Universidade Nova de Lisboa ‐ Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Depº de Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas Secção de Estudos Ingleses e N.Americanos Google Trends: be your own English language analyst
November 2009 FCSH/UNL Lisbon, Portugal
David Hardisty
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Why this talk?
Words are important
WORD + L (language = WORLD
We use words to discuss the world.
This can be fun and creative.
We can see how words are being used in the world.
We can use words to discover the world.... even to discover “flu”.... more in the second half.
PLUS:
A resource for teachers to see how (certain) language (to some extent) was and is being used
in specific communities. Empower yourselves.
What is Google Trends?
A web page run by Google where you can type items (1 to 5) and search for their use on the web in
the last five years e.g. Obama. Or Obama,Clinton (items separated by commas),red, green, blue,
black.
Where can you find it?
Go to www.google.com/trends
Example search : cab, taxi.
FCSH/UNL Lisbon Portugal 2009
Universidade Nova de Lisboa ‐ Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Depº de Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas Secção de Estudos Ingleses e N.Americanos Use 1 : How are the words actually (comparatively) used?
Movies, films,
Level of formality: children, kids
Summary: If you have two words which are supposed to have variant reasons, check them out!
Use 2: Word to world
Mother Mãe
Or Dia da mãe Mother’s Day
Group searches Mother, father, son, daughter Mãe, pai, filho, filha www.facebook.com, www.hi5.com
What would you like to search for?
Possible searches done by my students:
man, women- senhor, senhora - cab, taxi - football, soccer - sex, love- Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie
- Obama – Hannan Montana Miley Cyrus, camisinha, pílula - preservativo, pílula - cat, dog- mother,
father, daughter, son - mãe, pai, filho, filha - Heath Ledger - Mourinho- Ronaldo- homem, mulher
summer, winter - good morning, good evening - truth, lie - nigga (this one is worth looking at, it has a
huge change)- cerejas (this one kind of amazed me... it's really weird) - death penalty (check the
regions, USA really stands out) - Allgarve (the new word... well check it out) - dvd, blu-ray - toshiba,
asus - japan, china - obesity, anorexia Oscar, Grammy - Pepsi, Coca-cola - Adidas, Nike, Reebok Mozart, Beethoven - CD, DVD - Obama, Mccain - Judo, Karate- Desktop, Laptop - Capitalism,
Communism - Warcraft, Starcraft - Pucca, Hello Kitty Porto, Oporto Lisboa, Lisbon atheist, agnostic
bailout, rescue climate, economy (the synchronicity is amazing) bric, g8 cancer, aids (aids always peaks
on the 1st of December, cancer seems to be getting more (and more constant) airtime)
LANGUAGE + CONTENT (+ CREATIVITY IN SEARCHING)= WOR(L)DS IN ACTION
DATA + ANALYSIS = INFORMATION
Current example: Swine flu
The importance of information: AIDS epidemic declared in 1981. The Internet dates back to
1989.(Though Tim Berners-Lee had the idea in 1980). If AIDS had appeared in the era of
the Internet?
“
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www.cdc.gov/
“Your online source for credible health information”
Updated info: Outbreak of Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1) Virus Infection --- Mexico,
March--April 2009 for uptodate information on the swine fule
http://www.google.org/flutrends/ How does this work?
FCSH/UNL Lisbon Portugal 2009
Universidade Nova de Lisboa ‐ Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Depº de Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas Secção de Estudos Ingleses e N.Americanos We've found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity in the United
States. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate possible flu
activity at a state level in near real-time.
In response to inquiries from public health officials regarding the current swine flu
outbreak, we built an experimental model for Mexico. You'll see our unverified estimates
on the Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico page. We hope this may shed additional light
on possible flu activity in states in Mexico.
http://www.google.org/about/flutrends/how.html video showing 14 day gap in data
You’ve got some GALL: Google-Assisted Language Learning, George Chinnery,Language
Learning & Technology http://llt.msu.edu/vol12num1/net/. February 2008, Volume 12,
Number 1 pp. 3-11....
FCSH/UNL Lisbon Portugal 2009