AntConc

1. What general linguistics assumptions do we make when we rely on concordancing programs?

2. What is KWIC? What is a node word? How can you see patterns in left and right contexts?

3. How does the "central/typical" concept relate to grammaticality?

4. Give an example or two of how "real concordance data" sometimes goes against our intuitions about what is "central".

5. Hunston gives an example of using concordances to differentiate between words with related meaning, e.g. [sheer, complete, utter, absolute].  What is another group of related words that you think might be interesting?

6. Give a couple of examples of the idea that "the meanings of words are distinguished by the patterns ... in which they typically occur".

7. Give a couple of examples of the idea that "words with similar meanings tend to share [the same grammatical] patterns".

8. What is a "frame".  Why are they useful?

9. What is "hypothesis testing", and how can it help us to deal with tons of output for a given word?

1. Why might a phrase like "par for the course" or "I must admit" be difficult for a standard concordancing program?

2. What is "semantic prosody"? Give an example or two.

3. What is a "probe"? How does it relate to "frames" (p. 49)?

4. Elaborate on the idea that "concordance lines present information; they do not interpret it".