Josef Schmied

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Analysing Academic English new resources and
research questions Brno 1/12/05

• Josef Schmied
• Chair English Language Linguistics
• Chemnitz University of Technology
• www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/english/schmied
• josef.schmied_at_phil.tu-chemnitz.de

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WWW dictionary Schmied 2

• 1. The web as a dictionary from www searching to
  comparing
• 0. search machines (esp. Google) allow www
  comparisons of language usage
• indicate occurrence and frequency
• 1. Webcorp (Liverpool) qualitative / quotations
• KWIC besides URL
• esp. specific search in Google/Altavista (e.g.
  .co.uk vs .ac.uk)
• domain-, text-specific (newspaper, etc.)
• 2. WebPhraseCount (Chemnitz) quantitative
  differences compare concurrences of phrases on
  top level domains
• limitations
• Google 1000 queries per day
• internal 100 quotations/snippets/results per
  search
• problems
• non-English websites (the)

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1.2. The web as a dictionary? limitations 1.
the web is not a reflection of reality the web
is not a corpus - but a text collectionmachine-re
adable but not stratified!!2. lack of oral
language but possibly from more oral parts of
the internet like emails and chats3.
general characteristic of the web public! even
private homepages are exhibitionistic - and
culture-specific
WWW dictionary Schmied 3
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2. multiSearch a EU translation corpus in
German, English, French, Spanish, ... EP
1997-2004
multiSearch Schmied 4

• http//ell.phil.tu-chemnitz.de/multiSearch
• problems vs. surplus value ?
• 2.1. for translation studies
• real equivalents (not only comparable texts)
• for contrastive linguistics
• - not natural
• as a discovery procedure

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multiSearch Schmied 5

• have etc. in English
• lassen/läßt, etc. in German
• faire/faisait, etc. in French

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2.2. Example causatives
multiSearch Schmied 6

• have s.o. do s.th.
• lassen/läßt, etc. in German
• faire/faisait, etc. in French
• English ha German la French fai
• ? provides some interesting prototypical cases

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multiSearch Schmied 7

• ep-00-05-03 2651English I have also noted that
  my dear friend, Mr Dell ' Alba, has had his
  grumbles printed as an appendix to my opinion.
  German Ich habe auch zur Kenntnis genommen, daß
  mein spezieller Freund aus dem Parlament, Herr
  Dell ' Alba, seine Kritik als Anlage zu meiner
  Stellungnahme hat drucken lassen. French J'ai
  également noté que mon cher ami député M.
  Dell'Alba avait fait imprimer ses rouspétances en
  annexe à mes remarques.

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multiSearch Schmied 8

• ep-97-07-14 39English Just eight days earlier,
  the European Parliament had adopted a resolution
  in the topical and urgent debate which runs to
  about three pages in length. German Das
  Europäische Parlament hatte genau acht Tage
  vorher eine Entschließung in der
  Dringlichkeitsdebatte verabschiedet, die ungefähr
  drei Seiten lang ist. French Huit jours
  auparavant, le Parlement européen avait adopté
  une résolution au cours du débat d'actualité, une
  résolution qui doit faire environ trois pages.
  Spanish Exactamente ocho días antes, el
  Parlamento Europeo aprobó una resolución en el
  debate de urgencia que abarca aproximadamente
  tres páginas.

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3. English for Academic Purposes
EAP Schmied 9

• 3.1. types
• expert to expert vs. layman to layman
• expert to expert vs. expert to layman
• 3.2. data?
• 3.3. differences?

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3. English for Academic Purposes
EAP Schmied 10

• data?
• expert to expert vs. layman to layman
• BNC
• expert to expert vs. expert to layman
• Public. of Am. Society of the Learned Sciences
• vs. New Scientist?
• wikipedia

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differences?
EAP Schmied 11

• technical vocab
• academic wordlist
• hedges
• types?

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EAP Schmied 12

• The ability of topically
• applied pTT to induce protective physiologic
  responses that normally_AV0_M_8
• result from DNA damage suggests_VV_M_8 a
  previously undescribed means of
• reducing skin cancer in high-risk individuals.
• Skin cancer accounts for at least_AJS_M_9 40 of
  all human malignancies,
• 1,000,000 cases annually in the U.S. (1, 2).
  Incidence
• is clearly_AV0_M_9 linked to UV exposure and
  increases exponentially
• with age (1, 3). Skin cancer risk is
  greatly_AV0_M_8 increased in the
• rare disease xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), because
  of mutation
• in one of several DNA repair enzymes responsible
  for nucleotide
• excision repair (NER) (46). Development of a
  hairless mouse
• model (7, 8) and more recently hairless XP gene
  knockout mice
• that mimic the human cancer susceptibility (4)
  has greatly_AV0_M_8
• facilitated studies of photocarcinogenesis. In
  particular, lowdose
• daily UV irradiation of XP group C (Xpc)/ mice
  leads to
• the development of skin cancer with a short
  latency time (80100
• days) and 100 prevalence, and partially_AV0_M_6
  repair deficient Xpc/
• mice are also more prone to UV-induced skin
  cancer than their
• WT counterparts (9).

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English may German vielleicht French ?
EAP Schmied 13

• English Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs
  Gradin, before coming to the individual requests
  I would like to situate this report within a
  wider framework, even if this may seem
  presumptuous to the eyes and in the ears of some
  Members.
• German Herr Präsident, liebe Kolleginnen und
  Kollegen, liebe Frau Kommissarin Gradin! Bevor
  ich zu unseren einzelnen Forderungen komme,
  möchte ich diesen Bericht in einen größeren
  Zusammenhang stellen, auch wenn dies in den Augen
  und Ohren der einen oder anderen vielleicht
  anmaßend erscheint.
• French Monsieur le Président, chers collègues,
  Mme le commissaire, avant que je n'en vienne à
  nos exigences, j'aimerais placer ce rapport dans
  un contexte plus large même si cela paraît
  prétentieux aux yeux de l'un ou l'autre.