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Introducing Xaira - suggested ways to explore the tool

Xaira is a powerful tool which can be used to explore XML corpora, such as the BNC XML Edition, in various ways. This document lists in simple form some suggestions of what you can do to familiarize yourself with the tool. You will find more detailed instructions with screen-shots on the Using the BNC XML Edition with Xaira page. Introducing XAIRA briefly offers instructions and comments. Full details about Xaira are available in the Xaira reference manual (which you can read online or access in Xaira by pressing F1 on your keyboard).

Getting started

Before you can start exploring the BNC XML with Xaira you need to install the software and the corpus. Information about this process is provided on the Installation page.

Xaira offers many different ways to search your corpus. For information about how to use the options, please visit the Using the BNC XML Edition with Xaira page.

For the current exercise, we will use the simple Quick Search box. Use the search box on the Xaira toolbar to search for rabbit. Download the first 100 instances.

Display and explore solutions

  1. Toggle between Page mode and Line mode (Use the Page/line mode button
    )
  2. Display more context. (Use Scope list
    and change to 2)
  3. Display the XML (Use the Format list
    , select XML) .
  4. Display ‘fancy1’ (Use the Format list , select fancy-1). Make sure the ‘Flybys’ button is activated. Move mouse cursor over concordance line and see what the flybys display.
  5. Check the source of the text (Use the bibliographic data button ).
  6. Browse text (Use the bibliographic data button , click ‘Browse’).
  7. Sort the lines on the word immediately following the search word (Use Sort button . Choose Key: 1, Sort Key: Right, Span 1. Tick ‘Use text’, Collating: Primary).
  8. Display distribution across corpus (Use Analysis button. Try different options)

Collocation

The collocation feature allows you to see what co-occurs with a particular search term.

  1. Use the Collocation button to retrieve the collocations of your search word. Tick the ‘Controls’ box (bottom of collocation window).
  2. Select the ‘Window’ tab and set the span to Left 3 Right 3. Click ‘calculate’. Explore the result.
  3. Click the colligation tab, tick ‘colligation’ and select POS. Explore result.

More search options

Xaira offers a wide range of search options. You can make the same search in different ways. You can also combine different kinds of searches.

Restrict search to part of corpus
Use the Activate options below the search box and choose from the drop-down options.
Include part-of-speech and/or lemma information for search term
Use the Word query option (tick boxes ‘Controls’ and ‘Unique forms’ at bottom of window) . Type ‘round’ in the search box and click ‘Lookup’. Click on the word ‘round’ in the result list and see what is displayed in the bottom window (= different word-class tags available with ‘round’). Look for lemma information: Select the ‘Lemmata’ tab (in right-hand part of window). Choose ‘BNC’ from the drop-down menu. What happens in the left-hand part of the window? Click on a word in the top window and explore the result in the bottom one.
Search by word-class information
Use the Addkey option. Tick the ‘Any’ box and select c5 from the bottom right corner. Click ‘Refresh’ to display all tags. Select the one(s) you want to search for and click OK (select more than one by pressing the CTRL-key on your keyboard while you click).
Combine search options
Use the Query Builder to find all sentences with an instance of ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ with a verb between them.

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