Corpora: Learner Corpora

[Eric Atwell]

Hanelle,
greetings,
what you describe sounds like a dictionary or glossary of specialist
terms, not a corpus. In Corpus Linguistics, a "corpus" is a collection
of texts, a sample representing language use of a particular kind.
For example, a "learner corpus" is a collection of text samples written
(or spoken) by learners (of English, or of another language...).
I would suggest you need a dictionary of scientific terms, but I guess
lecturers in the relevant Science department(s) in your university would
be better qualified than me to propose the most appropriate specialist
dictionaries. I can recommend an online dictionary of computer science
terminology: the free online dictionary included in BURKS (Brighton
University Resource Kit for Students of computer science), avaliable on
DVD/CD and also on WWWW, see http://burks.bton.ac.uk/
Incidentally, BURKS also includes lots of software and tutorials, even
whole textbooks - it could be used as a "corpus" of computer science...

These could be supplemented with a general English
dictionary aimed at learners of English as a second/foreign language,
for example the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English LDOCE is a
standard dictionary I recommend to students here who are learinng
English as a second language.

Hope this helps,

Eric Atwell

On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Fourie H Me wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am involved in a research project that is trying to establish a learner
> corpus for first year students in the Science Faculty.  Here's the catch:
> for lack of a better word, I use "learner corpus" to refer to a corpus of
> scientific terms and their use, in English, for students whose home language
> is not English and who therefore need some help to use these terms
> efficiently for their studies.  A web-search shows that "learner corpora" is
> generally used to "diagnose learners' errors so as to render pedagogical
> solutions.", i.e. a corpus obtained from the learners' language and thus in
> the opposite direction of what I'm looking for.  So, if anybody knows where
> to find more information on what I'm really looking for, or can tell me what
> the proper term is for a corpus as I've described it, I'd be extremely
> grateful!
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Hanelle Fourie
>
> Division for University Education
> University of Stellenbosch
> South Africa
>
>

--
Eric Atwell, Distributed Multimedia Systems MSc Tutor & SOCRATES Tutor
School of Computing, University of Leeds, LEEDS LS2 9JT
TEL: 0113-2335430  MOBILE: 0775-1039104 FAX: 0113-2335468
WWW: http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/eric  EMAIL: eric at comp.leeds.ac.uk