Workshop
RESEARCH METHODS FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Ulla Connor, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
Although textual analysis and qualitative methods such as ethnographic annotations to supplement the textual analysis have been and continue to be the most common methods in intercultural rhetoric research, corpus linguistics is a new, powerful method of analysis. When applied in a contextually and culturally sensitive manner, corpus linguistics allows examining huge amounts of authentic language use data, making it possible for IR studies to be far more evidencebased than ever before. Therefore, following the keynote speech, in this workshop, we will get acquainted with corpora and some corpusbased analyses and tools that can be applied to intercultural discourse analysis. Key issues in corpus design will be covered: definitions, sizes, and representativeness. We will work through samples of crosscultural or parallel corpora and learn to use some basic functions of corpus tools to help in this type of analysis. Emphasis in the workshop will be on specialized, crosscultural corpora and their practical applications for the EAP/ESP teacher/researcher.