Overcoming Challenges in Corpus Construction The Spoken British National Corpus 2014

This volume offers a critical examination of the construction of the Spoken British National Corpus 2014 (Spoken BNC2014) and points the way forward toward a more informed understanding of corpus linguistic methodology more broadly. The book begins by situating the creation of this second corpus, a compilation of new, publicly-accessible Spoken British English from the 2010s, within the context of the first, created in 1994, talking through the need to balance backward capability and optimal practice for today’s users. Chapters subsequently use the Spoken BNC2014 as a focal point around which to discuss the various considerations taken into account in corpus construction, including design, data collection, transcription, and annotation. The volume concludes by reflecting on the successes and limitations of the project, as well as the broader utility of the corpus in linguistic research, both in current examples and future possibilities. This exciting new contribution to the literature on linguistic methodology is a valuable resource for students and researchers in corpus linguistics, applied linguistics, and English language teaching.

Table of ContentsChapter 1: IntroductionPart I BEFORE CORPUS CONSTRUCTION: THEORY AND DESIGNChapter 2: Why a new Spoken BNC and why now?Chapter 3: Theoretical challenges in corpus designPart II DURING CORPUS CONSTRUCTION: THEORY MEETS PRACTICEChapter 4: Challenges in data collectionChapter 5: Challenges in transcription, part I – conventionsChapter 6: Challenges in transcription, part II – who said what?Chapter 7: Challenges in corpus processing and disseminationPart III AFTER CORPUS CONSTRUCTION: EVALUATING THE CORPUSChapter 8: Evaluating the Spoken BNC2014Chapter 9: Conclusions and further construction work

Robbie Love is a Research Fellow at the School of Education, University of Leeds, with research interests in applied and corpus linguistics. He completed his PhD at Lancaster University in 2018, where he was lead researcher in the development of the Spoken British National Corpus 2014. Before moving to Leeds, he held a post-doctoral position at Cambridge Assessment English, where he worked on the development of the Cambridge Learner Corpus. He is co-editor of "Corpus Approaches to Contemporary British Speech" (Routledge, 2018).