Preliminary Recommendations

E.2. state

Texts are selected from the stream of natural speech and writing, and at the point of selection there are a number of external factors which may be relevant.

E.2.1. mode

-- mode of transmission; whether spoken, written or electronic, essentially.

E.2.1.1. spoken

-- the language, when selected, is in spoken form, i.e. primarily as a sound wave. Material in this category requires to be transcribed from a sound wave recording before mark-up.

E.2.1.1.1. participant awareness.

-- to what extent the participants are aware their speech is being recorded.

E.2.1.1.1.1. surreptitious

-- the participants are completely unaware that they are being recorded.

E.2.1.1.1.2. warned

-- the participants know something of the recording but are not fully aware of the details.

E.2.1.1.1.3. aware

-- the participants are fully aware that what they say is being recorded for use in linguistic analyses.

E.2.1.1.2. venue

-- the location of the participants at time of recording.

E.2.1.1.2.1. studio

-- the recording takes place in the controlled environment of a recording studio.

E.2.1.1.2.2. on location

-- for example at home, work, travelling, leisure centre, etc.

E.2.1.1.2.3. telephone

 

E.2.1.2. written

-- the language, when selected, is in written form. This material requires to be scanned or re-keyed from a visual image before mark-up.

E.2.1.2.1. printed material

-- the language, when selected, is in printed format and must be keyboarded or scanned to produce an electronic version.

E.2.1.2.1.1. books

-- objects   with an ISB number.

E.2.1.2.1.1.1. non-fiction

 

E.2.1.2.1.1.2. fiction

 

E.2.1.2.1.1.*.1. arts

 

E.2.1.2.1.1.*.2. economics

 

E.2.1.2.1.1.*.*. etc.

 

E.2.1.2.1.2. newspapers

-- normally daily; usually easy to distinguish from the next category; have a wide readership, contain up-to-date news.

E.2.1.2.1.2.1. general news

-- the main section of the newspaper where headline news and current affairs are reported.

E.2.1.2.1.2.2. business/economics

-- sections of the newspaper specifically marked as a separate business or economics section.

E.2.1.2.1.2.3. sport

-- sections of the newspaper specifically marked as a separate sports section.

E.2.1.2.1.2.4. arts

-- sections of the newspaper specifically marked as section on the arts.

E.2.1.2.1.2.5. features

-- sections of the newspaper specifically marked as a separate features section.

E.2.1.2.1.3. magazines

-- usually weekly or monthly; of higher print quality than the newspaper and usually more expensive.

E.2.1.2.1.4. ephemera

-- leaflets, pamphlets, brochures, local flyers, junk mail.

E.2.1.2.1.5. correspondence

-- a sub-classification is under consideration, consisting of automatic and human, official and personal.

E.2.1.2.2. `typed' material

-- all sorts of reports and documentation (includes word-processor output).

E.2.1.2.3. manuscript

-- actual handwritten texts.

E.2.1.3. electronic

the   language, when selected, is in electronic form (e-mail, bulletin boards, World Wide Web pages, etc.) That is to say, it requires conversion neither from aural nor visual image. It may be already marked up, and may only need to have the mark-up converted to meet the conventions of the corpus.

E.2.2. relation to the medium

-- if written, how it is laid out, the paper, print, etc.; if spoken the acoustic conditions, etc.

E.2.3. relation to non-linguistic communicative matter

-- diagrams, illustrations, other media that are coupled with the language in a communicative event.

E.2.4. appearance

-- there may be, for example in advertising leaflets, aspects of presentation that are unique in design and are important enough to have an effect on the language.