Creating a corpus is not only an interesting task, but also a difficult one. When trying to plan out the construction of the corpus, a crucial aspect is that it has relevance and can answer a bigger question and deepen one’s knowledge. Without density and a well selected corpus, it would basically be useless. Moreover, when I chose to compare Hillary Clinton and Barack Obamas political speeches I was able to highlight the difference in female and male speeches for political figures. In doing this there are clear similarities and differences.
Amongst these commonalities and contrasting traits I was able to notice some very interesting things. For example, one of the first things I looked at when using Voyant was that Women was one of the most frequently used words. On the other hand, men was the 52nd most frequently used word. When looking into this notion further I realized that Hillary Clinton used it much more than Obama. I also went onto conclude that because the word women was used to so much, it is seemingly clear that women are still trying to prove there equality to men, and this is still an obstacle that women face in this day and age.
While exploring my corpus, and using different tools to probe the notion of the use of men and women, each tool helped me to see things differently. For example, as shown below, Voyant helped to illuminate the frequencies. But then when using Antconc, I was able to see the context with the use of both these words. With this I was able to tell that every single time Obama used the word women it was always in the context of “men and women.” This is interesting because he uses the phrase men and women to address the people of America, but never refers to just women. He also always says men and women instead of women and men, which also shows that he instinctually puts men before women. Additionally, I went on to look at Hillary’s use of the word women. Hillary never once uses it paired with the word men and uses it to address problems women face within society. Noticing this I went on and discovered that when Hillary is talking about the people of America she tends to identify them as “people, citizen, or Americans” rather than saying “men and women like Obama.” This highlights the fact that Obama sees men and women as more of a separate group, whereas Hillary clearly sees all citizens as a united front, regardless of their gender.
(Voyant)
(Antconc)
Evidently, each platform was able to present my corpus to me in a different light. Voyant is definitely more colorful, and easier on the eyes. It clearly showed me which words were used more frequent, and what main concepts were in my corpus as a whole. Antconc also did this but, in a sort of less user friendly way lacking color, and presented itself more factual. Although, antconc allowed me to see the context of the words better, and allowed me to find more information. But, both of these platforms in the end were able to help me gain a greater insight. They both showed different things and when collaborated together only allowed me to even further and deepen my knowledge.