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WordSmith Tools Manual

 

Concord allows you to see the nearest tag, if you have specified a tag file, which teaches WordSmith Tools what your preferred tags are. Then, with a concordance on screen, you'll see the tag in one of the columns of the concordance window.

 

The point of it…

The advantage is that you can see how your concordance search-word relates to marked-up text. For example, if you've tagged all the speech by Robert as [Rob] and Mary as [Mary], you can quickly see in any concordance involving conversation between Mary, Robert and others, which ones came from each of them.

Alternatively, you might mark up your text as <Introduction>, <Body> and <Conclusion>: Nearest Tag will show each line like this:

1 ... could not give me the time ...   <Introduction>

2 ... Rosemary, give me another ...            <Body>

3 ... wanted to give her the help ...          <Body>

4 ... would not give much for that ...   <Conclusion>

 

To mark up text like this, make up a tag file with your sections and label them as sections, as in these examples:

<ABSTRACT> /description "section"

</ABSTRACT>

<INTRODUCTION> /description "section"

</INTRODUCTION>

<SECTION 1> /description "section"

</SECTION 1>

 

or, if you want to identify the speech of all characters in a play, and have a list of the characters, and they are marked up appropriately in the text file, something like this:

<Romeo> /description "section"

</Romeo>

<Mercutio> /description "section"

</Mercutio>

<Benvolio> /description "section"

</Benvolio>

In cases using "section", Nearest Tag will find the section, however remote in the text file it may be. Without the keyword "section", Nearest Tag shows only the current context within the span of text saved with each concordance line.

 

You can sort on the nearest tags. In the shot below, a concordance of nouns has been computed using BNC XML text.

 

nearest_tag_coloured

 

 

and here is a view showing the same data, with View | Hide Tags selected.

 

nearest_tag_coloured_hide_tags

 

coloured_tag selecting  

You can check or uncheck the colours in the list:

 

coloured_tag some_selected

Here only adjectives adverbs and verbs have been chosen to be coloured.

 

 

See also: Guide to handling the BNC, Overview of Tags, Handling Tags, Making a Tag File, Types of Tag, Viewing the Tags, Using Tags as Text Selectors