Explore a Text in a Foreign Language
This recipe examines a text in a language in which you are not fluent and demonstrates a strategic approach to comprehension using text analysis tools.
Ingredients
- An electronic text in a language foreign to you to explore and attempt to comprehend;
- A Concordance tool such as the TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool
- A List Words tool such as the TAPoR List Words Tool
This recipe needs a good exercise to demonstrate how to Explore a Text in a Foreign Language?Steps
- Take an electronic text in a language which you are not fluent;
- Generate a word list (sorted by frequency) using the TAPoR List Words Tool;
- Consider the contexts of the particular words that appear in the resulting list using TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool;
Discussion
In this recipe we will demonstrate a very rudimentary, logical way in which you could explore comprehending a foreign language text by examining the context of word that you do not recognize. Lacking a dictionary, but by noting re-occurrence and adjacency, a limited comprehension of a text can be attempted.Glossary
- Stop List
- A Stop list is a series of words that you may choose to exclude from a particular operation because you deem them to be irrelevant or obstructive to your analysis task. If you are searching for descriptive terms for example, you may choose to exclude function words normally occuring as part of everyday speech. Your interest may lie only in extraordinary words.
Further approaches
Next Steps/Further Information
- List of All Recipes
-
Exercise to Explore a Text in a Foreign Language?
- Help with Particular Tools
- Background on Text Analysis
- Information about the TAPoR Concordance Tool
- Information about the TAPoR Co-occurrence Tool