Corpora in English Language Research

After completing this course you will:

• be familiar with different types of corpora for English language research.
• understand how to select and work with digital text corpora for different types of language studies.
• know how to use digital tools for analysing and handling corpus data.
• know how to exploit corpora as a tool for continued language learning.
• have insight into the ways in which corpora are designed, compiled and annotated.
• be able to plan and carry out a linguistic study based on corpus data.

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

This course is for students admitted to the master programmes European Languages (master's two years), Lektorprogrammet (master - 5 år), masterspesialisering i engelsk språk and Profesjonsrettet master med integrert praktisk-pedagogisk utdanning (masterspesialisering i engelsk).

Students enrolled in other master`s degree programmes can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is approved by their own study programme.

The examination in this course is not available for external candidates. Only students admitted to the course may sit for the examination.

The course is taught throughout the semester with seven 2-hour seminars and three 3-hour seminars (for ten weeks in total). Students will have to bring their own laptops to the seminars.

Students are expected to attend all teaching. The quality of the teaching depends on active participation in all seminars.

Obligatory activities:

• Two obligatory assignments (one recorded oral presentation and one written report). Both assignments must be approved by the course teacher for the student to be able to take the exam. Read more here about rules concerning valid excuses and how to apply for postponements. Information about guidelines for obligatory activities.
• In this course you must attend a minimum of 6 out of 10 seminars. The requirement is absolute. Attendance at 10 out of 10 seminars is strongly encouraged. If you miss a class it is your responsibility to catch up the work you have missed.

The allowed absence limit will cover all absences, including illness. You will not be granted valid absences with documentation, even when the absence is due to something beyond your control.

In certain circumstances, i.e. serious or chronic illness, you could apply for special needs accommodations.

Fulfilled course requirements are only valid the semester you attend the course.

The obligatory requirements must be fulfilled in order to qualify for the exam.

The assessment of the course is based on a term paper of approximately ten pages (a standard page consists of 2,300 characters). This does not include references and bibliography. The topic for the term paper will be decided by the teacher and student together. In the evaluation, both content and language are taken into account.

Beforehand, students will be given an opportunity to submit a draft of the term paper and receive individual feedback on both the form and content of the draft.