An application of tools for data collection and analysis in linguistics

Abstract

Technologies modify different human activities and knowledge fields, including language. Thus, some potentialities verified on digital environments for linguistic data interaction must be explored. In order to discuss how to do that, this paper describes three digital tools related to data collection and analysis: firstly, Netvizz App, on Facebook, which contributes to organize corpora by using data from this social network; secondly, Tropes software, which analyses texts from a lexical process, describing elements like text style and word frequency; thirdly, Linguakit program, which selects keyword, presents word frequency and does some sentiment analysis, among other tasks. To show how these tools work, we collect data from El País Brasilon Facebook, at the day which former president Lula has arrested. After this collection, Tropes analysis presented a higher frequency of both connectives and modal expressions, besides lexical items related to that situation. In turn, Linguakit analysis described current elements of Computer Mediated Communication (like abbreviations), besides a higher frequency of specific situation expressions, as well as a negative sentiment related to those comments.