Home » Standards and variation

Topic: Standards and variation

These resources take an exploratory approach to the nature of English in use, in real-world contexts.

Corpora: Useful web tools

The following are corpus-related websites which we think are helpful for investigating language.

Wordle

Wordle is a simple-to-use site that lets you paste in your own data and then creates an attractive ‘word cloud’ based on the frequency of the words you’ve used. You can use Wordle as a very simple corpus tool for something like a poem, a song lyric, a political speech or a soliloquy from a play and get a visual representation of the language within it. (See also the lesson entitled 'Word clouds in action', which uses Wordle as a way in to analysing a poem).

»

Grammar

We define grammar as the study of the structure of words and sentences. As such it is an abstract system, worthy of study in its own right. However, we also see grammar as a system that is used in a range of contexts to unlock meaning. We want to look at grammar not only in written language, but also in spoken English, in a range of multimodal forms, and in all its rich variety.

»

Prepared speech

Using corpora to investigate prepared speeches

One very simple approach to using corpora in English lessons is to pull apart a speech using the website WordClouds, which can be found here. WordClouds creates simple but beautiful images made up of words in a text that you can input.

»

Register

We all use different forms of language in different situations. At the most extreme, you’ll probably know that in casual conversation with friends you will use very different language from that which you’d use at a job interview.

The kinds of differences will relate to vocabulary (the word choices you make) but also to grammar (the structures, the complexity, the patterns of words).

»

Martian grammar: Activity 1

Aliens have landed on Earth, but don’t worry: they come in peace. Or at least, we think they do, but we can’t quite understand what they’re talking about.

Their language is not familiar and even highly trained experts are struggling to work out what they are saying. Your job is to work with the Martian examples that they have translated and work out some of the rules of their language. In doing so, you might even learn something about your own language.

»

Martian grammar

This is a unit about the grammar of an invented language, ‘Martian’. It uses students’ (often subconscious) understanding of morphology to help them uncover the ‘rules’ of a made-up language. To ‘crack’ the language, they will need to break down the words into meaningful parts.

»
Englicious (C) Survey of English Usage, UCL, 2012-21 | Supported by the AHRC and EPSRC. | Privacy | Cookies