Linguistics Library Resources Cheat Sheet: Home

This guide suggests some basic sources for finding linguistics literature and data. Your research project is unique. Please get in touch if you'd like to tackle your literature review or brainstorm your project together!

Interlibrary Loan & Carolina BLU

Interlibrary loan and document delivery system: request anything you can't access, there is no limit to number of requests and no cost to you.

Unpaywall

Browser extension that searches for open access versions of articles you find.

Not all sources below will lead to full text content. You can request any articles via Library document delivery -- it's free to you and typically has a 48-hour turn-around.

1. Library databases (Library pays for these)

• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)

  • Indexes over 3,500 linguistics and languages studies journals. ProQuest product.

• PsychInfo

  • Not specific to linguistics, but indexes many relevant journals. EBSCO product.

• Communication and Mass Media Complete

  • Not specific to linguistics, but indexes many relevant journals. EBSCO product.

• Scopus

  • Not specific to linguistics, but indexes many relevant journals. Elsevier product.

• JSTOR

  • Repository of academic journal content.

• Articles+

  • Attempts to search across a large number of library databases. ProQuest product ("Summon").

2. Aggregators (Library pays for some of this content)

• GoogleScholar

  • Self explanatory, but link it to the Library when off campus for full-text access.

• CORE

  • Aggregator of open access research papers from institutional repositories around the world.

• Semantic Scholar

  • Open and free aggregator. Allen Institute for AI product.

• Dimensions

  • Linked data-based aggregator. Digital Science product.

• Aminer

  • Search and mining service for researcher social networks. Tsinghua University product.

3. The "Big 5" (Library pays for most of this content)

Five publishers have bought up a large portion of academic journals. One benefit is that you can search across journals on their websites.

• Elsevier

• Taylor & Francis

• Sage

• Wiley

• Springer

Wow, that's a lot of places to check! Do I really have to search each of these? Not necessarily! It depends on your project. There is considerable overlap between some of these resources. If your task is to find a couple scholarly articles, LLBA and one of the aggregators will do the trick. If you are doing a comprehensive literature review, you may want to search several or all of these as due diligence.

In contrast to the madness of finding research articles above, there are two main tools for finding books:

• Library catalog

  • Shows what's held at UNC and in the Triangle (you can request books from Duke, NC State and NC Central).

• WorldCat and/or its paid version FirstSearch

  • Shows everything held in North American libraries (and beyond): you can request books via Interlibrary Loan.

Books will also show up in some of the databases and aggregators above.

Dissertations and theses can be extremely useful for their research content, as bibliographies, or as models for structuring your own project.

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

• Open Access Theses and Dissertations

• Carolina Digital Repository

  • Masters theses and dissertations from UNC.

• CORE

  • add documentType:"thesis" to search or select "Thesis" under "Type".

• Glottolog

  • Glottolog provides a comprehensive catalogue of the world's languages, language families and dialects. The References section provides a comprehensive collection of bibliographical data for the world's lesser known languages.
  • This is where I look to see if a grammar or any kind of description of a particular language exists.

• OLAC Language Resource Catalog

  • Catalog of world's languages with details about text collections, audio recordings, dictionaries, and software, sourced from dozens of digital and traditional archives. Overlaps with, but also complements Glottolog.

• WALS (World Atlas of Language Structures Online)

  • WALS is a large database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials (such as reference grammars) by a team of 55 authors and edited by Matthew S. Dryer and Martin Haspelmath. The Library also has 2005 print version.

• The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (APiCS)

University Libraries has purchased data files for the following corpora, compiled by Mark Davies (formerly known as BYU Corpora). Each corpus also comes with a limited-functionality public interface appropriate for small-scale projects, class demos, and casual browsing. The files come in three formats: database, word/lemma/Pos, and linear text. Onyen authentication is required for download.

• Corpus del Español

  • Public interface and information about Corpus del Español
  • Corpus del Español files download

• Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)

  • Public interface and information about COCA
  • COCA files download (560 million words, 1990-2017)

• Corpus of Historical American English (COHA)

  • Public interface and information about COHA
  • COHA files download (400 million words, 1810-2009)

• The Movie Corpus

  • Public interface and information about the Movie Corpus
  • Movie Corpus files download

• News on the Web Corpus (NOW)

  • Public interface and information about the NOW corpus
  • NOW files download

• Corpus of American Soap Operas (SOAP Corpus)

  • Public interface and information about the SOAP Corpus
  • SOAP files download

• TV Corpus

  • Public interface and information about the TV Corpus
  • TV Corpus files download

• Wikipedia Corpus

  • Public interface and information about the Wikipedia Corpus
  • Wikipedia Corpus files download

• Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE)

  • Public interface and information about GloWbE
  • GloWbE files download

• iWeb Corpus

  • Public interface and information about iWeb
  • iWeb files download

A note on the Linguistics Data Consortium

In 2017-2018, University Libraries attempted to get campus-wide access to the Linguistics Data Consortium catalog. However, the year-long license negotiations have failed, so unfortunately, we will not be able to provide you access to this data. If you need LDC datasets, please contact your department. Departments may be able to procure specific datasets for limited use, since they do not need to provide access for the entire campus the way the Library does.

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