This corpus (or collection of texts) contains nearly every talk given in General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) from the 1850s to the current time, and it allows you to search these talks in ways that are not possible with any other resource.
The
following are just a few sample searches, but they should give you an idea of
what you can do with the corpus. Links to video tutorials below
are indicated by
. (Note that the videos
use an earlier form of the interface, but the searches are still very similar).
COMPARE BY TIME PERIOD (ALL SPEAKERS)
FREQUENCY OF A WORD OR PHRASE OVER TIME
(increase) family, eternal marriage, she, grace, atonement (decrease) apostate, gods, tobacco, calling and election, Zion; ("spike") United Order, plural marriage, tithing, liquor, correlat* (new phrase) non-member* >> members of other faiths
WHAT WORDS ARE USED WITH OTHER WORDS? (WORD MEANING AND USAGE)
(nearby words)
marriage,
gospel,
missionary,
eternal,
prayer,
consecrat*,
Adam,
holy,
leader,
atonement
(words in context)
faith,
doubt,
testimony,
spirit,
covenant
SEARCHING BY SPEAKER (
Creating lists)
WHICH SPEAKERS USE A WORD OR PHRASE THE MOST?
(all speakers)
communism,
gods,
women,
apostate*,
intellectuals,
tender mercies,
ponder,
Kolob,
Word of Wisdom
(Presidents of Church)
communism,
women,
Book of Mormon,
Word of Wisdom,
eternal life of man
(Current)
communism,
women,
Book of Mormon,
Word of Wisdom,
eternal life of man
SEARCH FOR WORD/PHRASE IN TALKS BY CERTAIN SPEAKER(S)
Directly: Joseph F. Smith: tith*, Ezra Taft Benson: commun*, Dallin H Oaks: gender, Neal A Maxwell: *al NOUN, or Brigham Young: the gods.
Create Virtual Corpus first: Benson: communis*, Hinckley: marvelous, Maxwell: meek*, HJGrant: liquor|tobacco, BYoung: Adam, Women: sweet
WHAT WORDS CHARACTERTIZE THE SPEECH OF CERTAIN SPEAKERS? (e.g. nouns,
adjectives)
Monson (n), Uchtdorf (n), Hinckley (j), Benson (n), BYoung (j), Maxwell (j), RGScott (n), Women (n)