Authentic English on the Internet: an Introduction to

Corpus Analysis

Peter Beech

British National Corpus

100 million words. “The purpose of a language corpus is to

provide…evidence of how language is really used”

http://thetis.bl.uk

COBUILD

329 million words “Analysis of authentic language

deepens our understanding of how English is used in real life and enhances our classroom teaching of vocabulary and grammar.”

http://titania.collins.cobuild.co.uk

CobuildDirect Internet Service

26 million words from British books etc. 9 million words from American books

etc. 10 million words from British speech

NewspapersEph

emera

Text

TextRadio

Magazines

Books

USBritish

Vocabulary

gain earn win

Gainweight

access

experience

control

confidence

Earnmoney

more

pound

living

dollar

WinWincup

title

game

games

league

Give / Offer

“At my birthday party, all my friends offered me presents.”

Give / Offer

- “Would you like a present?” - “Yes, please.” - “No, thanks”

Give

Chance

Advice

Ring

Birth

Impression

Damn

Pleasure

Boost

Priority

Insight

Indication

Permission

Guidance

Encouragement

Clues

Offer

Verb

advice protection alternative courses savings

Noun

rejected valid takeover refuse closes

Give & Present

Co-occur in the corpus 21 times…

Give & Present

…but in 12 of those 21 instances, PRESENT is not the object of GIVE.

“…give some thought to his present situation.”

Offer & Present

The evidence of the corpus indicates that the verb OFFER is never used with the object PRESENT.

Grammar

Conditionals

Which of the three types of conditional occurs most frequently?

Conditionals

If In case Unless

+ Simple Present

+ Simple Past

+ Present Perfect

+ Past Perfect

+ Present Cont.

+ Past Cont.

23

7

0

1

0

1

14

7

1

1

1

1

26

7

1

0

0

0

Inverted Conditionals

Should Were Had

2 0 2

Provided

Of 40 instances in the corpus of PROVIDED,6 are conditional:

“… will appear on subsequent bills provided that you continue to pay promptly.”

Provided / Providing

“… will appear on subsequent bills provided that you continue to pay promptly.”

Is it correct to use PROVIDING instead of PROVIDEDin this case?

ProvidingIs used in a conditional sense:

9 out of 40 instances in British speech

2 out of 40 instances in British books etc.

0 out of 40 instances in American books etc.

Discourse

Is there any difference between ACTUALLY and IN FACT?

Actually / In fact

+ so but though and

Actually 1 1 0 1

In fact 0 1 1 3

Actually / In fact

Of 40 instances of Actually,

it was at the start of a new sentence in 1 case.

Actually / In fact

Of 40 instances of In fact,

it was at the start of a new sentence in 17 cases.