Aston Corpus Summer School:
http://acorn.aston.ac.uk/SummerSchool.html
We will be holding the first Aston Corpus Summer School from 27 – 31 July 2009. The summer school will involve a number of lectures and hands-on sessions, and participants will have the opportunity to work with leading researchers, as well as to meet other students.
Here are some of the topics that will be covered during the week.
Introduction to corpora
Stylistics
Using Wordsmith Tools
Spoken corpora
Learner corpora
Lexicography
Corpora in second language teaching/learning
Report:
First Aston Corpus Summer School
The First Aston Corpus Summer School took place from July 27th to 31st 2009, on the 10th floor of the North Wing of the Main Building, with social events usually starting in the Sacks of Potatoes, and a Dinner at the Conference Centre.
Eleven leading corpus specialists [(Ramesh Krishnamurthy (Aston); Michaela Mahlberg (Liverpool); Eric Atwell (Leeds); Hilary Nesi (Coventry); Paul Rayson (Lancaster); Michael Barlow (Auckland); Adam Kilgarriff (LexiCom; LexMasterClass); Michael Rundell (Macmillan; LexMasterClass); Anne Wichmann (Central Lancashire); Kevin Watson (Lancaster); Suzanne Kemmer (Rice, Texas)] gave talks and conducted practical exercises involving a wide range of corpus creation and analysis programmes.
Thirty one participants attended from the UK (Aston, Birmingham, Coventry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield, Swansea, Warwick, Wolverhampton), Europe (Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland) and Overseas (Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, New Zealand).
The feedback from the tutors was very postive - and we have been asked to extend the summer school to two weeks next year:
Iincredibly useful; there isn’t anything else like it, and it meets a big need
I greatly enjoyed my visit on all fronts - a nice group and wonderful hospitality
What an impressive operation you have there! I hope you will do it again next year!
Participants also spoke highly of the event:
Really helpful; I benefited a lot
I made many friends sharing similar research interests
A great variety of topics; good lectures by great lecturers
Very nice, relaxed atmosphere - truly enlightening; a great event from start to finish
For anyone interested in Corpus I would say this is a must; surpassed my expectations; inspiring atmosphere).
We would like to thank all the staff at Aston (support staff, computing, catering, etc) who helped to make this such a successful inaugural summer school!
