Corpus approaches to the language of literature

A one day pre-conference workshop

Corpus Linguistics 2005

14th July 2005

Birmingham University, UK

Timetable and abstracts now online below (updated 1/7/05)

What is the potential for more widespread use of corpora to study literature? Work in stylistics relies on the evidence of the language of literature. Corpus linguistics is also an empirical approach to linguistic description, relying on the evidence of language usage as collected and analysed in corpora. As linguists and stylisticians have become more aware of the possibilities offered by corpus resources and techniques, then increasingly it is pointed out that the coming together of these fields could be fruitful. But if corpus linguistics and stylistics are so suited to each other in these ways, why is there not more work on the interface of these fields? Why do we usually only talk about the potential for this area?

A more extended discussion of the background and motivation for this workshop can be found in the document Stylistics: corpus approaches (PDF file). This is a pre-print version of an encyclopaedia entry on this topic. Also recommended reading are:

Louw, W. (1993). 'Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential of semantic prosodies' in Baker, M., Francis, G. & Tognini-Bonelli, E. (eds.). Text and technology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 157-176. [Reprinted in Sampson, G. and McCarthy, D. (eds.) (2004). Corpus linguistics: readings in a widening discipline. London: Continuum. 229-241.]
Semino, E. & Short, M. H. (2004). Corpus stylistics. London: Longman (and shorter articles listed at http://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/stwp/publications.htm).
Stubbs, M. (2005). 'Conrad in the computer: examples of quantitative stylistic methods' in Language and Literature, 14:1.

This workshop features invited speakers who have done important work in this area and who will exemplify different approaches which make use of language corpora to analyse literary style. The workshop will run from 9.30am until 5pm on Thursday 14th June 2005.

9:30	Registration and coffee
10:00	Welcome, introductions
10:15	Mick Short (Lancaster) Why did those Lancastrians bother to annotate a corpus for speech, writing and thought presentation categories and what good did it do them?
11:15	coffee break
11:45	Bill Louw (Harare) Collocation and Semantic Prosodies in Literature and in Corpora
12:45	Lunch
14:00	Kieran O'Halloran (Open University) Phraseology and Equivalence
14:30	Bettina Starcke (Trier) Phraseology and meaning in literary texts and corpora
15:00	break
15:30	Sara Piccioni (Bologna) Towards corpus stylistics: semi-automatic analysis of early García Lorca texts
16:00	Michaela Mahlberg (Liverpool) Dickensian patterns: meaning and form in literary text
16:30	Summary, round-up and general discussion
17:00	End

Discussion at the workshop will aim to address the following topics:

corpus annotation and analysis as a means of conducting a thorough and exhaustive analysis of linguistic features in literary texts;
the study of literary effects (or 'deviations') in texts by using the evidence of language norms in a reference corpus, including the use of collocations, colligations and semantic prosody;
creativity in language, as identified or analysed with reference to corpus evidence;
theoretical and practical problems with the use of corpora in literary study;
resources and techniques for the study of literature using corpora.

This is a one-day workshop at the Corpus Linguistics 2005 (CL2005) conference. Conference registration is at CL2005 website. The additional cost for attending the workshop is £70. Participants may register only for the workshop, but are encouraged to also register for the main conference, which will take place 15-17th July. Registration and accommodation is organised through the main conference administration.

This workshop is supported by the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA), the leading international association for stylistics, and is a PALA 25 anniversary event. It is organised by staff of the Oxford Text Archive, which hosts AHDS Literature, Languages and Linguistics. The Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) promotes good practice in the creation and use of electronic resources in literary and linguistic research, and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the JISC.

Important dates:

Registration opens: 6th April 2005
Deadline for proposals: 27th May 2005
Notification of acceptance of proposals: 1st June 2005
Deadline for registrations: 30th June 2005
Workshop date: 14th July 2005

For any queries regarding the workshop, please contact the workshop organiser, Martin Wynne at the Oxford Text Archive. For queries regarding the registration and accommodation, please email Crayton Walker.