Traductrotter is back for the new year,
We take this opportunity to wish a happy new year 2009 to our readers.
I wish to greet the lecturers of the University of Buea in Cameroon especially the Advanced School of Translators and Interpreters (ASTI), Mr. Charles Tiayon, Mr. ElGuedimi from AIIC, Mr. Atogho from AU and APTIC, my colleagues, the distinguished Professors Chia of the University of Buea in Cameroon, and of cause, Lawrence Anthony of Waseda, Japan.
To complete your knowledge of Antconc, here is an exclusive interview of its founder:Prof Anthony.
Prof Anthony thanks you very much for your availability to answer to our questions concerning the concordancer ANTCONC.
Thanks Sir to give the opportunity to Traductrotter to ask you some questions about your profession.
Question 1: Who are you? (Present yourself to our readers)
Answer: I am Associate Professor at Waseda University, Faculty of Science and Engineering. I also serve as Director of the Center for English Language Education in Science and Engineering (CELESE). This Center serves all undergraduate and graduate students in the Faculty, and runs one of the biggest programs in English for Specific Purposes in Japan, and possible the world.
Question 2: What is Antconc?
Answer: AntConc is a freeware, multi-platform, multi-language text analysis toolkit for work in corpus linguistics and translation. It offers most of the functions of commercial corpus toolkits, such as WordSmith Tools and MonoConc Pro, and has an easy-to-use, intuitive graphical user interface. It can process texts in almost any language using advanced Unicode support features.
Question 3: Why is Antconc a freeware? Is it a beta version of a more complex project?
Answer: For a corpus tool to be effective is needs to be available to researchers, teachers, and learners. Researchers usually have budgets to buy specialized software, but this is not the case with many teachers and especially learners. Therefore, AntConc was developed as a freeware program, allowing anybody to experiment with the tools of corpus linguistics.
Question 4: As a linguistics scholar, how can Antconc contribute to improve the work of other linguists or terminologists?
Question 5: Why is it not possible to integrate AntConc as an add-In in MSWord 2007?
Answer: AntConc is designed around a corpus of texts, and many of its features only make sense when exposed to multiple texts from the target area. MSWord is really designed for processing a single text. As a result, even though some features of AntConc could be integrated into MSWord, e.g. the Word List tool, it makes sense to keep these tools separate. However, it will be possible to import MSWord files directly into AntConc in the next major update of the program.
Question 6: Do you take into considerations the numerous feedbacks you receive about Antconc and do they help you in correcting its shortcomings?
Answer: Always. All new features have been the direct result of user feedback. Also, users have often been the first to spot bugs and problems, and so their feedback is essential for producing a stable software program. I usually get around 30 to 50 comments from users each month. Reading about where and how AntConc has been used around the world has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of developing the program.
Thanks you for the opportunity you gave Traductrotter to do you interview. We wish you all the best for your up coming projects.
((You are welcome!))
Serge Mboule
For Traductrotter.
