"You know a word by the company it keeps" they say. In this chapter you will use the more advanced search options to look for common word combinations. As a result, you'll have the chance to speak and write more accurate and more idiomatic English.
About corpora and collocations. Corpora are very useful tools for finding the words that often occur together. This helps a language learner in two ways. First, using corpora for finding collocations helps in combining words in a way they are conventionally used. Second, they enable you to use language that is idiomatic and offer you a chance to extend your vocabulary.
WARM-UP. Short breaks and heavy stuff?
Words such as big, small, long, tall, short, light and heavy seem very easy and were probably among the first English words you learnt. However, this doesn't mean that there's nothing more to learn about them. In fact, they are often used in surprising ways. Go to the BNC/COCA interface and look up the words heavy and short for new collocations and/or expressions that you didn't know before. Type five of them in each text field below, or in your log. For the search settings, it suffices to type the search word in the search string box and click Search.
Heavy
Short
A. What verbs to use with research?
Let's continue with the word research that you used already in the previous chapter. But first, consider the following questions:
What do you do with research? Most learners would probably do research, but there are other options, too.
What does research do? Research can show or prove, but what else can it do?
Read the instructions first and then go to the corpus to increase your vocabulary.
Try it yourself!
As stated in the previous chapter, research can be a noun or a verb. Earlier we reached research in its noun form through the Show POS option. This time we are using another option, adding the appropriate POS-tag directly to the search string.
To find the verbs that are surrounding the nounresearch, either preceeding or following it, we have to make yet another adjustment, so be sure to read the instructions carefully before you start.If you want to check that your settings are correct, take a look at the screenshot on the right.
Type research in the search string box.
Click on the POS LIST -option to open the drop-down menu and choose noun.ALL to add the [nn*] tag.
A space is automatically added between the search word and the POS-tag - remove the space and replace it with a dot. When a POS-tag is attached to a search word with a dot, it defines the POS of the search word itself. Your search string should now be research.[nn*]
To edit the settings to look for the surrounding words, you have to click on CONTEXT and add a tag to the context field.
To find verbs that preceed research, do the following: click in the context field and then from the POS-tag menu, select verb.LEX.
Set the first number to 3 and the second to 0 (you have 4 in both by default).
Click search.
To find verbs that occur immediately after research, set the two numbers to 0 and 3, the rest of the settings remain the same.
Good to know.
The Context option enables you to look for words that occur "nearby" your search word, not just immediately before or after it. The context can be extended as far as nine words to both directions. You can either select a POS-tag for the surrounding words or write a specific word in the context box.
Below you see a table with two columns: the first one is for verbs that come after the noun research (eg. research shows), the second is for verbs that preceed the noun (eg. conduct research). In your search results, choose three verbs for each column, that you found to be the most useful or the most interesting. Type them in the box under the assigned titles.
Research can ...
You can ... research
Notice also, that some of the findings are phrasal verbs - click on the listed items for a KWIC-list to see the verb together with the preposition in context.
Puzzled? The search in this section was a complicated one, and may have left you a bit puzzled. Dont' worry, the further searches will be easier. The purpose of this exercise was not only to extend your vocabulary, but also to illustrate the use of the POS-tags and the functioning of the Context option.
B. Fixed expressions
In every language you can find fixed expressions, pairs or groups of words that are always used together. Changing a part of the phrase or expression just won't do, even if the replacement is close to the meaning of the original item. A corpus can help you to improve your English by finding the appropriate collocates.
Until now, the search phrase you should use has been given to you. In this exercise you will try to devise the search strategy by yourself. If you have forgotten what this is all about, check the four steps in corpus investigation.
Try it yourself! Below you see expressions that are almost, but not quite, the way they should be. Correct them with the help of the corpus and click Bernie for feedback.
throw doubt on
give way for
do decisions about
Search tip!
Use the wildcard* to replace the item you think is not correct. Remember not to use the quotation marks around the phrase, unlike in Google. Instead of the general wildcard, you can also use the POS-tags if your prefer. For example throw doubt [pr*] or * doubt on.
C. Same meaning, different purposes
Some words have approximately the same meaning, but are used for different purposes.The BNC makes it possible to compare the ways in which the synonyms are used.
Try it yourself! Find the collocations for big, great and large. Reset the settings after the previous search. Do the following:
From the Display panel (up left) choose option Compare words
Type big in the first search word box, large in the second.
Click on the CONTEXT to open the context field and add the noun.ALL[nn*] tag from the POS-list.
Set the context number to 0 and 1 to look up nouns that occur right after the adjectives.
If you are unsure, check the settings from the screenshot on the right.
As a search result you'll get two lists of nouns presenting the collocates of the adjectives. Examine the lists, think about the questions below, and click Bernie the Owl for feedback. Repeat the search using for example the pair great -- large as search words.
What did you find out?
Can you draw general conclusions about the use of the words?
Are there any fixed expressions to be found among the search results?
Learn a bit more !
The BNC/COCA interface also provides the possibility for looking up synonyms and words with close meanings. Naturally this can be used for expanding your vocabulary, but also for obtaining knowledge on the nuances in meaning and connotations of words.
Try out the synonym function with the words great, big and large. The search string for large is [=large], no other setting are needed. Compare the findings. What do the synonyms tell about the words?
Search tip!
A corpus can be an effective tool for looking up synonyms and words with a closely related meaning. You can find useful tips and search strategies at the BNC/COCA information section. The search string for synonyms is always [=word].
D. How would you describe an increase?
Try it yourself!
Let's suppose that you are using the word increase as a noun, and you want to find adjectives to go with it. How would you perform the search? Make the needed alterations in the search parameters and find out what adjectives can be used to describe increase. Read through the instructions and go to the corpus.
Type increase in the search string box.
From the POS-LIST menu select noun.ALL tag to mark that you are interested in the noun form of the word. Attach the POS-tag to the actual search word: remember to replace the space between the word and the tag with a dot. The string should now be increase.[nn*]
Select CONTEXT, add the tag adj.ALL to the context box and set the numbers to 1 and 0.
Check your settings by clicking the icon on the right if needed, and click the search button.
Examine the search results and answer the following questions. You don't need to write anything, just think about the answers.
What adjectives can be used to describe different kinds of increase? On the search results list, click on the adjectives you find interesting or useful to see how they are used in a phrase.
Replace increase with decrease in the search string box, let the other search options remain the same. Are the adjectives used with decrease different from those used with increase?
Arrange the collocates
As you noticed, increase can be described as being great, considerable, moderate, small and rapid, to mention some. Here's a little exercise on the adjectives you found. Drag the words from the box below under the convenient titles. You will get feedback as you go!
Now you know a few options that the corpus offers for finding collocations. Move on to the next chapter to increase your knowledge on Word families.
