Knowing the words spoken in a conversation or a talk is not always enough to understand what is going on. The spoken texts in the BNC have been annotated so that you can find information about, for example, shifts in voice quality, coughs, noises in the background, and other non-verbal clues. You can see this annotation by displaying the XML.

Displaying the XML to see non-verbal clues

1. Make a search and display the results on the screen.
2. From the drop-down list in the Format box on the navigation bar (usually defaults to Plain) you select XML. The XMLannotation is displayed together with the text. Non-verbal elements that you may come across are: events (for example noises from outside), vocal (for example coughs), and shifts (changes in voice quality, for example when someone starts mimicking an accent or starts laughing while speaking).

You can read more about the kind of non-verbal clues you can find in BNC-Baby in the Reference Guide for BNC Baby.