John McHardy Sinclair
Encyclopedia
John McHardy Sinclair Professor of Modern English Language at Birmingham University, 1965 – 2000. He pioneered work in corpus linguistics
, discourse analysis
, lexicography
, and language teaching.
John Sinclair was a first-generation modern corpus linguist and the founder of the COBUILD
project. This project's aim was to build corpus-driven lexicons for foreign learners of English. He became chief adviser of Collins' Cobuild English Language Dictionary, whose first edition was published in 1987.
He was well-known for having unconventional ideas which helped to advance the young field of corpus linguistics. At his valedictory lecture in 2000 he stated that none of his many published articles passed successfully through peer review, and that even an article he had been invited to write for a journal was peer reviewed by mistake and rejected.
Notable works include Towards the Analysis of Discourse, which he published together with Malcolm Coulthard in 1975, Corpus, Concordance, Collocation, (Oxford University Press, 1991), Reading Concordances, 2003, Trust the Text, 2004, and Linear Unit Grammar, 2006.
After early retirement from his post as Professor of Modern English Language at Birmingham, Sinclair founded the Tuscan Word Centre with his second wife Elena Tognini-Bonelli. This institution provides training courses in corpus linguistics.
His sister is lexicographer B. T. S. Atkins
.
Corpus linguistics
Corpus linguistics is the study of language as expressed in samples or "real world" text. This method represents a digestive approach to deriving a set of abstract rules by which a natural language is governed or else relates to another language. Originally done by hand, corpora are now largely...
, discourse analysis
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis , or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken, signed language use or any significant semiotic event....
, lexicography
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
, and language teaching.
John Sinclair was a first-generation modern corpus linguist and the founder of the COBUILD
COBUILD
COBUILD, an acronym for Collins Birmingham University International Language Database, is a British research facility set up at the University of Birmingham in 1980 and funded by Collins publishers.The facility was led by Professor John Sinclair...
project. This project's aim was to build corpus-driven lexicons for foreign learners of English. He became chief adviser of Collins' Cobuild English Language Dictionary, whose first edition was published in 1987.
He was well-known for having unconventional ideas which helped to advance the young field of corpus linguistics. At his valedictory lecture in 2000 he stated that none of his many published articles passed successfully through peer review, and that even an article he had been invited to write for a journal was peer reviewed by mistake and rejected.
Notable works include Towards the Analysis of Discourse, which he published together with Malcolm Coulthard in 1975, Corpus, Concordance, Collocation, (Oxford University Press, 1991), Reading Concordances, 2003, Trust the Text, 2004, and Linear Unit Grammar, 2006.
After early retirement from his post as Professor of Modern English Language at Birmingham, Sinclair founded the Tuscan Word Centre with his second wife Elena Tognini-Bonelli. This institution provides training courses in corpus linguistics.
His sister is lexicographer B. T. S. Atkins
B. T. S. Atkins
Beryl T. Atkins has been a professional lexicographer since 1966, first with Collins Publishers , where she was General Editor of the first 'modern' English-French dictionary, the Collins-Robert English-French Dictionary, then as Lexicographic Adviser to Oxford University Press, where she...
.