Teilkorpora

Teilkorpora, a German term translating to "partial corpora" or "sub-corpora," refers to specific subsets of a larger corpus. These subsets are created by applying particular selection criteria to the main corpus, allowing researchers to focus on distinct linguistic features, historical periods, genres, or other predefined characteristics. For instance, a teilkorpus might isolate all texts written by female authors from a specific decade, or it could comprise only parliamentary debates on a particular topic.

The utility of teilkorpora lies in their ability to facilitate more targeted and nuanced linguistic analysis. By isolating relevant data, researchers can avoid the dilution of specific patterns or the overrepresentation of more common linguistic phenomena present in a broader corpus. This focused approach enables the identification and study of subtle variations, diachronic changes, or genre-specific usages that might otherwise be obscured.

Creating teilkorpora typically involves employing a range of metadata associated with the source texts, such as author information, publication dates, genre classifications, or thematic tags. Sophisticated corpus query systems often provide tools for the efficient extraction of these subsets, making it a practical method for many corpus linguistics projects. The concept emphasizes the flexible and analytical nature of corpus data, acknowledging that a single large collection can be viewed and studied from numerous specialized perspectives through the creation of these targeted teilkorpora.