99814 - Corpora, Linguistics and Technology Lab

Learning outcomes

The student is able to independently identify a research problem of relevance to a linguistics- and/or translation- field, with special reference to the use of text corpora; s/he is able to locate and efficiently use the tools and information sources needed to tackle a research problem; s/he is able to acquire further competences related to linguistics and translation, as well as other disciplines of relevance to her/his studies, through interaction with scholars from a range of fields

Course contents

The activities of the lab  (EcoTech CorpusLab) focus on research in the field of environmental and ecological discourse, with an emphasis on the analysis of linguistic and discursive practices through the tools of ecolinguistics and critical discourse analysis, in relation to environmental communication, sustainability, and the climate crisis.

The aim of the lab is to analyze diachronic specialized corpora, such as Agenda 2030, Corporate Sustainability reports, climate change/nature writing non-fiction, etc. to investigate culturally significant environmental keywords, such as, for example, environmental sustainability, climate change, and biodiversity.

Course participants will take part in a range of project-based activities, including:

• Critical analysis of ecological and environmental discourse;

• Examination of linguistic, rhetorical, and discursive strategies;

• Corpus annotation and evaluation of inter-annotator agreement using reliability measures such as Cohen’s kappa.

The course combines introductory lectures with hands-on lab sessions. In addition, a seminar will be offered: this year’s edition will focus on the role of artificial intelligence in ecolinguistics and will be led by an external expert.

The course is supported by Martina Russo

 

Readings/Bibliography

• Alexander, R.J. (2002). Everyone is talking about ‘sustainable development.’ Can they all mean the same thing? Computer discourse analysis of ecological texts. In A.Fill, H. Penz, and W. Trampe (Eds.), Colourful Green Ideas: Papers from the Conference 30 Years of Language and Ecology (pp. 239-254). Bern: Peter Lang.
• Poole, R. & Hayes, N. (2022). Stance in climate science: A diachronic analysis of epistemic stance features in IPCC physical science reports. Journal of Corpora and Discourse Studies, 5:37–60.
• Poole, R. (2022). Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistics. Bloomsbury.
• Stibbe, A. (2021). Ecolinguistics. Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By. London/New York: Routledge, 2nd ed.
• Stibbe, A. (2017). Critical discourse analysis and ecology. In J. Flowerdew and J.E. Richardson (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies (pp. 497-509). London/New York: Routledge.
• Vallego, J. (2023). Ecolinguistics and AI: Integrating eco-awareness in natural language processing. Language and Ecology.

Teaching methods

The lab combines lectures and practical sessions.
The theoretical and methodological content is provided through presentations by the instructor.

Practical sessions consist of hands-on activities conducted collaboratively in class, followed by group discussions.

As concerns the teaching methods of this course unit, all students must attend the [https://www.unibo.it/en/services-and-opportunities/health-and-assistance/health-and-safety/online-course-on-health-and-safety-in-study-and-internship-areas] [https://www.unibo.it/en/services-and-opportunities/health-and-assistance/health-and-safety/online-course-on-health-and-safety-in-study-and-internship-areas

Assessment methods

Evaluation will be partly ongoing and partly based on a final project.

Ongoing assessment is based on the quality of and participation in the activities organized by the instructor.

The final project, to be agreed upon in advance with the instructor regarding content and format, will focus on one of the topics covered in class (cf. Course Content) and may take the form of a technical report or an oral presentation with slides.

Evaluation Criteria:

• 30-30L: excellent project, of very high technical quality, presented very clearly and in detail.
• 28-29: excellent project, of high technical quality, presented clearly and in detail.
• 26-27: good project, of adequate technical quality; some aspects of the presentation could be improved.
• 23-25: decent project with technical shortcomings; some aspects of the presentation could be improved.
• 20-22: the project shows several technical deficiencies; the presentation has gaps and/or is unclear in several areas.
• 18-20: the project shows several significant technical deficiencies; the presentation has many gaps or is mostly unclear.
• <18: insufficient or seriously inadequate project.
  

Students with specific learning difficulties (SpLD) or with disabilities that can affect their ability to attend courses are invited to contact the University service for students with disabilities and SLD at the earliest opportunity -- ideally before the start of the course: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students . The University service will suggest possible adjustments to the course work and/or exam, which must then be submitted to the course leader so they can assess their feasibility, in line with the learning objectives of the course. Please note that adjustments to the exam must be requested at least two weeks in advance.

Teaching tools

Hardware: PC and projector.
Software: corpus query software (SketchEngine; AntConc).

 

Office Hours
Check Cinzia Bevitori's website.

Office hours

See the website of Cinzia Bevitori