I am going to explain how does a corpus search engine work. For the example I am going to use the Contemporary American English Corpus.
1.- We get to the corpus’ webpage .
2.- After that, you register or log in otherwise the webpage won’t let you search anything.
3.- We make a search of a word it could be anything. In this case I am going to take the word analyze (American). You type the word in the search engine and press SEARCH. The word you have searched for will appear in the chart next to the search box.
4.- If you click on the word you searched you will be given numerous real examples of the word used in different contexts. The answers will be displayed beyond the chart.
5.- If you want to compare two words, for example: analyze and analyse. You go to ‘DISPLAY’ and press ‘COMPARE WORDS’ instead of ‘LIST’. The search engine will be a bit modified with two places to search words. You put the words you want to search in those spaces and press ‘SEARCH’ you will be showed another chart with the two words an their examples.
