[Corpora-List] Testing how representative a particular corpus is

[Angus Grieve-Smith]

On 1/26/2014 4:51 PM, Matías Guzmán Naranjo wrote:
>
>     Another thing we can do is to put off the problem of finding a
>     representative sample of Language X and focus on a particular
>     genre or register, where there will be less variability.
>
>
> The problem is that we want to be able to generalized. It is of little 
> insight to say that construction X is more frequent than construction 
> Y in <<semi-guided interviews conducted by profession linguists, where 
> the test subjects know they are being recorded>> for the 100 people 
> you picked. We would like to be able to say that those results are 
> representative of, say, spoken language in a particular city, or at 
> least a formal spoken register. Not being able to generalize would 
> mean that things like collocational, or collostructional studies are 
> meaningless for spoken corpora because they would only apply to that 
> particular set of texts.

     Right.  Here's what I don't get: Why hasn't anyone followed even a 
single speaker around, let alone a representative sample, to see what 
proportion of registers and genres they're exposed to on a daily basis?  
Or has this been done?

-- 
				-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
				grvsmth at panix.com

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