Using Educational Technology in the English Language Classroom: Module 3
Grammar: Using a Corpus to Explore Grammatical Examples
COCA: The List Function
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVB915brrrE
Tom Elliot
Iowa State University
COCA has seven major search functions: List, Chart, Word, Browse, Collocates, Compare, and KWIC.
We’ll start with List. List is the most basic function, and it allows you to put in a word or a phrase and
then see the wider context around that word or phrase.
Figure 1. COCA List function
This work is a derivative of "Corpus of Contemporary American English" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Let’s start with an example. We’ll type the word “run” into the search field and look for matching
strings. Type in “run,” then click “Find Matching Strings.”
© 2019 by Iowa State University. Module 3: COCA – The List Function Tutorial Transcript for the AE E-Teacher
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Figure 2. Find matching strings for "run"
This work is a derivative of "Corpus of Contemporary American English" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
We’ll see that “run” occurs in the corpus 263,983 times. Please remember that this number can be
different when you try this out since the corpus is growing on a regular basis.
Figure 3. Frequency information for "run"
This work is a derivative of "Frequency information for run" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed under CC BY
4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
If we first click on the checkbox and the word “run” in the highlighted entry, we can see detailed
information on the word.
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Figure 4. word information for "run"
This work is a derivative of "Frequency information for run" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed under CC BY
4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
If we click on the word “run,” with the box unchecked, we can see the wider context. It sometimes takes
COCA a minute to process a new request. Here, we have the wider context of “run,” and we can see
authentic examples of “run” in use in the corpus.
Figure 5. Authentic examples of usage of "run"
This work is a derivative of "Search results for run" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by
Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Let’s go back to our search and try to refine that a little bit. Let’s say we want to look at “run” only as it
occurs as a noun. To do that, we type in the word “run” as we did before. Then, we can use the
dropdown list (POS or _pos) to input tags for "parts of speech" (PoS, e.g., nouns and verbs). Be sure to
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click the ‘underscore POS’ button here. We can the select, for example, Noun, and it will come up like
this.
Figure 6. Selecting POS tag to find matching strings for "run" as noun
This work is a derivative of "Corpus of Contemporary American English" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Here, we have “run,” followed by an underscore, and nn (i.e., the tag for noun). Then we search.
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Figure 7. Find matching strings for "run" as noun
This work is a derivative of "Corpus of Contemporary American English" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Now, we have 63050 hits or occurrences of the word “run” tagged as a noun.
Figure 8. Frequency information for "run" as noun
This work is a derivative of "Frequency information for run as a noun" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
If we want to look at “run” as a verb, we can change our tag by deleting it and selecting Verb.
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Figure 9. Selecting POS tag to find matching strings for "run" as verb
This work is a derivative of "Corpus of Contemporary American English" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Now, we do our search, and we see that we have 200731, so there are more instances of “run” as a verb
than as a noun.
Figure 4. Frequency information for "run" as a verb
This work is a derivative of "Frequency information for run as a verb" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
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Another thing that’s interesting in List is that we can search for phrases. For example, if I want to search
for “go for a run,” I’ll get rid of my PoS tags because I’m looking for a phrase now, not a word, and I click
Find Matching Strings.
Figure 5. Find matching strings for "go for a run"
This work is a derivative of "Corpus of Contemporary American English" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
We see that “go for a run” happens 190 times.
Figure 62. Frequency information for "go for a run"
This work is a derivative of "Frequency information for go for a run" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Then, if I click on the context, I can see how the phrase “go for a run” is used. Here, we have something
like “I thought I’d go for a run, “I go for a run or a spin class,” and “Why do you always go for a run so
late?” so it sounds like “go for a run” is used when someone is talking about exercising or going outside
and running.
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Figure 13. Authentic examples of usage of "go for a run"
This work is a derivative of "Examples of usage of go for a run" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed under CC
BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
We can compare this to a different phrase like “take a run.” “Take a run” occurs 116 times, so it happens
less than “go for a run” in this corpus.
Figure 14. Frequency information for "take a run"
This work is a derivative of "Frequency information for take a run" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed under
CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Looking at “take a run”, we find examples like “she might decide to take a run at someone else,” and “I
encouraged Rodrella to really take a run at neighborhood diversity,”. This seems to be used in a little bit
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different context than “go for a run.” This is something we’ll come back and explore more with KWIC
lines in a minute.
Figure 7 Authentic examples of usage of "take a run"
This work is a derivative of "Examples of usage of take a run" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed under CC
BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
The last thing I want to talk about with List is that you can look for variable slots in the phrases as well.
For example, if I use the phrase “go for a,” then I can put in an asterisk or a wild card, which allows for a
variable slot, and find matching strings. I can then see what types of words fill that variable slot.
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Figure 16. Find matching strings with a variable slot
This work is a derivative of "Corpus of Contemporary American English" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed
under CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Here, we can see “go for a walk” is the most frequent, followed by “go for a ride,” “go for a drive,” “go
for a run,” “go for a swim,” so that earlier example of “go for a run” is frequent, but it’s not the most
frequent. Here, we can see how the phrase “go for a” and then a variable slot is used and what types of
words fill that variable slot. Okay, that’s all for List. I think we’ll move on to the next one.
Figure 17. Frequency information for "go for a *"
This work is a derivative of "Frequency information for go for a *" by Corpus of Contemporary American English. This derivative is licensed under
CC BY 4.0 by Iowa State University for use in the OPEN Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
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