Using WebCorp in the classroom for building specialized dictionaries

In this paper, we present an experiment that was carried out to use finite corpora and WebCorp in the classroom with a pedagogical objective that was different from language teaching. The use of WebCorp and corpora was embedded within the wider framework of teaching students how to approach machine translation by building a customised dictionary with the aid of available tools and resources. The issue of exploiting finite corpora and the Web as a corpus was raised in this framework and will be discussed here. Although there is no simple and definite answer, the experiment led students to investigate the Web as a source of information and tobetter understand the issues involved in corpus building and corpus use.