ConcGram 1.0

A phraseological search engine

Chris Greaves
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ConcGram 1.0 is a corpus linguistics software package which is specifically designed to find all the co-occurrences of words in a text or corpus irrespective of variation. The software finds the co-occurrences fully automatically, in other words, the user inputs no prior search commands. These co-occurrences are termed ‘concgrams’ and include instances of both constituency variation (increase in expenditure, increase in the share of public expenditure) and positional variation (expenditure would inevitably increase). ConcGram 1.0 is therefore uniquely suited to uncovering the full phraseological profile of a text or corpus. In addition to this principal function, ConcGram 1.0 allows the user to nominate concgram searches, and it also has the more traditional functions associated with corpus linguistics software.

The software comes with a detailed online manual in a PDF file, which explains all of the functions and includes a user-friendly tutorial. In addition, the manual includes a discussion of the theoretical issues underpinning the development of the software and the implications of concgramming for the study of phraseology (Why Concgram? by Martin Warren).

The software has a wide range of applications in the fields of Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Lexicology, Lexicography, Pragmatics and Semantics.

[Studies in Corpus Linguistics Software, 1]  2009.  CD-Rom
Publishing status: Available | © Chris Greaves
CD-ROM – Available
ISBN 9789027240279 | EUR 45.00 | USD 68.00
 
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement
Introduction
Chapter 1. ConcGram List Builder
Chapter 2. Selecting a text or corpus to interrogate
Chapter 3. Getting started with ConcGram
Chapter 4. Managing the lists
Chapter 5. Using the Configuration List Boxes
Chapter 6. Automatic searches from specified words
Chapter 7. Statistical tests
Chapter 8. User nominated searches with ConcGram
Appendix. ConcGram Tutorial
References

Quotes

“With its captivating, vivid visual layout, ConcGram facilitates the study of word associations. Plunged in the realm of the phraseology of a text or of a corpus, learners are really stimulated to identify the archetypes of strings of language by observing the discontinuous combinations of words and their positional variations, clearly displayed by this software.”
Cinzia Spinzi, University of Napoli Federico II and Taranto, Italy
“ConcGram is a powerful phraseological search engine that goes beyond other software packages for corpus analysis in that it fully automatically extracts word association patterns (‘concgrams’) from a text. ConcGram will be beneficial to all linguists and language teachers who wish to find out more about the patterned nature of language.”
Ute Römer, University of Michigan, USA
“The software is able to find both positional and constitutional variants and learners are fascinated to find out that the attraction between words, just like the attraction between people, can be so strong that they do not have to be necessarily adjacent to be regarded as very close friends. An invaluable aid for researchers and students alike.”
Denise Milizia, University of Bari, Italy.
“The ConcGram package provides a new range of features for the study of concordances and multiple word patterns. Its user-friendly and intuitive features make ConcGram an ideal tool not only in research but also in language learning contexts. ConcGram will definitely open up a new door to the phraseological and discursive approach to corpus linguistics.”
Mari Carmen Campoy-Cubillo and Antonio Silvestre-López, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain
“ConcGram belongs to a new generation of concordance software and is a significant advance on traditional concordancers. It can search texts and corpora directly for variable phrasal units, consisting of two or more words which co-occur in different forms, in different sequences, adjacent or non-adjacent, in spans of different sizes. It will rapidly become an essential tool in identifying these variable units of meaning, which corpus study has shown to be so central to language use.”
Michael Stubbs, University of Trier, Germany

Subjects

Benjamins Subject classification

Electronic/Multimedia Products

Linguistics

BIC Subject

CFX: Computational linguistics

BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics
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