Corpora for applied purposes: A case study of quantifiers in English and Lithuanian

Abstract

The present paper aims to show how a cross-linguistic analysis based on a parallel corpus can be used for numerous practical applications in such areas as translation, lexicography and language teaching. The paper examines non-numerical quantifiers (e.g. a bit, a few, few, etc.) in English and Lithuanian. The analysis is based on the Parallel Corpus of the Lithuanian Language and The Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian. Where relevant, the issue of equivalence between English and Lithuanian is discussed by comparing the data to results obtained from the British National Corpus. The study shows that a parallel corpus is especially useful when searching for equivalents in the target language since it clearly displays the differences in the inventory of a particular category in two languages. The establishment of equivalent categories in English and Lithuanian is especially important in terms of lexicography and translation.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5128/ERYa5.16

Keywords

• parallel corpus
• quantifiers
• translation
• equivalents
• language teaching
• English
• Lithuanian