Welcome to MAI-Corpora

MAI-Corpora (Move-annotated AI-empowered Interdisciplinary Corpora) is a corpus-based online learning system that helps language teachers teach, and learners learn, academic English by searching, examining and researching expert and learner academic writing. Its goal is to develop advanced learners' use of lexis, grammar, lexico-grammatical items and rhetorical moves in academic writing. The corpora can be used for research, teaching and learning.

The site hosts two parallel corpora: an Expert corpus and a Learner corpus, each covering several subjects.

Every text is tagged for part of speech (CLAWS7) and divided into sections (Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion, …), and every sentence is annotated with the rhetorical move and step it performs, using the framework for its section.

What you can do

• Word Search: concordance lines, word lists, n-grams and frequency by corpus, subject and section for a word, phrase, wildcard pattern or POS tag, with side-by-side comparison.
• Move Search: sentences that realise a chosen move or step in a section, and how often each move occurs.
• Text Analysis: upload your own writing and ask the AI assistant about its moves and language, compared with the corpora.