The Corpus

This chapter introduces the corpus—CLILex—and the main variables that underlie its compilation. It begins with a quantitative description of the corpus in terms of types, tokens, disciplines and number of materials. Following this first section, a detailed account of the compilation procedure is provided. It starts with an examination of the usual criteria intervening in good corpus building—i.e., representativeness, authenticity and balance—to move then to the decisions taken in terms of transcription, mark-up and tokenisation. Next, the key variables that distinguish the corpus from other corpora are defined, with particular attention to the topics and textual units identified in CLILex. Lastly, an explanation of the corpus analytical methods employed is provided, offering a comprehensive understanding of the tools and counting units employed in the analysis.