Inter-Varietal Applied Corpus Studies (IVACS)

Welcome to IVACS

IVACS, based at Mary Immaculate College, is a vibrant research centre and international research network, connecting corpus researchers and PhD students internationally. Often corpus linguists work in isolation within larger departments and IVACS plays a key role in fostering a community of practice in this context.

The IVACS Research Centre was formally established at Mary Immaculate College in 2002 as both a research centre and an inter-institutional research network between Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, University of Nottingham and Queen’s University Belfast. Since then, the network has extended to researchers in many other institutions.

The research centre, since 2002, has held an annual one-day symposium, in one of its network institutions, where representatives from the different network institutions present on their work. IVACS also hosts a prestigious biennial international conference.

Symposia

Every year, one of its institutions holds a one-day symposium where representatives from the different network institutions present on their work.

Conferences

IVACS hosts a biennial international conference at one of our partner institutions around the world.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 10th IVACS conference (IVACS 2020) amalgamated with the Corpus Linguistics Conference (CL 2021) conference hosted online by the University of Limerick and Mary Immaculate College. The next IVACS conference will be held in 2024, at the University of Cambridge. IVACS partnered with the University of Limerick’s CALS Centre in hosting the Teaching and Language Corpora conference (TaLC 2022) in Limerick.

Publications

Inter-institutional collaboration is core to the IVACS network and many of IVACS publications result from such synergies.

The IVACS Research Centre has a dedicated book series with Routledge, entitled Applied Corpus Linguistics. See IVACS Book Series.

Contact Us

If you are interesting in joining the IVACS network or wish to contact us, please email Anne.OKeeffe@mic.ul.ie.

Follow IVACS on Twitter for all the latest news from the IVACS network.

Titles to date in Applied Corpus Linguistics

Bakeer, S. 2023. Discourse Markers in Doctoral Supervision Sessions: A Multimodal Perspective. London: Routledge.

Forti, L. 2023. Corpus Use in Italian Language PedagogyExploring the Effects of Data-Driven Learning. London: Routledge.

Deignan, A. Candarli, D. & Oxley, F. 2022. The Linguistic Challenge of the Transition to Secondary School: A Corpus Study of Academic Language. London: Routledge.

Fitzgerald, C. 2022. Investigating a Corpus of Historical Oral Testimonies. London: Routledge.

Balfour, J. 2022. Representing Schizophrenia in the Media: A Corpus-Based Approach to UK Press Coverage. London: Routledge.

Baumgart, J. 2021. Corpus Linguistics and Cross-Disciplinary Action Research: A Study of Talk in the Mathematics Classroom. London: Routledge.

Curry, N. 2021. Academic Writing and Reader Engagement: Contrasting Questions in English, French and Spanish Corpora. London: Routledge.

Islentyeva, A. 2021. Corpus-Based Analysis of Ideological Bias: Migration in the British Press. London: Routledge.

Nicaise, N. 2021. Native and Non-Native Teacher Talk in the EFL Classroom: A Corpus-informed Study. London: Routledge.

Amador-Moreno, C. P. 2019. Orality in Written Texts: Using Historical Corpora to Investigate Irish English 1700-1900. London: Routledge.

Baker, P., Brookes, G. &  Evans, C. 2019. The Language of Patient Feedback: A Corpus Linguistic Study of Online Health Communication. London: Routledge.

Farrell. A. 2019. Corpus Perspectives on the Spoken Models used by EFL Teachers. London: Routledge.

O’Sullivan, J. 2019. Corpus Linguistics and the Analysis of Sociolinguistic Change: Language Variety and Ideology in Advertising. London: Routledge.

Thompson. P. & Hunston, S. 2019. Interdisciplinary Research Discourse: Corpus Investigations into Environment Journals. London: Routledge.

Harrington, K. 2018. The Role of Corpus Linguistics in the Ethnography of a Closed Community: Survival Communication. London: Routledge.

Jones, C., Byrne, S. & Halenko, N. 2017. Successful Spoken English: Findings from Learner Corpora. London: Routledge.

Timmis, I. 2017. Historical Spoken Language Research: Corpus Perspectives. London: Routledge.

2023

Burton, G. (2023) Grammar in ELT and ELT Materials: Evaluating its History and Current Practice. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

O'Keeffe, A. (2023) A theoretical rationale for the importance of patterning in language acquisition and the implications for data-driven learning. Nordic Journal of English Studies 22(1), 16-41.

2022

Amador-Moreno, C. P., and Terrazas-Calero, A. M. (2022). Using corpus linguistics to explore literary speech representation: non-standard language in fiction. In A. O’Keeffe & M. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics (2nd Ed.). London: Routledge, 517-531.

Clancy, B. 2022. Building a corpus to represent a variety of a language. In A. O’Keeffe and M. McCarthy (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics (2nd Ed.). London: Routledge, 62-74. 

Fitzgerald, C. 2022. Investigating a Corpus of Historical Oral Testimonies. London: Routledge.

O’Keeffe, A. and Mark, G. 2022. “Bloody hell, I’m grand": Adjective forms and use in spoken Irish and British English. In S. Lucak and C. Amador-Moreno (Eds.) Expanding the Landscapes of Irish English Research: Papers in Honour of Jeffrey Kallen. London: Routledge.

O’Keeffe, A. and McCarthy, M. 2022. "Of what is past, or passing, or to come": corpus linguistics, changes and challenges. In A. O’Keeffe and M. McCarthy (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, 2nd Edn. London: Routledge, 1–9.

O’Keeffe, A. and McCarthy, M. J. (Eds) 2022. The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. 2nd Edn. London: Routledge.

2021

Burton, G. 2021. ‘Rehabilitating the ELT conditional system’. ELT Journal 76(3). DOI: 10.1093/elt/ccab064

Burton, G. 2021. ‘Are you going to go?' Putting a pedagogical grammar rule under the corpus spotlight’. Glottodidactica 48(1). DOI: 10.14746/gl.2021.48.1.01

O’Keeffe, A. 2021. 'Data-driven learning – a call for a broader research gaze'. Language Teaching, 54(2), 259-272.

O’Keeffe, A. 2021. Data-Driven Learning, Theories of Learning and Second Language Acquisition: In search of intersections. In P. Pérez-Paredes and G. Mark (Eds.) Beyond Concordance Lines: Corpora in Language Education. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 35-55.

O’Sullivan, Joan  (2021): Exploiting pragmatic markers in radio advertising in Ireland. In C. P. Amador-Moreno and S. Lucek  (Eds.) Papers in honour of Jeffrey Kallen. London: Routledge.

Pérez-Paredes, P. and Mark, G. (Eds.) 2021. Beyond Concordance Lines: Corpora in Language Education. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.

2020

Clancy, B. 2020. Intimacy, identity and indexicality in Irish English: A corpus pragmatic approach to the study of personal pronouns. In R. Hickey and C. Amador-Moreno (Eds.), Irish Identities: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 153-172.  

Fitzgerald, C. 2020. 'Penetrating Historical Discourse's Truth Matrix: A Corpus Analysis of Oral History Testimonies'. Journal of Corpora and Discourse Studies, 3, 75-95.

O’Keeffe, A. 2020. “Data-driven learning – a call for a broader research gaze.” Language Teaching, 1-14. [online first]

O’Keeffe, A. and Mark, G. 2020. Grammar. In D. Knight and S. Adolphs (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities. London: Routledge, 143-163.

O’Keeffe, A., Clancy, B. and Adolphs, S. 2020. Introducing Pragmatics in Use (2nd Ed.). London: Routledge.  

O’Sullivan, J. 2020. Corpus Linguistics and the Analysis of Sociolinguistic Change. London: Routledge.

O’Sullivan, J. 2020. Constructing identity in radio advertising in Ireland’. In  C. P.  Amador-Moreno and R. Hickey (Eds.) Irish Identities. Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 220-251. 

Pérez-Paredes, P., Mark, G. and O’Keeffe, A. 2020. The impact of usage-based approaches on second language learning and teaching. Cambridge Education Research Reports. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Terrazas-Calero, A. M. (2020. "These kids don't even sound...Irish anymore": Representing 'new' Irishness in contemporary Irish fiction. In R. Hickey and C. P. Amador-Moreno (Eds.), Irish Identities: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 252-282.

2019

Farr, F. and O’Keeffe, A. 2019. Using corpora to analyse language. In S. Walsh and S. Mann (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of English Language Teacher Education. London: Routledge, 268-282.

McCarthy, M. and Clancy, B. 2019. From language as system to language as discourse. The Routledge Handbook of English Language Teacher Education. S. Walsh and S. Mann (Eds.), London: Routledge, 201-215. 

O’Sullivan, J. 2019. Constructing identity in radio advertising in Ireland. In C. P. Amador-Moreno and R. Hickey (Eds.)  Irish Identities. Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.

2018

Amador-Moreno, C. P. and O’Keeffe A. 2018. He's after getting up a load of wind: a corpus-based exploration of be + after + V-ing constructions in spoken and written corpora. In  D. Villanueva-Romero, C. P. Amador-Moreno and M. Sánchez García (Eds.) Voice and Discourse in the Irish Context. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 47-73.

Clancy, B. 2018. ‘Conflict in corpora: Investigating family conflict using a corpus pragmatic approach.’ Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, 6(2), 228-247.

O’Keeffe, A. 2018. Corpus-based function-to-form approaches. In A. H. Jucker, K. P. Schneider and W. Bublitz (Eds.) Methods in Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 587-618.

O’Sullivan, J. 2018. 'Advanced Dublin English in Irish radio advertising: The “initiative” role of advertising in the construction of identity'. English World-Wide 39(1), 60-84.

O’Keeffe, A. and Mark, G. 2018. The grammars of English. In P. Seargeant and A. Hewings (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of English Studies. London: Routledge, 136-149.

Rühlemann, C. and Clancy, B. 2018. Corpus linguistics and pragmatics. In: N. Norrick and C. Ilie (Eds.), Pragmatics and its Interfaces. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 241-266. 

Professor Anne O'Keeffe, MIC (Director)

Dr James Binchy, MIC

Dr Brian Clancy, MIC

Dr Christopher Fitzgerald, MIC      

Dr Joan O'Sullivan, MIC

11th IVACS Biennial International Conference, University of Cambridge

The 11th Inter-Varietal Applied Corpus Studies (IVACS) Biennial International Conference which will be hosted by the University of Cambridge, U.K., on Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th July 2024.

See Call for Papers on conference website: https://www.ivacs2024.com/

Abstract deadline 20th December, 2023.

Plenary Speakers

We are delighted that the following researchers will be giving plenary talks at the conference:

• Dr Brian Clancy
• Dr Geraldine Mark

Prof. Carolina P. Amador-Moreno, University of Bergen / University of Extremadura

Prof. Paula Buttery, University of Cambridge

Dr Graham Burton, The Free University of Bozen-Bolzan

Dr Andrew Caines, University of Cambridge

Dr Niall Curry, Coventry University

Prof. Fiona Farr, University of Limerick

Dr Dawn Knight, Cardiff University

Dr Robbie Love, Aston University

Prof. Michael McCarthy, University of Nottingham

Dr Aisling O'Boyle, Queen's University Belfast

Prof. Pascual Pérez-Paredes, University of Murcia

Dr Sandrine Peraldi, University College Dublin

Prof. Ivor Timmis, Leeds Beckett University

Dr Elaine Vaughan, University of Limerick

Prof. Steve Walsh, Newcastle University

Dr Valentin Werner, University of Bamberg

Dr Odette Vassallo, University of Malta