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Corpus Meaning: Definition, Examples, and Translations

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corpus

[ˈkɔːrpəs ]

Definition

Context #1 | Noun

linguistics, data

A corpus is a structured set of texts or linguistic data, often used for linguistic research and analysis. It can include written texts, spoken language, and various forms of communication to study language patterns and usages.

Synonyms

body, collection, database, repository.

Examples of usage

  • The linguistic research relies on a large corpus of spoken language.
  • A corpus can help linguists track language evolution over time.
  • Researchers built a corpus of 10,000 novels for analysis.
  • The study used a specialized corpus of medical texts.

Translations

To see the translation, please select a language from the options available.

Interesting Facts

Linguistics

  • Linguists use corpora (plural of corpus) to analyze language patterns and usage in different contexts.
  • Corpora can include everything from spoken dialogues to written literature, allowing for diverse study.
  • Tools like word frequency counts and collocation analysis are frequently applied to corpus data.

Literature

  • Famous literary works have been compiled into corpora to study themes, styles, and authorial techniques.
  • The British National Corpus is one of the largest, gathering a comprehensive collection of modern English.
  • Corpora allow researchers and students to examine how language evolves over time and across different cultures.

Technology

  • In the realm of artificial intelligence and machine learning, corpora serve as crucial training data sets.
  • Tools like natural language processing rely on large corpora to improve accuracy in language understanding.
  • The growing field of data science frequently utilizes corpora to conduct sentiment analysis of online content.

Psychology

  • Research using corpora has revealed insights into how language reflects emotional states and social dynamics.
  • Psycholinguistics studies how individuals understand and produce language, often drawing from text corpora.
  • Language patterns in corpora can illustrate cognitive processes that underpin communication and comprehension.

Origin of 'corpus'

Main points about word origin

  • The word comes from Latin, meaning 'body', referring to a body of texts or works.
  • In ancient Roman law, a corpus was a recognized body of law and regulation.
  • The term began to be used in modern languages to refer broadly to any large collection of material.

The word 'corpus' comes from the Latin term 'corpus', which means 'body'. In its original usage, it referred to a physical body or structure. Over time, the term evolved and entered various fields including law, literature, and linguistics. In linguistics, it started to be used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to a collection of texts, which can be analyzed to understand language usage. The concept of a language corpus became increasingly prevalent with the advent of computational linguistics, as it allows for extensive analysis of language data using modern technology. This shift was significant in enhancing our understanding of language patterns, usage, and even cognitive aspects of language. Today, corpora are fundamental in language studies and are used to foster advancements in natural language processing.

Word Frequency Rank

At #6,100 in frequency, this word belongs to advanced vocabulary. It's less common than core vocabulary but important for sophisticated expression.