Upcoming Talks

To be announced.

Past Talks

Mark Davies (16 April 2025)

I recently finished a large-scale investigation (https://www.english-corpora.org/ai-llms/) of how the predictions on linguistic variation from two Large Language Models (GPT and Gemini) match actual corpus data from corpora like COCA, COHA, GloWbE, NOW, iWeb, the TV and Movies corpora (all from English-Corpora.org), as well as Sketch Engine. I will talk about the strengths and weaknesses of LLMs for linguistic research (especially regarding lexical issues). In addition, I will discuss how LLMs can be used to augment corpus data, such as the semantic categorization, grouping, and lebeling of collocates and phrases; comparisons between words (via collocates); and the analysis of differences between genres, historical periods, and dialects. I am currently working on updating the architecture and interface for English-Corpora.org to use API requests to LLMs, which will occur “behind the scenes”, and which will expose all of this “linguistic knowledge” to end users. The updates at English-Corpora.org will be publicly available in Summer 2025.

16 April 2025, 4 p.m. CET.

Biodata

Mark Davies is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA. He is the author of six books and 90 articles; he has been the keynote speaker at many international conferences; and he is the recipient of several large research grants.  All of these research activities deal with creating corpora and using corpus data for research and teaching, especially in terms of genre-based, historical, and dialectal variation in English. Perhaps most importantly, he is the (sole) creator of most of the corpora from English-Corpora.org, which are probably the most widely used corpora for teaching, learning, and research.

Pamela Faber (28 January 2025)

The Language of Love Fraud: Frames of Deception

The language of love fraud is a unique example of an online linguistic deception. Using a fabricated identity, the fraudster creates the illusion of a romantic relationship between himself and the victim, solely through language. This deception is often successful because of the fraudster’s lexical choices (soulmate, cherish, adore, sacred vow, etc.) which override his flawed syntax and activate a frame of romantic love in her mind.

Biodata

Pamela Faber is Professor Emeritus in Translation and Interpreting at the University of Granada (Spain). She is the founder of the LexiCon research group, with whom she has carried out various nationally-funded research projects on Frame-Based Terminology, the approach to terminology that she created and developed. One of the results of these projects is EcoLexicon (ecolexicon.ugr.es), a terminological knowledge base on environmental science. She has ­­­­­ more than 150 articles, book chapters, and books, which have inspired researchers throughout the world to explore specialized knowledge from a frame-based perspective.