Grammar for InteractionsFall 2015

IECPNikki Mattson

Agenda

• Introduction to corpus usage for vocabulary

• Corpus vocabulary activity• Vocabulary instruction and conversation

starter workshop• Grammar editing from previous class

What is a Corpus?• A very large collection of spoken and written texts that can be analyzed by

computers to see how people write and speak in the real world.

• The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is the largest freely-available corpus of English, and the only large and balancedc orpus of American English. The corpus was created by Mark Davies of Brigham Young University, and it is used by tens of thousands of users every month (linguists, teachers, translators, and other researchers).

• The corpus contains more than 450 million words of text and is equally divided among spoken, fiction, popular magazines, newspapers, and academic texts.

Modelling + Handout

Individual Vocabulary Study1.gender (n) - Bora2.role (n) - Ahmad3.behavior (n) - Mashari4.male (adj) – Mohammad5.characteristic (n) - Hussain6.female (adj) - Grace7.reverse (n) - Nehal8.masculine (adj) - Shaika9.feminine (adj) - Bayan10.Generally - Elyas

Sharing Vocabulary Knowledge

• Speak loudly and clearly• Make eye contact• Check for understanding• If you read your answers first, explain what

you have said as well.

Conversation Starter Assignment

• Create a conversation starter, using your assigned word. You should share information from your field, and ask a related question that you think the class would benefit from discussing. Add your name and field at the end of your conversation starter.

1. gender (n) - Shaikha2. role (n) - Ahmad3. behavior (n) - Mashari4. male (adj) – Mohammad5. characteristic (n) - Hussain6. female (adj) - Grace7. reverse (n) - Nehal8. masculine (adj) - Bora9. feminine (adj) - Bayan10. Generally - Elyas

Examples

Example 1

• Many laws state that a person is responsible for his/her own behavior. Who is responsible for a pet’s behavior? If a pet causes injury to a person or thing, should the owner be responsible for the pet’s behavior? Why/why not?

• (Law, Mohammed ALBadi)

Example 2

In the construction industry in my country, most of the workers are males because they are tougher/stronger and it is also more culturally acceptable for males to do this type of work. Do you think that females could/should work in construction like males? Why/why not?

(Civil Engineering, Medhat)

Example 3• Biomedical Engineering is a major that combines

engineering and medicine. Some typical characteristics of bioengineers are: 1- being interested in engineering and medicine, 2- being a creative person, and 3- being up-to-date with new medical information. What do you think biomedical engineers actually do?

• (Biomedical Engineering, Maryam Felemban)

Continue Introduction Editing

HW

• Post your conversation starter to the course blog by midnight tonight. This is your first graded assignment for this class