USAGE OF LANGUAGE CORPUSES IN STUDYING WORD FORMATION OF MODERN AMERICAN ENGLISH DIALECTS

Abstract

The article deals with the principles of using the concepts of corpus linguistics in studying American English dialects. 
The origins of corpus linguistics of American English dialects are considered, and developments in corpus linguistics by W. Francis and G. Kuchera are investigated (Brown Corpus, 1964). 
The concept of «corpus linguistics» is defined, and some problematic aspects are described. The qualifications for using the corpus-linguistic approach in the study of dialect grammatical features of American English are defined. The grammatical differences between British and American English are outlined. "Spoken English" is defined as how the latter was dialectical in the United States. The American dialects and Standardized American English are distinguished.
Attention is focused on comparative and legal developments in corpus linguistics of British and American English (Brown and Lancaster Corps). Discographic studies of spoken American (dialectical) are mentioned: Lancaster/IBM SEC and Corpus of Spoken American English. The peculiarities of using the International Corpus of English, which studies British and American English in philological and methodological unity, are outlined. The processes of expanding the language corpus of the American English language from 1990 till the present (through the prism of statistics from The Bank of English) are determined.
The main methodological developments in the systematization of the corpus of American English from the point of view of the theory of Corpus Linguistics are indicated: software corpus; problem-parametric industry selections; text transcription; search and system work; description encoding of "preserved" dialect words and word formations.