Assignment 4 - Comment on the corpus-based reference tools.

Corpus-based reference tools are quite useful in some ways.It helps learners to see a word within real context, provides collocation and show the frequency of a word.I like to use the concordancer very much, especially the Bilingual online concordancers-TOTALRECALL.It helps me to look for the words that don't have the exact corresponding translation. For example, I would like to know how we say 緣分 in English and the result comes out to be "fate".In that case, I can use it in my article if the frequency of the usage is high enough.

On the other hand, there are some strengths and disadvantges of corpus-based reference tools in comparison with a dictionary.First of all, as mentioned above, corpus-based reference tools can provide learners the collocation and the frequency of vocabulary. Also, some concordancers are bilingual that it's suitable for second language learners to use.Furthermore, corpus-based reference tools give learners more examples in real contexts tha dictionary cannot do.However, unlike dictionary, there are some functions the corpus-based reference tools cannot provides.For example, we can see the pronunciation and some comparison with other similar word in dictionary. Moreover, corpus-based reference tools are sometimes limited. For instance, Brown corpus has not renewed for a long time.But language is always changing through time, so if those tools do not renewed, it's not effective enough for learners to use.

In conclusion, although there are both strengths and disadvantages of corpus-based reference tools and dictionaries. It is still important for language learners and researchers to know how to use the best of these tools.