WordSmith
| WordSmith Tools | |
|---|---|
| Basic data
|
|
| developer | Mike Scott, Oxford University Press |
| Current version | WordSmith Tools 7.0 (2016) |
| operating system | Windows ( Mac OS , Linux ) |
| category | Concordancer |
| License | proprietary |
| German speaking | No |
| WordSmith Tools | |
WordSmith Tools , in short: WordSmith (English: 'word creator', to be understood here in the sense of a manual handling of words) is a paid software package primarily for linguists , especially for work in the field of corpus linguistics . The program comprises several modules for handling and analyzing texts and can be used in many different languages .
Development and acquisition
The program package was developed by the British linguist Mike Scott at the University of Liverpool and version 1.0 was published in 1996. It is based on the “MicroConcord” concordance program developed by Mike Scott and Tim Johns and first introduced in 1993 . The versions 1.0 to 4.0 of WordSmith were sold exclusively by the University of Oxford in the UK or the Oxford University Press there. Versions from 5.0 onwards are sold by Lexical Analysis Software Ltd. expelled. The current upgrade of the software can be used under the operating system from Windows XP to Windows 10 on a single computer or via a network. Under certain conditions ( emulation ) the software also runs under an Apple operating system and with Linux . Setting up the software on the computer is extremely easy and does not require an installation program . WordSmith can therefore also be installed on a USB stick , for example , and can therefore be used on any computer.
WordSmith Tools versions from 3.0 to 7.0 are currently available. The software is initially acquired as a demo version by downloading a self-extracting program file. This includes all the functions of the full version, but only 25 hits, and 50 in the newer program versions, of a query are output. The update to the full version takes place by entering a code, which is issued for a single user license against payment on the online route of currently (September 2016) 50 pounds sterling plus VAT. There are also multi-user licenses.
Functionality and areas of application
The core of the software package comprises three modules:
- Concord is used to create concordances, i.e. all hits for a search term within a previously defined text corpus .
- WordList lists all words or word forms that are contained in the selected corpus and outputs various statistical data on the text corpus.
- KeyWord creates a list of all those words or word forms which, according to certain statistical criteria, occur significantly seldom or frequently in the text corpus .
Each of the modules provides a number of features that reveal certain additional characteristics of the text corpus examined. For example, collocations for the word forms you are looking for are given, i.e. a list (supplemented with a lot of other information) is created of those words that appear together with the search term. In addition to this core offer, there are a number of additional modules that are useful for creating and preparing the text corpus. WordSmith Tools can be used for around 80 different languages. The software itself is only available in the English language version.
WordSmith Tools is - in addition to some other software products of a similar type - an internationally popular program for linguistic work based on corpus linguistic methodology. This type of software can be used not only in the field of theoretical linguistics , but also, for example, in text linguistics , media linguistics and discourse analysis , but also in some other scientific disciplines related to linguistics. Such software is used, for example, to answer questions about the use of certain words in certain syntactic structures or to determine the content or the meaning of certain expressions in certain texts or types of text . This also enables certain patterns to be found in texts.
literature
- Randi Reppen: Review of Monoconc Pro and Wordsmith Tools . In: Language Learning & Technology , Vol. 5, No. 3, May 2001, pp. 32-36. (A 2001 review of the Monoconc Pro 2.0 and WordSmith Tools 3.0 programs.)
- Mike Scott, Christopher Tribble: Textual patterns. Key words and corpus analysis in language education. Benjamin, Amsterdam 2006, ISBN 90-272-2293-2 (hardcover) and ISBN 90-272-2294-0 (paperback). (The first part, which covers about half of the book, explains how to use the software using practical examples.)
Web links
- Website about the software and its usage
- List of similar (including free) programs in the English Wikipedia