In 2023, the Sydney Corpus Lab is pleased to be featuring edited extracts from Dr Robbie Love’s CorpusCast podcast about corpus linguistics. In each blog post published throughout the year, we present the answers of leading corpus linguists to three questions. Specifically, all blog posts present answers to the following two questions:

• What are the biggest changes you’ve noticed in corpus research throughout your career?
• How will corpus linguistics make an impact on the world in the future?

Posts from episodes 1-4 additionally present answers to this question:

• What has surprised you the most about your work in corpus linguistics?

Posts from episode 5 onwards, including this post, additionally present answers to this question:

• What is the biggest misconception of corpus linguistics you have encountered?

This post features Mark Nartey (episode 5). We have transcribed the relevant part of the interview but have edited answers for readability (taking out hesitation marks, discourse makers, etc). Interview answers were transcribed by Kelvin Lee from the Sydney Corpus Lab. The full interview can be found here. We are grateful to Robbie Love and Sam Cook for their assistance in creating these posts.

Interview transcript

ROBBIE LOVE: What are the biggest changes that you’ve noticed in corpus research in your career so far?

MARK NARTEY: From 2015 up until now, it was a very short engagement with corpus linguistics. There has been a number of changes. The field has evolved. The field has witnessed, as far as I’m concerned, tremendous progress. Here, I want to highlight three main changes. The first is in the scope of work and the regional and geographical distribution of the studies. Currently, corpus linguistic methods are being applied in nearly all fields of linguistics and, for me, that is amazing. It gives us a clear indication of how the field has evolved. The level of acceptability of the framework is incredible. In terms of geographical distribution, I did a meta-analysis of corpus-assisted discourse studies in 2019 where it was evident that areas like Africa, South America, the Arab Levant, and even Oceania weren’t that big on corpus linguistics. But in recent years, the work in these areas has tremendously increased. In terms of scope, both in terms of appliability of the framework to other applied linguistic research and the geographical and regional or area distribution of the studies, I think the field has come a long way. That is the first change that I see. The second is in the development of new tools and software as well as the upgrade of existing ones. I think that is like a mainstay really. I know you have done certain things in that area as well, especially in terms of building new corpora and stuff like that. So, I think the field has not been static at all. It’s been very dynamic, and it’s been onward, forward, and upward. The final change I want to talk about relates to the podcast you are doing now, and that part is on impact. I think in recent years, there’s been an intentional and a systematic attempt to foreground impact in corpus linguistic research and this podcast, without a doubt, is one of them. I want to commend you and your team for this innovative idea. So, in the last few years, there’s been a lot of emphasis on impact. I’ve seen a lot of YouTube videos and workshops on corpus linguistics and impact. I’ve been in conferences where it has been the main focus. I’ve been in panels and workshops and things like that. So, I think there is an intentional effort at making impact, which I think is a very good thing. We don’t just want to do the research, more importantly we want to carry that research into society and hopefully make the world a better place. So, these are the three main changes that I’ll say I’ve observed in the last few years.

ROBBIE: Well, thank you. I appreciate what you said there about this show. […] My second question is a new one […]: What is the biggest misconception of corpus linguistics that you have encountered?

MARK NARTEY: One of the big one for me is this idea that corpus linguistics is all about using computers or pressing setting buttons on the computer in order to get results. Now, this misconception is linked to the idea that corpus linguistics is easy, or it is easier in comparison with other analytic approaches in linguistics. So, people have the misconception that, for instance, it is possible to become a corpus linguistic expert in one workshop or in one summer school. So, sometimes when you engage non-academic partners and you make them aware of how powerful this tool is and how useful it can be, they have the tendency to think that you can just run maybe a one-week workshop or a three-day workshop for their staff and – boom – they can become experts in corpus linguistics, and they can also use the tools and all of that, which I feel is a misconception. So, definitely one of the biggest is this idea that “oh, it’s all about computers and it’s fancy and… oh, it’s about some tools that you can apply, and you can get these fascinating results and just run away with them and do the infographics and all of those shiny stuff.”

ROBBIE LOVE: Yeah, I’m so glad that you say that because I get this a lot as well. […] My final question to you is a bit more, I hope, optimistic. We’ll see what you see what you think. How will or could corpus linguistics make an impact on the world in the future?

MARK NARTEY: Here, I want to start by referencing Paul Baker in one of his talks on impact. He goes like “impact is a long-term game” and I think it’s very important for all of us to appreciate that assessment. Absolutely, “impact is a long-term game” and so this is the way I’ll respond to your question. I’ll say that all the things that we are doing now whether in forensic linguistics, non-dominant groups, health communication, all the other areas of corpus linguistics, I think in 20, in 50, in 100 years’ time, those things are going to have even greater and even stronger impact. So, I see our impact as cumulative. Yes, even though there is even impact now, I think what we’re doing now is going to have much greater impact in several years to come. So, beyond the things that would happen in big data research, artificial intelligence, and all those other incredible fields, which I still see corpus linguists can contribute to, I feel that the little things that we are even doing now would have the ripple effect and would get a momentum and have much greater impact in years to come.