Software Downloads
See also CorpusLAB below.
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Tracks word/phrase distribution across sentence, paragraph and text positions. Python version in development. WordSkew.com
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ParaConc DownloadWindows bilingual concordancer. Best to avoid using for alignment.
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Collocate 2.0 DownloadWindows collocation extraction software.
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Collocate 1.0 DownloadExtracts collocations, n-grams. Uses MI, log-likelihood and t-score measures.
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MonoConc Pro DownloadWindows concordancing software.
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MonoconcEsy DownloadFree Windows concordancer for individual users.
Books
Writing the Business Research Article. Houston, Athelstan, 2026
Writing the Economics Research Article. Houston, Athelstan, 2026
Writing the Humanities Research Article. Houston, Athelstan, 2026
Writing the Social Science Research Article. Houston, Athelstan, 2026
Working with an AI Assistant. Houston, Athelstan, 2023. eBook ($4.99) · More info. Currently working on a 2nd edition.
Ten Lectures on Corpora and Cognitive Linguistics. (Distinguished Lectures in Cognitive Linguistics) 207pp. Brill, 2023
T. N. P. Le, M. M. Pham & M. Barlow. The Academic Discourse of Mechanical Engineering. (Studies in Corpus Linguistics 107) 314pp. John Benjamins, 2023
A Situated Theory of Agreement. New York, Routledge, 2014
Burdine and Barlow. Business Phrasal Verbs. Houston, Athelstan, 2008
Barlow and Burdine. American Phrasal Verbs. Houston, Athelstan, 2006
ParaConc and Parallel Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies. Houston, Athelstan, 2008
Concordancing and Corpus Analysis with MP2.2. Houston, Athelstan, 2004
Barlow and Kemmer (Eds). Usage-Based Models of Language. Stanford, CSLI, 2000
Barlow and Ferguson (Eds). Agreement in Natural Language. Stanford, CSLI, 1988
Working with Computers. Palo Alto, Athelstan, 1987
Selected Papers
Ma, Sai, Jin, Ye and Barlow, Michael. "Intra-language differences of motion event encoding – a case of advent paths in Mandarin Chinese." Folia Linguistica, 2025.
Gong H & Barlow M. A corpus-based analysis of research article macrostructure patterns. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 58:101–138, 2022.
Ma S, Jin G & Barlow M. Representational gestures correlated with meaning-associated aspects of L2 speech performance. Gesture 20(3):376–416, 2021.
Sequence and Word Frequency. Corpus Linguistic Studies, 7(2), 2020.
The Individual and the Group from a Corpus Perspective. In The Corpus Linguistics Discourse: In honour of Wolfgang Teubert. Eds: Cermakova A, Mahlberg M. 163–184. John Benjamins, 2018.
WordSkew: Linking corpus data and discourse structure. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 21(1), 104–114, 2016.
Individual Differences and Usage-based Grammar. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 18(4), 2013.
Corpus Linguistics and Theoretical Linguistics. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 16(1), 2011.
Parallel texts and corpus-based contrastive analysis. In Gómez González, Mackenzie and González Alvarez (Eds), Current Trends in Contrastive Linguistics. Benjamins, 101–121.
Barlow, M. and Bowker, L. A comparative evaluation of bilingual concordancers and translation memory systems. In Yuste Rodrigo (Ed), Topics in Language Resources for Translation and Localisation. Benjamins, 1–22, 2008.
Projects
CorpusLAB
Guides to academic writing based on corpus data and the research literature, with a focus on discipline-specific conventions. Each guide includes a concordance interface for searching different sections of research articles.
WordSkew
Software linking corpus data to text structure, tracking the distribution of words or phrases by position in sentences, paragraphs and texts. In final stages of development.
Selected Talks & Conferences
Keynotes
2024 "Trends in Corpus Linguistics." 5th Asia-Pacific Corpus Linguistics Conference. Shanghai, China.
2022 "Using corpus techniques in social media research." Malaysian Corpus Research Forum.
2020 UM Corpus Linguistics Conference. University of Malaya.
2018 3rd International EAP Conference, Taiyuan, Shanxi. · 4th Asia Pacific Corpus Linguistics Conference, Takamatsu, Kagawa.
Recent & Upcoming
2026 APCLC, Toyama, Japan.
2025 IPRA (Brisbane) · ICLC (Buenos Aires).
2024 AAAL (Houston) · AILA (Kuala Lumpur).
2024 Invited lectures: Fudan University, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai International Studies University.
I regularly travel in Asia and Europe. I am generally free from university teaching duties from July to December each year.
PhD Students
For enquiries about PhD research, contact me at the University of Auckland using my university email.
Current
Yuan Wei — Doubt and certainty: A comparative study of the use of modal adverbs in L1 and L2 written English
Lynn Liu — A corpus-based contrastive study of intertextuality in reports of health crises in China
Van Vuong Nguyen — Metaphors in Vietnamese economic discourse
Completed
Heng Gong — Cross-sectional differences in metadiscourse usage between and within disciplines
Mengdi Liu — A corpus analysis of the use of non-finite clauses in Chinese EFL learners' English
Thi Ngoc Phuong Le — The Academic Discourse of Mechanical Engineering. Completed 2020
Ye Jin — The Story of Shang. Completed 2019. North China Electric Power University, Beijing
Guangsa Jin — A Corpus-based Analysis of Moves in Academic Writing. Completed 2016. University of International Business and Economics
Sai Ma — Fictive Motion in Chinese. Completed 2016. Capital Normal University
Vaclav Brezina — Epistemic Markers in University Advisory Sessions. Completed 2012. Professor at Lancaster University
Jianxin Wang — Contrastive Connectors in English and Chinese: A Corpus-based Study. Completed 2011
About
My path (abbreviated): Sheffield — California — Texas/New Zealand.
My academic position is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland. I teach courses on Corpora and Applied Linguistics and Digital Language Learning as part of the MA in Applied Linguistics.
I am typically in New Zealand for the first half of each year (January to June). I live in Oneroa on Waiheke Island and take the ferry to and from the university. I regularly travel in Asia and Europe, and am generally free from university teaching duties from July to December.
I have been a member of the Challenge Panel associated with the ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science (CASS) at Lancaster University.
I am working with colleagues on the Asia Pacific Corpus Linguistics Association.
I am not a fan of eBooks, but the EPUB version of Writing with an AI Assistant is available here ($4.99). Don't buy it if you are taking a class from me; send me email.
At a conference in Taiyuan, Shanxi
Corpus linguistics workshop
Workshops & Short Courses
2020 Workshop: From data to language teaching materials. Malaysia, Jan 17.
2019 Corpus Linguistics Summer School, Lancaster University (1 workshop).
2018 Corpus Linguistics Summer School, Birmingham University (3 workshop sessions).
2018 Corpus Linguistics course (45 hours), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.