Computing collocations

Abstract

In this chapter we will develop a computer program to calculate collocations for us. This could be done in any programming language, and here we have chosen awk as it is easy to understand and has a clear syntax. One particular benefit is the lack of ‘overheads’ that are needed in more complex languages such as Java or C++. In awk you do not need to set up any classes or methods in the same way, and processing data is much more modular. Obviously, there are many ways to express a certain functionality in a computer program, and we make no claims that there are no better ways of doing so than the one presented here; it might also not be the most efficient way to do so. However, speed is only a secondary concern: clarity and ease of understanding are more important. We will also try to keep the code simple and easy to understand for beginners.