Learning Journal.docx

This term we mainly focused on academic writing and learnt how to analyze a paper, whats more, practiced to use the corpus manuals, especial COCA.For me, reciting words and finding out the difference between the words of near meaning occupying the majority of my time. Fortunately, I became more interested in prefix& suffix rather than memorizing by rote, which provided me with much convenience when I read the paper and textbook on professional course such as organic chemistry.To be honest, Im not used to consulting words and comparing them with COCA, and have a much preference to learn and memorizing by dictionary and reference book. Still, Ive pushed myself to get familiar with this Corpus, then maybe I would find out its magnetism. Generally, I used COCA to consult some lexical collocation and to know how the word is used in detail. Furthermore, I used it to find differences from some synonyms such as high and tall. As required, there are some examples in following section. From my point of view, the first two functions, namely “List” & “Chart”, are less important to some extent among the four functions, after all it is not necessary for me to know where or in which situation a certain word is used most common clearly. For me, to understand one word and to grasp its basic usage is much more practical and helpful, which including differentiating and analyzing synonym when a certain meaning need to be express appropriately and precisely, especially when I read or even write an academic paper.Some examples:Synonym:Conformance n. 一致；遵从（con 共同+form形式共同一致）Unification n. 统一，一致Consonance n. 一致，调和Coincidence n. (意见、爱好等的) 一致; 巧合，巧事Cohere v 一致；连贯（co 共同+here共同粘连贯）Accordance n.一致；协议 vi.(with)相一致 vt.授予Uniform a 一致的；n. 制服（uni 一个+form一种形状一致的）Unanimous a.意见一致的United a.一致的，联合的，共同形成的Consentient a.一致的;同意的 From the several pictures above, the very first impression of COCA must be the large quantity of its database, which could be described as “an ocean of words and sentences” without any exaggeration. It is claimed that COCA embodies 450 million word, which brings us not only benefits from those countless words but also a heavy workload. Inevitably, we have to pull a lot of time to analyze the dates that showing to us in a chaos manner and deal them with a scientific statistics method, then find out some latent meaning throughout the trivial number, proportion and collocation details, and last to dig out the difference between the words with alike meanings.Lets take “accordance” as an example:From the results from COCA, its easy to find out what is the most common usage of “accordance”, namely “in accordance with”, there is also anther collocation, “in accordance to”, but obviously, the frequency that the latter one appears is much smaller than the former. Easily we can draw a conclusion that “accordance” is usually used as a collocation “in accordance with”, which express the meaning of “the same with”, in anther words, it is also one prototype of accordance. However, the other words seem to be much more complex to find out some prototype for there may be a couple of meanings of one word showing to us such as “uniform”, which is used as a noun most common, instead of certain meaning as “the same as”. So, when I want to find out the usage of an adjective, I need to pay more efforts.When I compare two synonym, the function of “compare” is available, which shows where the given words is used and the frequency is as compared. For example, “unanimous” & “united” is compared. From the picture we can see it clearly the difference of the two words. The former one is usually used to describe the agreement, including verdict, consent, vote, decision, etc. It place the emphasis on the same point of view or standpoint while the latter generally appears in political aspect, like state, country and nation, and “the United States” is the very first common collocation and the following one is “the United Kingdom”.Generally, COCA is a greatly powerful tools for us to learn English as long as we can use it in an appropriate method and foremost spend adequate time. One of the biggest difference between COCA and the other tools is it imply a conclusion in the large amount of data, some kind of obscure, which mean we have to analyze and study the results. It might be the most difficult part compared to the previous methods like dictionary, which always give a specific conclusion and detail instrumentality. Whats more, some words with more than one usage or meaning, it is much harder to summary the uncommon paraphrase when a common one occupies a majority of frequency, such as “uniform”, whose noun directions is much more than adjective one.sAs far as I am concerned, COCA appeared like a tool for who are interested in English study and willing to spend sufficient time to research. It provides us with countless examples that English is truly used, for that reason, becoming timing consuming inevitably, and we must find out question and solve the problem on our own. However, dictionary and other reference books never lose their charm to me, I like them for the reliable, specific and doubtless paraphrase or conclusion, through which I can grasp the emphasis swiftly and efficiently. Anyway, both way can improve our English skills i