What is a corpus? What is Corpus Linguistics?

A Corpus is a collection of texts (oral or written) produced by a proficient language speaker in a communicative situation made available in a machine readable form to allow linguistic analysis for different purposes. The first ever-made corpus was created in early 1960s and it was the Brown Corpus. It consisted of one million written words made available in an electronic format for use.

 in the image,  you can see Dr. Mark Davies of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA creating his Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)  which is a free, native, written, static, general corpus that consists of 450 million words (190,000 texts) dating from 1990 to 2012. He made other corpora (plural of Corpus) such as Wikipedia Corpus, Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), TIME Magazine Corpus and Corpus of American Soap Operas. 

Now that we know what is a corps we should know what is Corpus Linguistics (CL).  Corpus Linguistics is the study of field collected authentic language of native speakers.  It’s the study of field-collected authentic language of native speakers. Unlike sociolinguistics or psycholinguistics which are separate paradigms within linguistics, corpus linguistics is “a methodological basis for pursuing linguistic research” (Leech 1992: 105). It's a way of conducting linguistics. 

What makes corpus linguistics unique is its ability to deal with the daily authentic language of native speakers. It follows a descriptive approach to language that accepts all dialects of language as equal and rule-governed. Thus, you can search the use of any word or part of word to see how it's used by native speakers in real communicative situations.

If you are interested in spoken (taped) corpora you can visit Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English in the link below to listen to real people speaking language in authentic situations.

corpus linguistics is more popular in genre analysis where linguists analyze a genre such as acknowledgments, abstracts, introduction so that learners can know the conventions of writing these genres. However, corpus linguistics is also used in designing reference books like dictionaries and language teaching materials.all of this could be done using a concordancer ( an application that allows you to do various types of searches to a previously loaded number of texts or texts you load as your own corpus. You can get a free concordancer from Laurence Anthony's Website .

References:

Leech, Geoffrey (1992) Corpora and Theories of Linguistic Performance. In Svartvik (1992). 105–22.

For further reading:

From Corpus to Classroom: language use and language teaching By Okeefee, McCarthy & Carter

The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics  

Still searching :The artist's style block

Do you find yourself searching for you art style? For the things that will free you and give you wings to fly high in your art profession?! Then stand next to me and next to millions like us around the world.

When I ask myself what type of drawing/ painting I like most, the answer is always something with colors, yet even colors can bore you.

Every now and then I find myself stuck in thinking my art over and over. Should I copy others ? A big NO comes quickly to claim my mind. Should I paint abstracts (colors and no shapes sounds fun ) ? Well it's tempting but deep inside I find it worthless to paint things that needs to be explained. Should I draw in pencil more and practice so I overcome this recurring interval?  it sounds logical but deep down I hate pencil for anything but my personal incoherent scribbles.  Should I use color pencils?  It combines neatness and colors but there is no long life span. And the questions go on to my duties and study and other responsibilities.

What to do?
First, don't beat yourself up for thinking in this way because it will bring you no solution.
Second, think of future painting ideas instead of wasting your time thinking about your art block.
Third, remember that art is a state of chaos that an artist tries to tame.
Forth, try to schedule your art time in order to get yourself into the mood and leave all your worries behind.

in this concern i'm reminded of the words of Steve Jobs:

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. "

Good luck with your art.
Wish me luck

Ola :)

English for Pharmacology Second Year Students

درس انكليزي خاص لطلاب الصيدلة للسنة الثانية

رابط الدرس

Pharmacology Ethics

رابط المقطع السماعي الأول

Ethics 1

رابط المقطع السماعي الثاني

Ethics 2

General English Lesson for First Year Students

 

تصميم درس انكليزي لطلاب السنوات الأولى في الجامعة حسب بحث صغير عن حاجاتهم

رابط الدرس 

I LOVE English

رابط المقطع السماعي الأول

Relationships 1

رابط المقطع السماعي الثاني

Relationships 2

Concordance & Teaching Materials

Using Concordance to make ESP Teaching Materials

In this (silent) video I show you the way in which i used AntConc concordancer to choose a text from the corpus i made for reading comprehension task. The corpus is a collection of excerpts from online articles each is about 200 words in length. Frequency and Keyness are the criteria for choosing the text that mostly represents the whole corpus. Then, from the frequency list was the basis for a grammar task (parts of speech). 

The resulted tasks are the following: 

APPENDIX A

A.    Discuss with class:

1-      What do ethics mean?

2-      Do you know Hippocratic Oath

3-      What are the ethical standards of pharmacy profession?

B.     Read the following text :

The Code of Ethics

Is the principles that form the fundamental basis of the roles and responsibilities of pharmacists. These principles, based on moral obligations and virtues, are established to guide pharmacists in relationships with patients, health professionals, and society.

1.      A pharmacist respects the covenantal relationship between the patient and pharmacist. Considering the patient-pharmacist relationship as a covenant means that a pharmacist has moral obligations in response to the gift of trust received from society. In return for this gift, a pharmacist promises to help individuals achieve optimum benefit from their medications, to be committed to their welfare, and to maintain their trust.

2.      A pharmacist promotes the good of every patient in a caring, compassionate, and confidential manner. A pharmacist places concern for the well-being of the patient at the center of professional practice. In doing so, a pharmacist considers needs stated by the patient as well as those defined by health science. A pharmacist is dedicated to protecting the dignity of the patient. With a caring attitude and a compassionate spirit, a pharmacist focuses on serving the patient in a private and confidential manner.

3.      A pharmacist respects the autonomy and dignity of each patient. A pharmacist promotes the right of self-determination and recognizes individual self-worth by encouraging patients to participate in decisions about their health. A pharmacist communicates with patients in terms that are understandable. In all cases, a pharmacist respects personal and cultural differences among patients.

4.      A pharmacist acts with honesty and integrity in professional relationships. A pharmacist has a duty to tell the truth and to act with conviction of conscience. A pharmacist avoids discriminatory practices, behavior or work conditions that impair professional judgment, and actions that compromise dedication to the best interests of patients.

5.      A pharmacist maintains professional competence. A pharmacist has a duty to maintain knowledge and abilities as new medications, devices, and technologies become available and as health information advances.

6.      A pharmacist respects the values and abilities of colleagues and other health professionals.

When appropriate, a pharmacist asks for the consultation of colleagues or other health professionals or refers the patient. A pharmacist acknowledges that colleagues and other health professionals may differ in the beliefs and values they apply to the care of the patient.

7.      A pharmacist serves individual, community, and societal needs. The primary obligation of a pharmacist is to individual patients. However, the obligations of a pharmacist may at times extend beyond the individual to the community and society. In these situations, the pharmacist recognizes the responsibilities that accompany these obligations and acts accordingly.

8.      A pharmacist seeks justice in the distribution of health resources. When health resources are allocated, a pharmacist is fair and equitable, balancing the needs of patients and society.

* adopted by the membership of the American Pharmacists Association October 27, 1994

C.     Answer the following questions:

1-      Are the ethical standards you discussed with class similar to those in the text?

2-      Can you give an example of how the relationship between the patient and pharmacist is covenantal?

3-      Give an example of a pharmacist behavior that goes against code number 4.

4-      How can pharmacists do tomaintain their professional competence?

APPENDIX B

A.    Choose the appropriate word for each group of sentences from the box and specify whether it's used as a verb or noun by writing V for verb and N for noun.

 

Form, Abuse,  Help,  Cause,  Control,  Need,  Care,

Group 1:

-          Aspirin in its present . . . . .  has been around for over 100 years. (     )

-          A tremendous amount of empirical information has accumulated to . . . . . a nebulous system of "herbal medicine. (     )

Group 2:

-          They begin to . . . . .drugs when they repeatedly take them to solve their problems or to make them feel "normal". (     )

-          Drugs such as marijuana, meth, and the. . . . .of prescription medications are on the rise.(     )

Group 3:

-          Newer medications . . . . .  reduce the time it takes to fall asleep. (     )

-          Vitamin D . . . . . your body absorb the amount of calcium (a mineral) it needs to form strong bones. (     )

Group 4:

-          Cancer is gradually becoming the leading disease-related . . . . . of death of the human population. (     )

-          The names of some drugs are similar and, if not written clearly, . . . . . confusion. (     )

-           

Group 5:

-          All they . . . . . is a computer and some free time. (     )

-          There is an ultimate . . . . . for innovation in drug discovery and development. (     )

 Refrence

"Code of Ethics." American Pharmacists Association 27 October, 1994. Web. 9 April 2015.

Retrieved from http://www.pharmacist.com/code-ethics