VOA慢速：利用语料库提升词汇量
Use a Language Corpus to Improve Your Vocabulary
刘立军 供稿
TRANSCRIPT
A language corpus is a huge collection of texts taken from print, video, audio and other sources. It is a powerful tool that can help you learn more about English words and phrases.
In today’s article, we look at the most widely used corpus: the Corpus of Contemporary American English, or COCA.
COCA contains more than one billion words from 1990-2019. And it has many ways to help learners find out more about how words are used.
Take the adjective profound as an example. In a dictionary, you will find that one meaning of profound is the adjective deep. So, you might think English speakers will say that a body of water is profound.
But English speakers never say that.
A corpus like COCA shows that the most common words that follow profound are effect or ability. And the most common words that follow the adjective deep are breath or water. For example, we will say:
“Her teaching has a profound effect on students’ learning.”
“You need to be a strong swimmer to swim in deep water.”
COCA makes it easy to read and hear examples of how to use vocabulary correctly.
l How to use COCA
First, you will need to register with COCA to use the collection. You can register for two kinds of accounts. A free account limits you to 20 searches for words within any 24-hour period. A paid account will give you 200 searches within any 24-hour period.
Here are the steps for using COCA to find examples of how a word is used. We will use the word profound to show this.
On the home page, type the word profound in the white search box on the left side of the screen.
Click “find matching strings” just below the search box. This will take you to a new webpage.
On this new page, you will see the word profound in blue. Click on it.
You will now see a page with 100 examples using the word profound, and the word profound is shown in green. The source of each example is shown on the left side.
If you click on the source on the left, COCA will show you a larger part of the text containing the example.
If you want to see more examples, click the two forward page arrows >> at the top or bottom left. This brings you to the next 100 examples. In this way, you might find more kinds of sources for the examples.
COCA also has a tool that lets you see many useful things about a word on one page. We will show this with the word deep.
On the COCA homepage, click on “Word” in blue just above the white search box.
Type the word deep in the search box.
Click on the “See detailed info for the word” just below the search box.
Now you will see a page with definitions, audio pronunciation, links to translations, synonyms, links to videos with the word, and more. This page is called the “Word homepage”.
Scroll down the page. You will see another long list of example sentences, with words in many colors. The adjective deep is in green and the nouns that follow it are in blue.
You will see that in these examples, the noun breath occurs the most after the adjective deep.
You may wonder, how can we know for sure that the most common words that follow deep are breath or water?
Scroll back to the top of the “Word homepage” for deep. On the right, you will see the word COLLOCATES in blue. A collocation is a word or phrase that is often used with another word or phrase. Clicking on COLLOCATES will show you lists of words that follow deep. And you will see that breath and water are the first two words on the list.
l Why the corpus is helpful
Knowing what words sound the best together can be hard for people learning English. A corpus can be helpful because it shows you ways that words are used together.
See if you can learn to use COCA by searching for the adjectives utter and diverse. Utter is both a verb and an adjective, so you must tell COCA to only search for adjectives. Here is how to do that:
Just to the right of the white search box, click on the letters in grey.
Next, click on POS again and then select “adj. ALL”. This makes COCA search only for adjectives.
In the search box, delete the letters ADJ and type the word you want to search.
Now follow the steps shown above for profound and deep, but this time, use the words utter and diverse.
If you find on the “Word homepage” for utter that COCA has searched for the verb form, you can change it to adjective. To do this, click on ADJ in blue just below the word utter on the top left area of the page.
When you perform a search, what do you notice about the nouns that follow utter? About the nouns that follow diverse?
Write to us and let us know what you found.
Learning how to use a corpus can take some time. COCA has a guide showing you the many ways to use it. You can also find tutorials on YouTube.
Just remember that a corpus is a tool that can help you deepen your understanding of vocabulary and the ways to use it.
And in another Education Tips, we will explain more about the importance of collocations and how a corpus can help you learn them.
I’m Andrew Smith. And I’m Jill Robbins.
VOCABULARY
1. profound adj.
l very great; felt or experienced very strongly 巨大的；深切的；深远的。例如：profound changes in the earth’s climate地球气候的巨大变化
l showing great knowledge or understanding 知识渊博的；理解深刻的；深邃的。例如：profound insights精辟的见解
l needing a lot of study or thought 艰深的；玄奥的。例如：profound questions about life and death生死方面的玄奥问题
l (medical 医) very serious; complete 严重的；完全的；彻底的。例如：profound disability严重残疾
2. collocation n. the fact of two or more words often being used together, in a way that happens more frequently than would happen by chance （词语的）搭配，组配。例如：Advanced students need to be aware of the importance of collocation. 层次较高的学生必须意识到词语搭配的重要性。
QUESTIONS
Listen to the news and choose the best answer to each question you hear.
1. What is a language corpus as discussed in the passage?
A. A group of deep-sea creatures.
B. A collection of profound thoughts.
C. An ancient text of English words and phrases.
D. A large collection of texts from print, video, audio and other sources.
2. According to the passage, how does COCA help learners about word usage?
A. It teaches about water safety and swimming techniques.
B. It lists all the possible synonyms for every word.
C. It defines the most profound words in the English language.
D. It shows the most common words that follow certain adjectives.
3. What are the benefits of a paid COCA account?
A. Unlimited searches within any 24-hour period
B. 200 searches within any 24-hour period
C. Access to larger text excerpts
D. Access to videos with word usage
4. How can you find more examples using COCA?
A. Click on the source on the left side
B. Scroll down the page to see more examples
C. Click the two forward page arrows >> at the top or bottom left
D. Register for a free account
5. How can you determine the most common words that follow the adjective “deep”?
A. Click on the source on the left side.
B. Scroll down the page to see more examples.
C. Click on “Word” in blue on the COCA homepage.
D. Click on “COLLOCATES” in blue on the “Word homepage” for deep.
6. What does COCA help with?
A. Learning English vocabulary.
B. Pronunciation practice.
C. Writing essays.
D. Understanding grammar rules.
7. How can you search for adjectives in COCA?
A. Click on the letters and select “adj. ALL”.
B. Click on the “Word homepage”.
C. Delete the letters ADJ from the search box.
D. Watch tutorials on YouTube.
8. What is a corpus?
A. A guide for learning English vocabulary.
B. A pronunciation tool.
C. A collection of words and phrases.
D. A grammar textbook.
KEY
1. What is a language corpus as discussed in the passage?
A. A group of deep-sea creatures.
B. A collection of profound thoughts.
C. An ancient text of English words and phrases.
D. A large collection of texts from print, video, audio and other sources.
【答案】D
【解析】细节题。根据文章中的“A language corpus is a huge collection of texts taken from print, video, audio and other sources.”可知，语料库是来自印刷品、视频、音频和其他来源的大量文本的集合，因此选D。
2. According to the passage, how does COCA help learners about word usage?
A. It teaches about water safety and swimming techniques.
B. It lists all the possible synonyms for every word.
C. It defines the most profound words in the English language.
D. It shows the most common words that follow certain adjectives.
【答案】D
【解析】细节题。根据文章中的“A corpus like COCA shows that the most common words that follow profound are effect or ability.”可知，COCA会显示跟在某些形容词后面最常见的单词，所以选择D。
3. What are the benefits of a paid COCA account?
A. Unlimited searches within any 24-hour period
B. 200 searches within any 24-hour period
C. Access to larger text excerpts
D. Access to videos with word usage
【答案】B
【解析】细节题。根据文中的描述，付费账户每24小时内可进行200次搜索。
4. How can you find more examples using COCA?
A. Click on the source on the left side
B. Scroll down the page to see more examples
C. Click the two forward page arrows >> at the top or bottom left
D. Register for a free account
【答案】C
【解析】细节题。根据文中的描述，点击页面左上角或左下角的两个向前翻页箭头可以查看更多的例子。
5. How can you determine the most common words that follow the adjective “deep”?
A. Click on the source on the left side.
B. Scroll down the page to see more examples.
C. Click on “Word” in blue on the COCA homepage.
D. Click on “COLLOCATES” in blue on the “Word homepage” for deep.
【答案】D
【解析】细节题。根据文中的描述，点击deep的“Word homepage”上方蓝色的“COLLOCATES”，可以显示跟随其后的常见词语列表。
6. What does COCA help with?
A. Learning English vocabulary.
B. Pronunciation practice.
C. Writing essays.
D. Understanding grammar rules.
【答案】A
【解析】细节题。COCA helps with learning English vocabulary, as mentioned in the text: “Knowing what words sound the best together can be hard for people learning English. A corpus can be helpful because it shows you ways that words are used together.”
7. How can you search for adjectives in COCA?
A. Click on the letters and select “adj. ALL”.
B. Click on the “Word homepage”.
C. Delete the letters ADJ from the search box.
D. Watch tutorials on YouTube.
【答案】A
【解析】细节题。To search for adjectives in COCA, you need to click on the letters in grey, then click on POS again and select “adj. ALL” to make COCA search only for adjectives.
8. What is a corpus?
A. A guide for learning English vocabulary.
B. A pronunciation tool.
C. A collection of words and phrases.
D. A grammar textbook.
【答案】C
【解析】细节题。A corpus refers to a collection of words and phrases, as stated in the text: “A corpus is a tool that can help you deepen your understanding of vocabulary and the ways to use it.”
（封面图片来源于摄图网，版权归摄图网所有）