<?xml version="1.0" ?><html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Michael Friedbichler </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">wrote on </span></font><font
face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:21:27 +0200: </span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:14pt"><i>> > You should be aware, though, that this is not a project you can </i></span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:14pt"><i>> > complete within a few weeks.</i></span></font></div>
<div align="left"><br/></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Adam Kilgarriff</span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt"> wrote on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:58:07
+0100:</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:14pt"><i>> This kind of corpus-building can be done very quickly using</i></span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:14pt"><i>> BootCaT and related tools, eg WebBootCaT (available at</i></span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:14pt"><i>> http://www.sketchengine.co.uk ).</i></span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:14pt"><i>> The basic process takes a few minutes, and a series of</i></span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:14pt"><i>> iterations, to refine and improve the corpus, may be a day or two's work. We also</i></span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:14pt"><i>> build in lemmatising, POS-tagging and loading into a corpus query tool.</i></span></font></div>
<div align="left"><br/>
</div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Adam, dear corpora list members:</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><br/>
</div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">If one doesn't mind the noise in corpora derived from the web,
this is </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">indeed</span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt"> an elegant solution. Getting rid of
all the
unauthoritative sources, however, might be a time-consuming
task lurking behind the seemingly instant harvest from the web. </span></font></div>
<div align="left"><br/>
</div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Whether WaC-tools (Web as Corpus) like WebBootCaT --
which represent a great step forward </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">in </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">compiling
DIY corpora
</span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">for </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">computer-assisted translation (isn't this where
BootCaT got
its name?) -- are also ideal for the purpose at hand, is open to
question. For teaching purposes, esp. in ESP, I think I'd rather
have </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">authoritative sources</span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">. After all, distinguishing
between
professional language use and unreliable, poorly edited
sources is evidently not a task for language learners. You're
not going to get clear water from a mudpot!</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><br/>
</div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Another point of interest in this context: Can the WebBootCaT
tool you mention be used independently of SketchEngine or is
it accessible only for those who have purchased the corpus
query tool? </span></font></div>
<div align="left"><br/>
</div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Best,</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Michael Friedbichler</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:14pt">Innsbruck Medical University</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><br/>
</div>
<div align="left"><br/>
</div>
<div align="left"></div>
</body>
</html>