Call for abstracts: Corpus Linguistics in the South

 

The 16th CorpusLinguistics in the South (CLS) event will take place on 3rd March 2018, at the University of Sussex, with the theme ‘Quantifying Concepts in Corpus Linguistics’.
Corpus approaches to meaning have often operated at the level of the word. For example, early corpus linguistic research examined the meanings of words, via frequencies of co-occurring words. What happens when researchers shift the focus from the word to the concept? How do we operationalise concepts? How do we quantify concepts? How do we compare conceptual content between two datasets?
We welcome papers that approach the notion of quantification and concepts in a wide variety of ways. Concepts might include any level of linguistic meaning or combination of levels, i.e.: semantic, pragmatic, discursive, socio-cultural, grammatical, or other. Quantitative approach to concepts goes beyond focussing on frequency counts and encompasses all stages of operationalising concepts in corpus linguistics from the working definitions of concepts to the visualisation of conceptual content.
In the vein of the theme of this CLS meeting there will be a plenary talk from the Linguistic DNA project by Dr Seth Mehl. The Linguistic DNA team has been working to map semantics and concepts in the very large historical data set of Early English Books Online (specifically, EEBO-TCP).
Papers will be allocated 20 minutes for presentation followed by 10 minutes of discussion. Papers may present research that is finished or in progress; methodological or theoretical reflections or discussions; or demonstrations of tools or resources. Papers are welcome from established researchers and early career researchers, as well as PhD students.

Abstracts of 250 words should be submitted, with title and author(s) names, to justyna.robinson@sussex.ac.uk by 1 February, 2018.

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