[Corpora-List] corpus linguistics

[Samuel Henderson]

To quote from http://torvald.aksis.uib.no/corpora/welcome.txt:

"The CORPORA list is open for information and questions about text
corpora such as availability, aspects of compiling and using corpora,
software, tagging, parsing, bibliography, conferences etc."

I don't see anything there about interminable discussions there, and had
such discussions been par for the course a few years back, I would never
have signed up.  Further, my understanding of etiquette on high-traffic
lists has been that most respondents to a query should respond directly to
the querent, who should then choose to post a summary of responses to the
list.  Of course the violation of that principle has been pervasive here for
some time, but it's far less annoying when the discussion is on some
technical matter and naturally comes to an end after a brief exchanges.

I would be quite interested in reading a thoughtful exchange on the mutual
relevance of corpora and Chomskyan linguistics, even if it was written by
the participants here.  But I would want to read it in one sitting (or at
least a few sittings).  It is not pleasant to be subjected to it one drip at
a time in an email inbox already crowded with traffic.   Such
high-volume and irrelevant threads also render daily digests almost
unreadable.

At any rate, as someone whose primary interest is in the applications of
corpora to translation and language learning, I don't suppose I will
continue to subscribe here for much longer.  The technical discussions are
always of interest, and the innumerable CFPs are easy enough to filter out;
but in recent times, even these two combined have scarcely accounted for
half the traffic here.  I have been impressed both by the overwhelming
rudeness of this recent exchange, and by the gracious courage of the handful
who have defended Professor Renouf and the integrity of the list.

Best regards,

Sam Henderson
Pusan National University

On 9/18/07, Rob Freeman <lists at chaoticlanguage.com> wrote:
>
> Philip,
>
> Why are you trying to impose your personal interests on a list which
> patently does not agree?
>
> Moving the discussion to another forum would inevitably mean some could
> not follow, and impose inconvenience on those who did.
>
> In any case the Corpora list is the perfect place for this discussion,
> which addresses the use and significance of corpora for the study of
> linguistics. Many who did not see the relevance early on have become
> interested as the discussion developed.
>
> If you don't agree you are welcome to contribute your opinion.
>
> What is broken?
>
> -Rob
>
> On 9/17/07, P Resnik < psresnik at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 9/16/07, Rob Freeman < lists at chaoticlanguage.com> wrote:
> > > Perhaps there might indeed be grounds to consider the
> > > establishment of a separate corpora-announce list which would contain
> > only
> > > things of interest to those who do not wish to debate or be confronted
> > with
> > > new ideas.
> >
> > How incredibly insulting, as must be evident even to those in support of
> > continuing the discussion in this forum.
> >
> > Way back in July, Steve Finch wrote:
> >
> > If your goal is to produce a theory of the structure of language in
> > > terms of the sort of theories of syntax that Chomsky pioneered and in
> > > the paradigm which he introduced ... I have seen very little evidence
> > > that the sort of study that goes on in corpus linguistics has very
> > > much insightful to add to that enterprise.
> > >
> >
> > and in my reply I commented
> >
> > There are interesting arguments to make regarding the underlying premise
> > > ("If your goal is..."), but there are also uninteresting, interminable
> > > arguments and I'm not going to be the one to start us down that path.
> > >
> >
> > Well, you can't blame me for trying.
> >
> > People should judge for themselves whether particular arguments being
> > put forth are new or interesting, but there can be no doubt that they are
> > interminable.   There is a long tradition of creating new discussion forums
> > when a branch of discussion takes on a life of its own on a subtopic of
> > interest.  If you are particularly interested in children's books, you can
> > read rec.arts.books.children, and this suggests no value judgments at
> > all about the worth of children's literature discussions relative to books
> > in general. Given how easy it is these days to create and subscribe to new
> > blogs and mailing lists these days, I'm totally at a loss as to why such a
> > courteous and win-win solution should not be taken by those who are
> > interested in continuing the discussion in question.
> >
> >   Philip
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
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