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Graduate Course Proposal Form Submission Detail - LIN6690
Tracking Number - 5212

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Current Status: SCNS Liaison Notified of Graduate Council Approval - 2016-05-18
Campus: Tampa
Submission Type: New
Course Change Information (for course changes only):
Comments: Elective for MA in LING: ESL. To GC 5/4/16. Approved 5/12/16 To USF Sys 5/18/16; to SCNS after 5/25/16

Detail Information

  1. Date & Time Submitted: 2015-04-08
  2. Department: World Languages
  3. College: AS
  4. Budget Account Number: TPA 124100 10000 000000 0000000
  5. Contact Person: Nicole Tracy-Ventura
  6. Phone: 8139742548
  7. Email: nkt@usf.edu
  8. Prefix: LIN
  9. Number: 6690
  10. Full Title: Corpus Linguistics
  11. Credit Hours: 3
  12. Section Type: C - Class Lecture (Primarily)
  13. Is the course title variable?: N
  14. Is a permit required for registration?: N
  15. Are the credit hours variable?: N
  16. Is this course repeatable?: N
  17. If repeatable, how many times?: 0
  18. Abbreviated Title (30 characters maximum): Corpus Linguistics
  19. Course Online?: C - Face-to-face (0% online)
  20. Percentage Online: 0
  21. Grading Option: R - Regular
  22. Prerequisites: LIN 5700
  23. Corequisites:
  24. Course Description: This course provides an introduction to the different kinds of questions about authentic language use that are investigated using electronic collections of texts (i.e., corpora) analyzed via specialized computer programs.

  25. Please briefly explain why it is necessary and/or desirable to add this course: Offered as enrichment course (not part of program/concentration/certificate)
  26. What is the need or demand for this course? (Indicate if this course is part of a required sequence in the major.) What other programs would this course service? Corpus linguistics is becoming more popular as computer programs make it possible to analyse large collections of electronic texts in a matter of seconds. It is a growing sub-field of applied linguistics that contributes new insights into authentic language use that were not feasible without the use of computers. Today it is possible to find many online corpora of millions of words that are freely available to explore for research and teaching purposes. Research using corpus linguistics is also changing the way that English and other languages are taught as evidenced by several recent corpus-informed textbooks. It is important for graduate students to be aware of this new method of analyzing language use so that they can incorporate it into their own research and/or teaching.

    In Spring 2015 this course was offered under a special topics number. It was popular among both MA and PhD students, with an enrollment of 16. Many graduate students have requested that it become a consistently offered elective.

  27. Has this course been offered as Selected Topics/Experimental Topics course? If yes, how many times? Yes, 1 time
  28. What qualifications for training and/or experience are necessary to teach this course? (List minimum qualifications for the instructor.) PhD in applied linguistics or related field (e.g., linguistics, second language acquisition), experience conducting corpus-based research, and knowledge of computer programming.
  29. Objectives: Corpus linguistics is an area of study that uses computer-based tools to explore patterns of language use in large collections of naturally occurring spoken and written texts. In this class students will learn about the different kinds of questions that are investigated using corpus linguistics and gain hands-on experience working with a variety of corpora, including general purpose corpora, learner corpora, and specialized corpora. Through project work students will learn to use several different corpus tools to explore questions relevant to them as a researcher, a teacher, or both. By the end of this course, students will be familiar with several online and offline corpora, the steps to follow when building their own corpus, a range of analyses used on tagged and untagged texts, and ways in which corpora can inform language teaching.
  30. Learning Outcomes: By the end of the course, students will:

    * develop an understanding of the history of corpus linguistics;

    * develop an understanding of the ways in which corpus tools are used to analyze language use;

    * become familiar with various online and offline corpora;

    * develop the ability to design their own corpora;

    * develop the ability to analyze various linguistic features using corpus tools;

    * improve and refine their scholarly writing skills.

  31. Major Topics: What is corpus linguistics?

    What corpora are already available?

    How to access and analyze corpus data

    How to compile corpora

    History of English corpus linguistics

    Learner corpus research

    Corpus-based studies of synchronic and diachronic variation

    Collocation & neo-Firthian corpus linguistics

    Corpus methods and functionalist linguistics

    Corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics

    Corpora and language teaching

  32. Textbooks: McEnery, T. & Hardie, A. (2012). Corpus linguistics: Method, theory, and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  33. Course Readings, Online Resources, and Other Purchases: Adel, A. & Römer, U. (2012). Research on advanced student writing across disciplines and levels: Introducing the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 17(1), 3-34.

    Biber, D. (2009). A corpus-driven approach to formulaic language in English. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. 14(3), 275-311.

    Biber, D., Davies, M., Jones, J.K., & Tracy-Ventura, N. (2006). Spoken and written register variation in Spanish: A multi-dimensional analysis. Corpora, 1, 1-37.

    Burnard, L. (2002). Where did we go wrong? a retrospective look at the British National Corpus. In B. Kettemann & G. Markus (Eds), Teaching and learning by doing corpus analysis (pp 51-71). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

    Diaz-Negrillo, A. & Thompson, P. (2013). Learner corpora: Looking towards the future. In A. Diaz-Negrillo, N. Ballier, & P. Thompson (Eds.), Automatic treatment and analysis of learner corpus data (pp. 9-29). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Davies, M. (2009).The 385+ million word Corpus of Contemporary American English (1990-2008+: Design, architecture, and linguistic insights. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 14(2), 159-190.

    Evison, J. (2010). What are the basics of analyzing a corpus? In A. O’Keeffe & M. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of corpus linguistics (pp. 122-135). New York: Routledge.

    Granger, S. (2003). The International Corpus of Learner English: A new resource for foreign language learning and teaching and second language acquisition research. TESOL Quarterly, 37(3), 538-546.

    Granger, S. (2009). The contribution of learner corpora to second language acquisition and foreign language teaching: A critical evaluation. In K. Ajimer (Ed.), Corpora and language teaching (pp. 13-32). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Greenbaum, S. & Nelson, G. (1996). The international corpus of English (ICE) project. World Englishes, 15(1), 3-15.

    Ide, N. (2009). The American National Corpus: Then, now, and tomorrow. In M. Haugh et al. (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 2008 HCSNet Workshop on Designing the Australian National Corpus (pp. 108-113). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

    Lee, D. (2010). What corpora are available? In A. O’Keeffe & M. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of corpus linguistics (pp. 107-121). New York: Routledge.

    Lee, D. & Swales, J. (2006). A corpus-based EAP course for NNS doctoral students: Moving from available specialized corpora to self-compiled corpora. English for Specific Purposes, 25, 56-75.

    Millar, N. (2011). The processing of malformed formulaic language. Applied Linguistics, 32(2), 129-148.

    Mitchell, R., Dominguez, L., Arche, M., Myles, F., & Marsden, E. (2008). SPLLOC: A new database for Spanish second language acquisition research. EUROSLA Yearbook, 287-304.

    Moon, R. (2007). Sinclair, lexicography, and the Cobuild Project: The application of theory. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. 12(2), 159-181.

    Myles, F. (2007). Using electronic corpora in SLA research. In D. Ayoun (Ed.), The handbook of French applied linguistics (pp. 377-400). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Paquot, M. (2013). Lexical bundles and L1 transfer effects. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 18(3), 391-417.

    Reppen, R. (2009). English language teaching and corpus linguistics: Lessons from the American National Corpus. In P. Baker (Ed.), Contemporary corpus linguistics (pp. 204-212). London: Continuum.

    Reppen, R. (2010). Building a corpus: What are the key considerations? In A. O’Keeffe & M. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of corpus linguistics (pp. 31-37). New York: Routledge.

    Römer, U. (2011). Corpus research applications in second language teaching. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 205-225.

    Simpson-Vlach, R. & Ellis, N. (2010). An Academic Formulas List: New methods in phraseology research. Applied Linguistics, 31(4), 487-512.

    Yáñez-Bouza, N. (2011). ARCHER past and present (1990-2010). ICAME Journal, 35, 205-236.

  34. Student Expectations/Requirements and Grading Policy: 1. Presentation on a specific corpus and research article that uses that corpus (20%)

    2. Class project assignment 1: Corpus Building (10%)

    3. Class project assignment 2: Analysis programs (10%)

    4. Class project assignment 3: Additional analysis programs (10%)

    5. Final project proposal (20%)

    6. Final project paper (20%)

    7. Final project presentation (10%)

  35. Assignments, Exams and Tests: 1. Presentation on a specific corpus and research article that uses that corpus (20%): In pairs you will give a presentation on a particular corpus appearing on the syllabus. You must read the article listed on the syllabus that describes the corpus and find and read a research article that uses that corpus. Each member of the pair will be responsible for presenting on one of the articles. You are also required to provide a handout with summary information about the corpus and the research article. It is expected that you will give some kind of demonstration of the corpus. If it is not available online, demonstrate the website and what information is available online.

    2. Assignments related to our class project (30%): As a class we will work together to build a corpus. During the first few weeks of the semester we will decide what kind of corpus to build. Your homework assignments will involve collecting data, transcribing oral data, running analyses, and reporting results. There will be 3 assignments, each worth 10%. (10 x 3 = 30)

    3. Final project (50%): For your final project you will either 1) design and carry out a more research focused corpus-based project or 2) design and carry-out a pedagogically orientated corpus-based project. PhD students are highly encouraged to do option #1. If you choose option 1, you can collect your own corpus or use an existing one. For option 2, it is best to use a corpus that is already available. The project will be completed in stages. First, you will submit a proposal with a literature review and methods section (worth 20% of your grade), and on the last day of class you will submit your final paper which should include revised literature review and methods sections, as well as new results and discussion sections (worth 20% of your grade). Finally, you will give a presentation on the last class which describes your final project (worth 10% of your grade).

  36. Attendance Policy: Course Attendance at First Class Meeting – Policy for Graduate Students: For structured courses, 6000 and above, the College/Campus Dean will set the first-day class attendance requirement. Check with the College for specific information. This policy is not applicable to courses in the following categories: Educational Outreach, Open University (TV), FEEDS Program, Community Experiential Learning (CEL), Cooperative Education Training, and courses that do not have regularly scheduled meeting days/times (such as, directed reading/research or study, individual research, thesis, dissertation, internship, practica, etc.). Students are responsible for dropping undesired courses in these categories by the 5th day of classes to avoid fee liability and academic penalty. (See USF Regulation – Registration - 4.0101,

    http://usfweb2.usf.edu/usfgc/ogc%20web/currentreg.htm)

    Attendance Policy for the Observance of Religious Days by Students: In accordance with Sections 1006.53 and 1001.74(10)(g) Florida Statutes and Board of Governors Regulation 6C-6.0115, the University of South Florida (University/USF) has established the following policy regarding religious observances: (http://usfweb2.usf.edu/usfgc/gc_pp/acadaf/gc10-045.htm)

    In the event of an emergency, it may be necessary for USF to suspend normal operations. During this time, USF may opt to continue delivery of instruction through methods that include but are not limited to: Blackboard, Elluminate, Skype, and email messaging and/or an alternate schedule. It’s the responsibility of the student to monitor Blackboard site for each class for course specific communication, and the main USF, College, and department websites, emails, and MoBull messages for important general information.

  37. Policy on Make-up Work: The following is the USF policy of academic integrety: "Academic integrity is the foundation of the University of South Florida system’s (University/USF) commitment to the academic honesty and personal integrity of its University community. Academic integrity is grounded in certain fundamental values, which include honesty, respect and fairness. Broadly defined, academic honesty is the completion of all academic endeavors and claims of scholarly knowledge as representative of one’s own efforts. Knowledge and maintenance of the academic standards of honesty and integrity as set forth by the University are the responsibility of the entire academic community, including the instructional faculty, staff and students." In accordance with this policy, graduate students are expected to turn in all assignments on the due date unless prior arrangements have been made with the instructor in relation to university sanctioned excused absences.
  38. Program This Course Supports: MA in Linguistics: ESL
  39. Course Concurrence Information: This course would service graduate students in related disciplines who are interested in learning to use corpus-based tools for language analysis. Possible programs outside of the MA in Linguistics include psychology, communications, education, etc.


- if you have questions about any of these fields, please contact chinescobb@grad.usf.edu or joe@grad.usf.edu.