Context Styles

Context Styles

Context Styles are chosen before you make a concordance. Several styles are available for the contexts which accompany each headword in a concordance. They can be set using the Context Styles dialog on the Text Menu.

Don't confuse context styles with context views, the left-aligned and centred views in the right-hand pane which can be altered as you look at the concordance.

Available Styles

The simplest style of context is the actual line in which the word occurs - that is, the physical line from the source text which contains a particular word. This context style is particularly suited to lists, to verse, and to any text where each line contains a logically or syntactically complete unit.

Contexts of selected length are more versatile. You can choose separately the kind of context which comes before the occurrence of the headword and that which follows it. In either case these can be contexts delimited by sense-unit or contexts delimited by number of words.

If you choose contexts which run from the start or to the end of a sense-unit, you can define the punctuation which the program will use in recognising those sense-units.

If you choose contexts which run for a number of words before or after the headword, you can choose the number of words in each case.

The maximum length for contexts of selected length is 100 words before and after the headword.

Bear in mind that choosing large contexts for each word will have a very big impact on the size of the finished concordance. A concordance with five words of context before and after the headword will be more than ten times the size of the original text. This is intrinsic to the nature of concordances: just look at a printed concordance - they are big books. One with twenty-five words of context before and after the headword will be more than fifty times the size of the original! A ludicrous extreme occurs if you have all your text on one line (never recommended) and you then choose Actual Line as the context for each word: in this case every word in the text has effectively a copy of the entire text as its context. If such a text had 10,000 words, the concordance to it would contain 100,000,000 words!

Tips:

Speed:

Concordances are made faster if you choose contexts which are the actual line, not a selected number of words, provided the lines in your text are fairly short, like a book.

Size:

If your concordance results in a huge concordance file, you need to limit the length of contexts. The best way to do this depends on whether your text has short lines (say, up to a dozen words per line, like a book) or longer ones. If your text has short lines, choosing Actual Line for your context will be enough to ensure things don't get too big (this is also best for speed). If your text has long lines, choose Selected Length for your contexts and limit the length to a few words before and after the headword.

See also:
Saving and restoring settings
Preparing text

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