics theory and methods by applying them to a language area of their own choice. Written in English, it will have the following structure: introduction, background, data, methods, analysis, conclusions, bibliography. Length = 12-15 A4 pages.

  The oral presentation of the project (in English) should last 15-20 minutes.

  Both parts are assessed as follows: language (30%), organisation (10%), discussion of relevant academic literature and bibliography (15%), selection and use of data and methods (15%), quantitative analysis (15%), qualitative analysis (15%).

  Clear and detailed instructions on "How to define a topic" / "How to write up a research project" / "How to compile a bibliography" / "How to give an oral presentation" are provided in the course materials.

Teaching and examinations will be conducted exclusively in English

English