Project 2: Answer the following questions about Sketch Engine and language
corpora. For each question, write about 400-500 words, and use plenty of examples,
including screenshots.
1. Choose one of the main Sketch Engine modules (concordances, Word Sketches, the
thesaurus, Sketch Differences). Describe, in some detail, how to use your chosen module.
The module I choose is Word Sketch. I show how to use it in the following.
(1) Click on Word Sketch on the Home page, and this takes you to the Word Sketch
engine form, which looks like this:
Advanced options include minimum frequency, minimum salience, and maximum
number of items in a grammatical relation. I think these function is used at big corpora,
so in this project I don’t need to use this function.
(2) Choose one word and put it in Lemma, then specify its part of speech. Word Sketch is
available for noun, verb and adjective. And press the button “Show Word Sketch”. For
example, I type “music” and choose “noun”.
Word Sketch depends on the availability of substantial amount of data. Therefore, if you
try to search a rare word, you will see a message saying there is no Word Sketch
available.
(3) Next, you enter a new page.
Each column shows the words that typically combine with music in particular
grammatical relations. There are subject, object, modifier…etc.
You may notice that there are blue number and black number showing behind the word.
The blue number is frequency, which means how often this collocation shows up. The
black one is salience, which means how often this collocation shows up with music. And
it lines in order of salience. Compare “compose” and “play”. The frequency of compose
is less than play, while the salience of compose is more than play. I think the reason is
that “play” can collocate with many other words, such as game, football, guitar...etc. We
can see “play” not only collocate with music but also with other words. So, “play” shows
up more often. Relatively, its salience to music is less.
(4) Click the blue number, and you will see the page, which looks like this:
It reveals many sentences, where the collocation comes from. If you want to see the
whole sentence, click red “music”, and the complete sentence shows on the below. And
you can learn the word’s grammatical and collocational behavior.
Try to click “View options” and “KWIC/Sentence”.
And the page will change like this:
Compare to before, it looks more comfortable and clear. And you don’t need to click
every red one to see the whole sentence.
By following these steps, you can learn so many collocations and read many interesting
sentences quickly. Just use Word Sketch!
2. Describe, in more general terms, how to use the other 3 modules. You can use the Help
webpage to help you, but do not copy directly from it, or from other places.
Concordance
Concordance has many options.
First, choose the Keywords part.
Lemma: here you can enter a word, such as pressure.
Phrase: here you can put an expression composed of two or more words, such as I miss
you, in comparison with, in the face of. (I check the phrase "for certain" and lemma
"for”, it shows only "for" and nothing about "certain" and some other collocations before
or after "for".)
Word form: here you can search for a particular word form, such as cold as an adjective
or cold as noun. (I check the phrase "for certain" and word form "for", it shows the
complete phrase "for certain" and some other collocations before or after "for certain".)
CQL: here you can put complex queries using Corpus Query Language.
Next, choose the Context part.
Here you can expand the right and/or left context of the lemma you put in. For example,
type “sure” in the Query box, and put “for” in the Left context lemma, then five tokens
allowed. The outcomes shows for sure, for making sure, for you to make sure, and for
daring I am not sure.
Thesaurus
Thesaurus is like a synonym, and its function is to give you a list full of similar words.
For example, type “reporter” and press “Show Similar Words”. The page is like this:
Then enter a new page like this:
Take a closer look at it. Words which are similar with “reporter” are line in order of
salience and frequency. The first is “journalist”, and then the second is “correspondent”,
and then the third is “photographer”. The most interesting is that there are some words
such as filmmaker and diplomat. “Filmmaker” and “diplomat” have no direct relations
with “reporter”, but they are all kinds of vocation. “Journalist” and “correspondent” are
similar with reporter. Reporters have to take pictures sometimes, so reporter has relation
with photographer. Take another word “dire” for example. Its synonyms are precarious,
disastrous, ludicrous and grave. Precarious and disastrous are near synonyms. Ludicrous
and grave have no direct relations with dire. If we say something precarious or disastrous,
it is also dire. Ludicrous and grave are states of mind or feeling, just like dire.
You can tell that Thesaurus shows some words that have no direct relations with lemma.
It’s time to brainstorm and find out why they are synonyms.
Sketch Differences
Sketch Difference is a way of comparing two similar words, then shows the collocations
in common and in unique.
Hit the "Sketch-Diff" button at the top of any screen, and this will take you to the sketch
difference entry form. And suppose that you want to compare “reporter” and
“correspondent”.
Then click “Show Diff”, and the page changes like this:
Common patterns show some collocations that two words have in common. Look at the
different color. Collocations belonging to “reporter” color in blue, and collocations
belonging to “correspondent” color in red. Collocations belonging to both shows by skin
color. In the "Common Patterns" part, there are four numbers next to each collocate. The
first two is frequency of first and second lemma; the last two is salience of first and
second lemma. Compare only patterns of “reporter” and “correspondent”. Reporters
pose/cruise/discover, and correspondents wonder/mention/express.
3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using corpora to learn languages. For
example, one advantage is that the writing in a corpus is authentic (=real) English, not
invented for students. One disadvantage is that there is not enough information in a short
sentence: more contexts would be better.
There are many advantages of using corpora. First, it is convenient than any other
English Learning tools. If we have a computer with us or stay any place which allows
surfing the Internet, we can learn English. We don’t need to bring a heavy dictionary, just
need a finger to type and click. Second, there are hundreds of sentences, and give us more
examples. I think that sentences are important for us to learn how to use a new word. The
more sentences are there, the easier for us to understand. Besides, sometimes we can
discover some interesting sentences when using the corpora. Sentences of corpora come
from many sites, while sentences of dictionaries are limited. Third, corpora offer many
functions for us to use. It’s like an adventure. Whenever finding something new, we feel
amazed. Its various functions give us opportunities to explore something interesting that
teachers cannot teach in the classroom. Concordance, Word Sketch, the thesaurus and
Sketch Difference, each has its particular function. We can use each of them depending
on what kind of information we want to see and learn.
On the other hand, there are some disadvantages of using corpora. First, although there
are many sentences, these sentences are too short to get enough information. Whole
context sometimes is necessary, because it helps us to read more fluently. Just one
sentence sometimes is confused, and makes us misunderstand. Second, though corpora
have many functions, it is hard to operate. Frankly speaking, some functions are difficult
to understand. For example, Concordance has so many options, such as phrase, word
form, and CQL. First time when I used it, I became so confused. I can’t understand what
differences from one option to another. In my opinion, corpora are not suitable for junior
and senior high school students to use. Maybe researchers can create an easier version for
young students to use.
Everything has its pros and cons, and Sketch Engine is not exception. Undoubtedly,
Sketch Engine gives us another way to learn English and find something interesting. I
recognize that I have not totally understood every option and function of the corpora, but
I will keep going and try to understand all of them. There are so many English learning
tools around our lives, not only text books but also some websites on the Internet. Just be
active, and we can absorb more knowledge than we can imagine.