The course is an introduction to the study of the English lexicon. In particular, it explores the evolution of English lexis, its morphological properties, the most productive mechanisms of word formation and the semantic relations between words. The course also aims at developing the student’s linguistic skills through the analysis of several types of texts. At the end of the course the student will have acquired i) the knowledge of the main aspects of the English lexicon and of the methods and procedures of lexicological analysis, ii) the techniques used to classify and analyse a wide range of text types.
Lessons are designed to include classroom activities, which will serve as a tool to favour the acquisition of theoretical contents and practical skills for linguistic analysis.
Lessons are designed to include classroom activities, which will serve as a tool to favour the acquisition of theoretical contents and practical skills for linguistic analysis.
teacher profile teaching materials
The following topics will be covered during the course:
-) the study of the English language through corpora;
-) word classes and their frequency in corpora;
-) the concept of collocation;
-) phrases and lexicon;
-) recurrent syntactic structures and textual typology;
-) metaphor and metonymy through corpora;
-) grammaticalization;
-) analysis of the text through the corpus;
-) the web as a corpus.
1) Hans Lindquist, Magnus Levin, Corpus Linguistics and the Description of English, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2018 (all volume).
* 2) Anne O’Keeffe and Michael McCarthy (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, Routledge, 2010 (chapters 16, 22) (copy shop)
Recommended texts:
1) Maria Freddi, Linguistica dei corpora, Roma, Carocci, 2014 (strongly recommended).
Programme
The course is an introduction to the use of IT tools for the study of the English language. The module includes a theoretical part, in which the main themes of corpus linguistics will be described, in order to familiarize the student with quantitative and computational methodologies for the analysis of English linguistic data. In the second part, the main corpora and software for the study of the English language will be illustrated, and illustrative case studies will be proposed on the study of the lexicon and the syntagmatic properties of lexemes (e.g. collocations, multiword units), semantics (e.g. metaphor, metonymy, lexical polysemy) and the evolution of the English language (eg grammaticalization).The following topics will be covered during the course:
-) the study of the English language through corpora;
-) word classes and their frequency in corpora;
-) the concept of collocation;
-) phrases and lexicon;
-) recurrent syntactic structures and textual typology;
-) metaphor and metonymy through corpora;
-) grammaticalization;
-) analysis of the text through the corpus;
-) the web as a corpus.
Core Documentation
PROGRAM A.Y. 2019/2020 (relating to the course to be held in the second semester)1) Hans Lindquist, Magnus Levin, Corpus Linguistics and the Description of English, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2018 (all volume).
* 2) Anne O’Keeffe and Michael McCarthy (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, Routledge, 2010 (chapters 16, 22) (copy shop)
Recommended texts:
1) Maria Freddi, Linguistica dei corpora, Roma, Carocci, 2014 (strongly recommended).
Type of delivery of the course
Lectures and exercises. Attendance is strongly recommended. Start of the course: 27 february course timetable: THURSDAY 9-12 classroom 16Type of evaluation
The exam will consist of a written test on the topics of the program (multiple choice questions, true / false questions, open-ended questions).