Corpora: when does a subcorpus become a corpus

[Pearson, Jennifer]

If you look at the same publication, p.48, you will find that I argue that,
given Sinclair's definitions, neither the term subcorpus nor the term
component is appropriate for the sets of texts I was working with (and
probably not for the EAP texts referred to in previous e-mails either). I
chose therefore to use the term special purpose corpus, "a corpus whose
composition is determined by the precise purpose for which it is to be used.
While a special purpose corpus may be derived from a general reference
corpus or from a monitor corpus it will not constitute a subcorpus in the
sense defined by Sinclair because it will not have all of the properties of
a larger corpus." I coined this particular term for two reasons, a) because
the language of the texts I was working with could be classified as
'language for special purposes' or 'LSP', two terms that already existed in
applied linguistics to designate, for example, the language of business, the
language of medicine, the language of economics, and b) because the term
'special purpose corpus' implies that the corpus has been compiled for a
particular purpose.
Wishing you all a happy new year
Jennifer

Dr Jennifer Pearson
Chief of Translation
UNESCO
7 Place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07
Tel:. 00 33 1 456 80 780
e-mail: j.pearson at unesco.org
http://www.unesco.org


-----Original Message-----
From: Sampo Nevalainen [mailto:samponev at cc.joensuu.fi]
Sent: jeu. 3 janvier 2002 10:36
To: P. Kaszubski; corpora at hd.uib.no
Subject: Re: Corpora: when does a subcorpus become a corpus


Here is a short citation from Jennifer Pearson's "Terms in Context"
(Amsterdam 1998), p. 45:

--
Sinclair, who states that corpora can be divided into subcorpora, and that
corpora and subcorpora can be divided into components, defines a subcorpus
as having "all the properties of a corpus but happens to be part of a
larger corpus" (1994a:4). Thus, a subcorpus must have all the properties of
a larger corpus. We understand this to mean that it is representative of
the larger corpus. A component, on the other hand, according to Sinclair,
illustrates a particular type of language and is selected "according to a
set of linguistic criteria that serve to characterize its linguistic
homogeneity" (Sinclair 1994a:4). It differs from a subcorpus in that it is
not intended to be representative of the corpus from which it is drawn and
is therefore not necessarily an adequate sample of a language.
--

I did not go back to Sinclair ("Corpus Typology: A Framework for
Classification", EAGLES 1994), but according to Pearson, "a subcorpus must
have all the properties of a larger corpus", thus being representative of
the larger corpus. Another question is how this can be achieved, although,
it is, obviously, safer to state that a subcorpus is representative of the
larger corpus, than argue that the larger corpus (and, consequently, the
subcorpus) is representative of a language (or genre etc.). Anyways, using
the terms defined above (without intention to agree fully with Pearson),
the set of EAP texts detached from the BNC would probably be called a
"component" rather than a "subcorpus". Personally I would like to call a
"subcorpus" ANY corpus detached from another corpus - despite its content
or composition. Whatever a set of texts is called, the question of
representativeness remains. Here I agree with Ute Roemer, who wrote: "The
important question in this context is 'What do you want to do with the
(sub)corpus?'"

sincerely,
Sampo

Ps. Please regard this as a note from a person who tends to consider the
notion of "representative of a language" as an oxymoron, a "mission
impossible".



( : ============================================= : )

Sampo Nevalainen, M.A.
Researcher
University of Joensuu
Savonlinna School of Translation Studies
P.O.Box 48
FIN-57101 Savonlinna
FINLAND

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