LINGUIST List 9.1250

Wed Sep 9 1998

FYI: Corpus, Discussion List, Software

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

  • Corpus-Manager, Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English
  • taimi metzler, Invitation to Discussion in Virtual Recitation
  • Carol Neidle, New software release - SignStream version 1.0

    Message 1: Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English

     Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 16:33:51 +1200
    From: Corpus-Manager <Corpus-Managervuw.ac.nz>
    Subject: Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English


    The transcripts from the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English (WSC) are now available. The WSC comprises one million words and was collected in the years 1988 to 1994. Both monologue and dialogue categories are included and there is broadcast as well as private material collected in a range of settings. The majority of the texts are informal - 750,000 words. The WSC will be available on the new ICAME CD (International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME) at the Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities, Bergen, Norway). It is also available on CD at a cost of NZ$100 for individuals and NZ$200 for institutions from the Manager, Wellington Corpora of New Zealand English, School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, NEW ZEALAND. Email: Corpus-Managervuw.ac.nz

    This CD also contains the Wellington Corpus of Written New Zealand English (WWC), one million words of written New Zealand English collected from writings published in the years 1986 to 1990. The WWC has the same basic categories as the Brown Corpus of written American English (1961) and the Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen corpus (LOB) of written British English (1961). The corpus also parallels the structure of the Macquarie Corpus of written Australian English (1986). The WWC consists of 2,000 word excerpts on a variety of topics. Text categories include press material, religious texts, skills, trades and hobbies, popular lore, biography, scholarly writing and fiction.

    Message 2: Invitation to Discussion in Virtual Recitation

     Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 09:26:24 -0600 (MDT)
    From: taimi metzler <metzlersstripe.Colorado.EDU>
    Subject: Invitation to Discussion in Virtual Recitation


    We, an instructor and a TA for a course 'LINGUISTICS 1000: Language in US Society' at University of Colorado at Boulder, would like to invite you to join the recitation discussions which are taking place on-line. This is an experimental recitation section in which the students participate in the discussions without coming to a classroom.

    (Please visit http://www.colorado.edu/ling/f98/1000 and click 'Virtual Recitation' from the Web Page Menu

    to go to the recitation. When a pop-up window opens, please use 'guest' as login ID and password.)

    As we are using 'Language Awareness 7th ed.' as a text, we would welcome comments of the contributors of this book as well as teachers and researchers of the topics (described below) covered by the course. (Please refer to 'Calendar' page for the assigned readings.)

    The topics and the dates (approximate) for the discussion are: 1. Language Development (in a broad sense) -- Sept. 2 - 11 2. Literacy -- Sept. 14 - 18 3. Cultural Diversity and Bilingualism -- Sept. 21 - 23 4. Indigenous and Endangered Languages -- Sept. 23 - Oct. 2 5. Regionarl Variesties/Black English Vernacular -- Oct. 5 - 9 6. American Sign Language - Oct. 12 - 16 7. Bilingual and Multilingual Education -- Oct. 26 - 30 8. Official English -- Nov. 2 - 6 9. Language and Gender -- Nov. 9 - 13 10. Stereotypes and Prototypes -- Nov. 16 - 20 11. Media (News) -- Nov. 23 - 27 12. Media (Politics/Advertisement) -- Nov. 29 - Dec. 2 13. Media's Power -- Dec. 6 - 8

    The discussion will begin with a couple of summaries of the assigned readings to be posted on a forum for each topic (accessible from 'Virtual Recitation Homepage' by clicking 'bulletins' icon) and then flow rather freely just as an in-class recitation goes.

    The students in this recitation may be excited to have experts on the various topics participating in their discussions. One of the purposes of the Virtual Recitation is to involve them in a larger academic community and expose them to several perspectives on the topics under discussion.

    If you are interested in joining our discussion, please visit our 'Virtual Discussion page' and click 'Information' icon for more details.

    We also welcome comments and recommendations on the Virtual Recitation as it is set up or as a pedagogical tool for large lecture classes.

    Thank you for your attention.

    Sincerely, Julia Fisher (Instructor, U. of Colo. at Boulder) Yoshiteru Asano (TA - Virtual Recitation section)

    Message 3: New software release - SignStream version 1.0

     Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 20:12:50 -0400 (EDT)
    From: Carol Neidle <carollouis-xiv.bu.edu>
    Subject: New software release - SignStream version 1.0


    We are pleased to announce the release of SignStream, a database tool for analysis of linguistic data captured on video. SignStream runs on MacOS computers running system 7.1 or later and QuickTime 2.1 or later. Although SignStream is being designed specifically for working with data from American Sign Language, the program may be used with any kind of language data captured on video.

    The program is available (for non-commercial use) to students, educators, and researchers on a non-profit basis. There is also a new SignStream listserv; see http://www.bu.edu/asllrp/SignStream/sslist.html .

    Further information is available at http://www.bu.edu/asllrp/SignStream/

    Carol Neidle American Sign Language Linguistic Research Project http://www.bu.edu/asllrp