Introducing AntConc 3.5: A response to some common issues and challenges in corpus analyses

Speaker: Laurence Anthony (Professor, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Japan)
Venue: Strathcona Building, Lecture Theatre 7

Abstract

Corpus linguists face various technical, statistical, and methodological issues when they embark on a research project involving custom-built corpus data. They first need to consider the format of the raw data and then decide how best to convert this into a format that can be processed by their analytical tools of choice. They also need to consider the most relevant statistical measures to identify important language features, such as collocations and keywords. Once these features are identified, it is then important to consider the best methods to investigate why these features are present and what their relevance is. In this presentation, I will introduce a new version of the widely used AntConc corpus toolkit that addresses some of the most common challenges that corpus linguists face when they set out of a new research project. I will explain how the software offers new ways to automatically identify the encodings of raw texts. I will also show how the software is built with default settings that match the current best practices in the field and offers transparent setting options that allow researchers to refine their analytical measures when necessary. At the end of the presentation, I will introduce some related tools that expand the possibilities of AntConc for use in a Data-Driven Learning (DDL) classroom.

Biography

Laurence Anthony is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Japan. He has a BSc degree (Mathematical Physics) from the University of Manchester, UK, and MA (TESL/TEFL) and PhD (Applied Linguistics) degrees from the University of Birmingham, UK. He is a former Director and the current coordinator of graduate school English in the Center for English Language Education in Science and Engineering (CELESE). His main research interests are in corpus linguistics, educational technology, and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program design and teaching methodologies. He serves on the editorial boards of various international journals and is a frequent member of the scientific committees of international conferences. He received the National Prize of the Japan Association for English Corpus Studies (JAECS) in 2012 for his work in corpus software tools design. He is the developer of various corpus tools including AntConc, AntWordProfiler, AntMover, FireAnt, ProtAnt, and TagAnt.