Module: Digital Methods in Language & Discourse

Module Specifications.

Current Academic Year 2024 - 2025

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Date posted: September 2024

Module Title	Digital Methods in Language & Discourse
Module Code	LC5240 (ITS) / TRA1019 (Banner)
Faculty	Humanities & Social Sciences	School	SALIS
Module Co-ordinator	Dorothy Kenny
Module Teachers	-
NFQ level	9	Credit Rating	5
Pre-requisite	Not Available
Co-requisite	Not Available
Compatibles	Not Available
Incompatibles	Not Available

Coursework Only
Design and implementation of an explicitly motivated corpus-based research project, reported on in a 3,000 word written submission

Description

This module introduces students to corpus-based research into language and translation, explores the empirical methods used by corpus linguists, and gives students hands-on experience of corpus building and processing and an opportunity to design and implement their own corpus-based research.

Learning Outcomes

1. explain the approach taken to the analysis of linguistic data adopted by selected corpus linguists
2. outline the relevance of corpus research to selected questions in translation, language or discourse studies
3. build their own corpus
4. manipulate corpus data using apppropriate electronic tools
5. analyse corpus data using appropriate conceptual categories
6. design, implement and present a corpus-based research project

*Type*	*Hours*	*Description*
Workload	Full-time hours per semester
Lecture	12	Attendance at lectures
Laboratory	12	Practical exercises conducted in computer lab
Directed learning	25	Set reading
Independent Study	25	Student-selected reading in preparation for project
Assignment Completion	51	Design, execution and write-up of corpus-based project
Lecture	12	No Description
Laboratory	12	Practical exercises conducted in computer lab
Directed learning	25	Set reading
Independent Study	25	Student-selected reading in preparation for project
Assignment Completion	51	Design, execution and write-up of corpus-based project
Total Workload: 250

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

history of corpus linguistics
pre-computer corpora and early electronic corpora: Brown, LOB, Cobuild, BNC

corpus linguistics as methodology
corpus-driven and corpus-based research; hypothesis formation and testing; quantitative and qualitative approaches

basic corpus processing
wordlists, keywords, concordancing

using corpus tools
WordSmith; Sketch Engine; etc.

collocation and collocation analysis
Firthian and neo-Firthian approaches to collocation, colligation and related lexico-grammatical phenomena (including semantic and discourse prosody); use of measures such as Mutual Information, log likelihood, etc.

corpora and discourse analysis
corpus approaches to the analysis of transitivity, metaphor, and stereotyping

corpus-based translation studies
parallel and comparable corpus studies of 'general features of translation', including explicitation, normalization, simplification, etc; investigation of translator styles and narrative structure

corpus creation
corpus design criteria; using existing resources (e.g. through Sketch Engine)

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment	100%	Examination Weight	0%

Type	Description	% of total	Assessment Date
Course Work Breakdown
Presentation	5-minute class presentation outlining the background, aims and methods of the student's project for the main written assignment	10%	Week 11
Assignment	Design and implementation of an explicitly motivated corpus-based research project, reported on in a 3,000 word written submission	90%	Sem 2 End

Reassessment Requirement Type
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories: Resit category 1: A resit is available for both* components of the module. Resit category 2: No resit is available for a 100% continuous assessment module. Resit category 3: No resit is available for the continuous assessment component where there is a continuous assessment and examination element.
* ‘Both’ is used in the context of the module having a Continuous Assessment/Examination split; where the module is 100% continuous assessment, there will also be a resit of the assessment
This module is category 1

Indicative Reading List

Barnbrook, Geoff: 1996, Language and Computers, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh,
Bowker, Lynne: 2002, Computer-Aided Translation Technology: A Practical Introduction, chapter on corpora, Ottawa University Press, Ottawa,
Bowker, Lynne and Jennifer Pearson: 2002, Working with Specialized Language: A practical guide to using corpora, Routledge, London/New York,
Deignan, Alice: 2005, Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics, 1st, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 978 1 58811 647 5
Kenny, Dorothy: 2001, Lexis and Creativity in Translation: A Corpus-based Study, 1st, Saint Jerome Publishing, Manchester, 9781900650380 / 1-900650-38-X
Olohan, Maeve: 2004, Introducing Corpora in Translation Studies, Routledge, London/New York,
Sinclair, John: 1991, Corpus, Concordance, Collocation, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
Stubbs, Michael: 1996, Text and Corpus Analysis, Blackwell, Oxford,
Stubbs, Michael: 2001, Words and Phrases, Blackwell, Oxford,

Other Resources

None